The performance featured 1200 live performers, 55 horses and an international production team of over 400, working with around 1700 local crew over the build period. The show was enjoyed live by 55,000 excited spectators and a TV audience of 50 million who tuned in to Dubai Sports.
The building of the complex technical infrastructure was co-ordinated by production director Jo Marshall, working with his key HQ team including project manager Jo MacKay, production co-ordinators Ian Greenway, Candice Dalziel, Nadine Manning and site manager Nigel Beaton. They had just 43 days from receiving the green light from The Committee to producing a world-class ceremony show. The show contained several technical world firsts including the first seamless, fully spherical HD projections and the highest built version to date of ESS's renowned tower system.
HQ enlisted the services of Sydney-based veteran ceremonies producer Andrew Walsh as artistic consultant. Walsh's previous experience includes executive producing the Athens Olympics opening and closing ceremonies in 2004. A creative workshop followed between Veira, Marshall and Walsh, together with PIGI projection designer Peter Milne and technical director Nick Eltis who were both brought onboard by Walsh. A front line production management team was also brought onboard. Chris Hey (covering rigging and staging), Philip Lewis (lighting, PIGI projection, video) and Ian Baldwin (audio, comms, pyro and lasers), all of whom were overseen by Nick Eltis.
Leading international production companies included Procon (lighting), Neumann & Mueller (high definition 360 degree video projection) and Tarm (lasers) from Germany, Norwest (audio) and the Electric Canvass (PIGI projection) from Australia, Groupe F (pyro) from France and Stage One (rigging and performer flying) and ESS (towers, steel and rigging) from the UK. The Inflatable Event Company designed and supplied the 'solar' system, 'flagballs' and the main projection sphere, and the aerialists came from Showtech Rigging, both companies also based in Australia.
The production was greatly aided by the close proximity (in both space and time) of the Doha Asian Games in December, which meant plenty of technical and production personnel were available once that project was concluded, and there was also a slew of equipment and other resources in Doha. Once aerialists were written into the script, an overhead flying system was needed as well as some sort of lighting positions over the field. The solution they found was to build eight 70m high towers, all at 45 degrees from one another, constructed from standard ESS tower truss located around the outside the stadium walls.
This allowed Stage One to attach one of their Q-Motion performer flying systems and rig a series of catenary wires to hang a 20m diameter circular truss right over the centre of the pitch. The bottom rail of the truss was trimmed at 36m, the minimum FIFA requirement for a football match to continue below. Just one additional small logistical conundrum on actual opening night was that the tournament's opening match - Oman v UAE - had to commence within 30 minutes of the show ending!
70m is the highest that ESS has ever built their tower system, so first came some special calculations to ensure it was feasible. After an initial site visit explains Jeff Burke, they then dispatched a surveyor to Abu Dhabi to double check the accuracy of the stadium plans they'd been given. This prompted the discovery of a whole underground infrastructure of drainage, electricity, gas, water and other services, which severely limited in
