ride far

grandstands. Flat Pro 12 and 7 IP-rated LED PARS were scattered above and around the sides of the stage, along with Zenit W600 washes. OTOS H5 fixtures were used to illuminate the castle’s eastern terrace wall, with some also boosting the lumen factor on the stage floor.

Gemini RGB 1x1 soft-lights and Astra 1x1 battery powered bi-colour floods were on-hand for impromptu pickups onstage where light was needed on demand for the hand-held cameras, and these were also used for a signer who was standing below one of the delay towers.

Liteup also supplied specials requested by Catmur for Pete Tong’s and Robin Schulz’s rollon DJ booths, the latter of which performed with Take That in their set opener, which involved “lively and animated” Martin VDO Sceptron pixel strips, which were custom fabricated by Liteup. Cirrolite, EFX, Jem and Smoke Factory solutions were deployed for atmospherics on stage.

Sitewide lighting was controlled by MA Lighting grandMA3 software and hardware, with three active consoles and one back up. Data was distributed by a Luminex fibre network, designed, and engineered by Callaghan, utilising components which connected the lighting fixtures by VLANs. Callaghan harnessed ARENEO monitoring software, which he dubbed an “invaluable” tool, to configure and actively check the system remotely from the control position.

Lighting Programmers, Martin Higgins and Dan Street, handled the moving lights, while key and white light elements were programmed and operated by Oliver Lifely using a Compulite Vector console.

Media Server Programmer, Matt Lee used a High End Systems Hog4 console to run Green Hippo media servers feeding the ‘crown’ LED and playback content, announcements, and other information to three IMAG screens left and right of the stage wing walkways. LED Flex by LED Creative was built into the stage and floor and controlled by Byte controllers. Onstage, lighting rigging required 70 points with a mixture of Lodestar and EXE Rise hoists in tandem with Kinesys DigiHoist controllers.

“It was a huge honour for all the obvious reasons to be asked to deliver this job,” commented Callaghan, with the logistics of getting the six trucks of lighting kit on site delivered by Stagetruck. A five-day load in period was followed by programming and rehearsing sessions. “This would simply not have been achievable smoothly without intensive pre-planning,” commented Callaghan. The wider visual team included BBC Studios Creative Director, Claire Popplewell; Line Producer, Chris Stent; Production Site and Event Manager, Felicity Pilsworth; Camera Supervisor, Phil Piotrowsky; Executive Producers, Mark Sidaway and Chloe Mason; Series Producer, Chery Ko-Pearson. Network Architect & Systems Engineer, Marc Callaghan; Liteup Crew Chief, Dan Bunn and Rigging Crew Chief, Russell Cobden; Lighting Technicians, Thomas Ramage, Adam Jones, Ryan Harrington, Rob Myer, James Gardner, Adam Martin, Iain Keightley, and David Peters; Production Riggers, James Hubbard, Barnsley Grain, and Tim Williams. www.liteup.co.uk