At the 'first oil' event, hosted by the Government of Azerbaijan and the pipeline's major shareholder BP, production manager and lighting director Steve Nolan actually worked on four events: one at the oil terminal at Sangachal 40km south of the Azerbaijan capital Baku and three in the city centre at the presidential Gulistan Palace. Neos Creative sent 12 40ft truckloads of equipment to the event, which included two full of lighting equipment from PRG Europe's facility in Greenford, west London.
At Sangachal Terminal on the shores of the Caspian Sea, the first oil event was marked with a ceremonial valve turn which set the oil pumping on its 1,110 mile journey through the pipeline. The oil is expected to arrive at Ceyhan at the end of the year.
The event at the Gulistan palace - a banquet for 500 people, including the presidents of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Kazakhstan as well as a host of other foreign dignitaries which included HRH Duke of York representing the UK and various ambassadors - was followed the next day by a more informal event for BP staff. A third day, added at the last minute for local dignitaries, coincided with celebrations to mark Azerbaijan's independence day.
"In the city itself, the three events were at the palace where the president makes most of his speeches and announcements," said Steve. "It's not a very old venue, dating only from the late 80s, but it is grey and Soviet. In an attempt to revamp the interior as much as possible, we put up a 55m by 25m 14-leg ground support system, clad with over 150m of star cloth, with an 18m x 12m stage at one end. We were unable to cover the ceiling, as this would have blocked the air conditioning, so instead we hung and lit half metre deep banners."
In the adjacent reception area, straddling the stairs, was a giant model of an oil platform, lit by 12 VL6Cs, 10 VL5 arcs, 20 ETC Source Four Pars and Altman batons, connected to an Art 2000 dimmer rack and controlled by a Mini Artisan.
"There was such a large volume of equipment," said PRG Europe project manager James Barnfather, "that in addition to the two trucks, we also sent two air freight shipments. Although the lighting was able to run off local power, we supplied all mains distribution. A back-up generator was also installed just in case - which was almost used, when power dropped at one point to almost 200v."
"The palace was lit by 170 fresnels," continued Steve, "with 18 VL5s, 18 VL6Cs and 32 Pixel Lines, on 123 sections of S2 truss and 48 sections of mini beam, controlled by a Wholehog II. "Because of the value of the shipments we had to arrange for security guards to travel with us in the trucks through the former Soviet countries. Legally, anything valued at more than £100,000 needs a guard, and the equipment in one truck was worth something like £400,000. PRG Europe worked really hard to make sure that everything was in the trucks before they left, as we couldn't afford to get there and find anything missing. We had some problems working in the heat, but the locals were exceptionally helpful, even though they had never seen anything like this before!
(Lee Baldock)
