FEATURES: INSTALLATION
A different way for National Day
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The UAE pulled out all the stops for the 49th National Day with the creation of a huge kinetic structure combined with an impressive audiovisual display THE NATIONAL DAY CELEBRATION IS ONE OF THE MAIN fixtures on the UAE calendar. The annual show is typically held on 2 December in a packed stadium at Zayed Sports City but, last year, due to the disruptions imposed by Covid-19, the usual extravaganza was reworked in favour of something new. Being that 2020 has been the year of all things digital and virtual, what better way to celebrate the occasion than with an impressive audiovisual spectacle livestreamed online and broadcast to the nation. For many countries, this would mean hosting a star-studded live show or perhaps a glitzy fireworks display. Of course, Dubai’s ND49 celebrations had all of that but went one step further with the creation of a completely unique experience out in the mangroves of Abu Dhabi’s Jubail Island. Titled Seeds of the Union, the official 49th National Day celebrations were marked with the construction of a giant kinetic sculpture in recognition of the seeds of hope planted by the UAE’s forefathers 49 years ago. A combination of vivid projections, rousing music, fireworks and human performances made for a dynamic show that paid tribute to the country’s origins and celebrated how far it has come by transporting viewers through history. The giant, 15m rotating cube that appears to be floating on the water was the centrepiece of the artistic performance and around it was an elliptical walkway that allowed for cast performances as an extension to the sculpture. In addition to the broadcast and livestream, a small, socially distanced audience watched the show live from a grandstand on the beach. The show was the creative vision of artistic director and designer Es Devlin and produced by LarMac PROJECTS, both well known for their work on a number of prominent productions. Several aspects were quite unique, not least the lengths gone to in preparing the site with extensive groundworks; the result of a collaboration between LarMac and the National Marine Dredging Company (NMDC). Working with a team of local contractors including Al Laith, which monitored the tides daily, NMDC built a temporary bund and foundations to allow crane access to get the cube installation underway, before constructing a larger bund to
SKYMAGIC delivered a 300-strong drone show to accompany the action create a temporary lake around the performance area to protect the sculpture. With initial meetings conducted in August, Wonder Works, which oversaw the technical design element, created and delivered the cube structure together with Stage One in just under two months. This process was managed remotely from the UK by Wonder Works technical designers and engineers working alongside LarMac. “Not having seen the site until we arrived in the UAE was difficult, especially with the ground works required,” said Jo MacKay, co-director at LarMac. “There have been thousands of hours on Zoom from every department to get to a place where we could build and deliver.” Once on the ground, and with just a month until rehearsals, LarMac was faced with the enormous task of managing the event build. Barco UDX-4K32 projectors deployed around the ring fired visuals onto the cube as it rotated, tracked by media servers through positional data and camera-based IR to allow for image alignment and blending. Lighting was from a selection of Claypaky Scenius Unicos, Robe BMFL Blades, SGM P-5s and Q-7s, and GLP impression X4s. A 300-strong drone show
Audit
delivered by SKYMAGIC accompanied the on-the-ground display, together with pyrotechnics from Groupe F and special effects provided by Matrix. The construction of the cube was no small feat, and the impressive visual element of the project was on show for all to behold. However, this has become par for the course for National Day celebrations. “It’s always about big visuals,” explains Scott Willsallen from Auditoria Systems, which was enlisted to provide the sound design. “This year was a bit different in that the cube structure was the star of the show. Even without any projection, the cube was still a really beautiful, iconic piece of architecture. However, the projection content was smaller than in past years, so lends itself a bit more heavily on the sound design content to create that sense of being immersed in the show.” To meet these goals, Willsallen designed a 300-strong L-Acoustics L-ISA loudspeaker system, supplied by PRGdeltasound together with the visual and projection equipment elements, consisting of various parts to deliver specific elements of the show. The system received 96 MADI inputs from a DiGiCo SD7 console consisting of pre-mixed stems and mono objects fed from a Merging Technologies Ovation replay system, while the loudspeaker arrangement consisted of 34 outputs and a separate sub-bass output. For the performance, Auditoria’s Richard Sharratt handled FOH, while Simon Sayer and Edoardo Michalori took care of replay. Remote support was also provided from Justin Arthur, Luis Miranda and Steve Logan. The L-ISA arrays were deployed in four arrangements. In front of the cube were two arrays of three L-Acoustics K2s to handle the main body of music, reduced from an original arrangement of five to provide a better audience aesthetic of the cube. Eight arrays of six K2 and one array of 18 SB28 subwoofers (stacked three wide by six high) provided aural panorama, while two arrays of nine Kara and 11 Syva cabinets mounted beside and behind the audience together with 11 X8s suspended overhead from the top of the lighting and projection masts provided immersive reinforcement for the audience area. Each of the sources had a separate output from the L-ISA processor. In addition to the L-ISA system, 180 L-Acoustics 5XT loudspeakers (one for each guest)
36 PRO AVL MEA March–April 2021
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