A first event for Lewis Cubitt Square, the new civic space behind King's Cross station, production company Produce called on Star to design and deliver the structure, enveloping a 360° screen, to broadcast live coverage from 45 Euro 2016 matches. Forty five thousand tickets were available free via Ticketmaster over the course of the tournament.
The Orbit Flexidome's modular design brought the best out of the small site, its roof comfortably accommodating over 500m2 of projector screens, lighting and sound. In a major first, Star treated the whole building with a new acoustic barrier system, lowering the external volume by around 30dB, an integral element in securing licensing approval for a six-week event in an urban area.
"It was a technically challenging job, with many layers of complexity," Gav Scott, Star Events' Project manager, says. "Not only was the screen required to run right around the room, with multiple compound angles to enable all the sections to be angled down at the audience, it had to be sized perfectly to fit within the Orbit canopy. That required an intricate design process and some extremely accurate rigging. But, just like Portugal, we got a fantastic result."
Star Events' major re-engineering of the Orbit Flexidome eliminates loose sheeting, essential for the printed graphics at Football Heaven, and makes the structures easier still, and safer, to construct. Given the huge success of the new technology, the company is rolling the changes out across its Orbit stage range, from 14m to 22m main roof widths, ready for season 2017.
(Jim Evans)
