Fortunately, the Gulf Cup followed hot on the heels of the Asian Games, whichhad just taken place in Qatar, meaning that a great deal of the expertise, technicalequipment and skilled personnel were already in the region and available oncethat project was concluded.
Jim Tinsley, technical director for Stage One, says: "The success of this ceremony isdown to sheer hard work. It was pulled off in an incredibly short time scale - onewe wouldn't want to make a habit of! It does demonstratehowever, that we can provide a service that goes that step further to achieveamazing results."
The performance featured 1200 live performers, 55 horses and an internationalproduction team of over 400, working with around 1700 local crew over the buildperiod. Containing several technical "world firsts", the show includedseamless, fully spherical HD projections.
Stage One were commissioned to supply all the aerial engineering andautomation for the show, requiring the use of their advanced Next-Q operatingsystem and Q-Pos Mk4 positional controller. They strung a series of catenarywires to eight 70m high towers, built outside the stadium walls, along with a 20mdiameter circular lighting truss, which hung over the centre of the pitch. Thebottom rail of the truss was trimmed at 36m, the minimum FIFA requirement fora football match to continue below.
Stage One installed 17 axes of aerial automation to fly eight aerial performers,plus a 30kw electric winch to raise and lower the central inflatable sphere,positioned at the base of one of the towers. This hung below the circular truss andserved as the main video projection surface.
The hub of the Stage One flying system weighed 3.5 tonnes and was suspendedusing 2800 metres of 22mm steel wire rope. A further 1800 metres of 18 mmwire rope was used for the performer trolleys. Inside the stadium, the centre trusswas held in place by 22mm steel wire rope catenaries. It was suspended by fourpairs of wires all running back to the towers at no less than 10 degrees fromhorizontal.
Production director, Jo Marshall, says: "I do notbelieve that this event could have been produced to this standard without theinput of every single person on site. Thank you for a truly amazing job."
(Chris Henry)
