Brief
To consult on the opening and closing Ceremonies for Abu Dhabi and to oversee systems design and delivery with the chosen AV contractor for the live experience agency People. The venue being custom built within the Du Arena, Abu Dhabi and the opening Ceremony to consist of a central screen 21mx 12m, two side screens of 14m x 8m, a 4.5m globe for projection and floor projection to a section of the performance space. Camera feeds are required for both events together with a results feed to the side screens for the closing ceremony. All screens require independent playback capability and the system had to be capable of following timecode.
Solution
Using Disguise designer allowed luminance planning across the different projection surfaces together with the ability to plot available heights for aerial artistes, potential shadowing and so forth. The system to deliver the show was based around 4×4 and 2×4 Pro servers driving 30 projectors of differing lumens to deliver content to the required surfaces. One particular challenge which had to be overcome was the fact that the 4.5m globe was to be assembled and finished on site which removed the opportunity to model it before hand. To solve this a specific model and map was created with the real world positions of the vertices calculated and the globe was marked up with these key positions to get a rapid ‘close fit’ which could then be finessed.
Experience
The use of the Disguise range allowed for greater planning, at earlier stages, with clients and technical departments. The solution allowed the process of content production and technical layout to happen independently without either one delaying the other. This meant that scenarios could be planned out well in advance and many potential on site problems eliminated before the build. The event was attended by over 8,000 people and streamed live worldwide.