Among the stars helping to raise money for the cause were Alan Bates, Terence Stamp, Nicholas Grace, Dame Eileen Atkins, Michael Palin, Rula Lenska, Sinead Cusack and Jeremy Irons. Among the musical line-up were Bryan Adams, Brian May, Alessandro Saffina and the Operababes.
Production manager Robbie Williams brought in White Light Events to take care of lighting, a duty overseen by lighting designer Mikey Robertson, with Jason Larcombe as associate LD. Robertson says: "The stage was too big for our purposes, even with the number of performers who would be appearing on it, so we halved the depth by putting in a back projection screen. This freed up some of the side lighting fixtures which we used for back-projecting gobos and patterns onto the screen."
As well as working with the ROH’s "excellent" in-house rig (run from the ROH’s own ETC Obsession console), Robertson brought in additional moving light fixtures to cater for the rock and roll element of the show. For this, Martin Professional’s Philip Norfolk offered Roberts the use of some MAC 2000 washlights and MAC 2000 Performance fixtures - along with Martin’s new Maxxyz lighting control system.
Robertson explains: "With a show like this, we couldn’t prepare for everything that might come up, so we needed to have as much flexibility as possible. We used the house rig to create the basic looks for the set, and then embellished this with the moving fixtures. The MAC 2000 Performance gave us a great deal of flexibility, with its gobos and effects. The zoom is particularly good - we could use one for a really good three-quarter backlight on a performer, for example, and then bring it out for a colour wash with the other fixtures." Martin also provided programmer Chris West, who worked with White Light Events’ Alex Murphy to programme the show.
Sound for the event was provided by Dobson Sound, with Paul Dobson designing the L-Acoustics dV-Dosc-based system, with d&b wedges on stage. Two Midas Heritage 3000 desks were used FOH, with another for monitors. Processing was from XTA and the system was EQ’d via KT DN410 units. Effects included the usual mix of BSS, Lexicon, Yamaha, Eventide and tc electronics toys, with Denon playback sources. Video projection was from PSL, and drapes were supplied by Fluid.
