The complete lighting control was via MA Lighting's grandMA system - four grandMA full-size and a grandMA light, plus backup and 22 NSPs (network signal processors). A fibre-optic network with four HP switches was installed to maximise the stability of the lighting control technology network, say MA Lighting.
The complex control network was realized by two years of cooperation between mo² Design GmbH - the company of lighting designer Manfred "Ollie" Olma - and MA Lighting. This started with the variety production Blue Balance in Oberhaussen, followed by the SAT1 TV-production Urmel aus dem Eis and the Stage Entertainment musical night Best of Musical. These shows illustrated the benefits of a real reprogramming studio to the team of designers.
Six weeks before the show, Olma invited the whole team to the preprogramming in Cologne: Manuel da Costa (moving lights), Marcus Bossdorf (LEDs) and Philipp Herbst (video), with support from Marcus Krömer and René Berhorst of MA Lighting. For the preprogramming they used another eight grandMA 3D systems for the real-time visualization in addition to the consoles and NSPs.
The complete show was divided into four different sessions. For each session one grandMA full-size with backup was used. The Greenroom was controlled by a grandMA light with backup. "The MA system offered us possibilities that we loved," says Olma. "We really appreciated the close cooperation we've had with MA over the last two years. Since the beginning of the preprogramming in Cologne everything was to our full satisfaction. We had the chance to program and present in Real time. The preprogramming phase and the time in Athens was accompanied by a few bugfixes and requests that were - even in this critical phase - taken up and implemented immediately by MA Lighting. A bugfix that was found in the morning was already removed around midday and we could continue our work with the latest software."
On 1 May the whole team, materials and the mobile preprogramming studio moved to Athens, were Oliver Heidingsfelder (programmer for 'white light') and Pia Virolainen (assistant lighting designer) joined the team as well. On the evening of 2 May the complete control network was re-built and ready to play: due to the preprogramming in Cologne, only the correction of single presets had to be made. As the build-up of the stage considerably delayed, the complete LED programmings had to be made via grandMA 3D. The production team were full of praise for the grandMA 3D - the stability, flexibility and direct access possibilities of which were important in creating the looks for 37 individual songs and artists in a very short time, say MA Lighting.
(Lee Baldock)
