NEW DELHI – Mired in controversy and challenges, the 19th Commonwealth Games managed to get off the ground with memorable visuals, including an 80-meter-long, 40-meter-wide and 12-meter high aerostat that floated 25 meters above the field. The aerostat's underside was covered with 172 mirror disks measuring 2.4 meters in diameter. These reflected lighting from the ground. The shape of the balloon was similar to a donut, with the inside rigged with the Alpha Beam 300 fixtures to supply lighting effects from above down to the field.
Questions of worker safety, sanitation concerns, construction delays, overall costs and inclement weather all hampered the Games, held once every four years, and for the first time in India. The opening and closing ceremonies were broadcast live from Jawaharlal Nehru stadium.
PRG supplied all lighting and rigging for the event, which included 44 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500, 24 Alpha Beam 300 and 144 Alpha Spot HPE 1500 fixtures. Ola Melzig, technical director for ceremonies, detailed some of the challenges the production crew needed to overcome.
"The show was not without its share of challenges, one of which was getting the mass of equipment into the venue on time," Melzig said. "There were delays in customs and the venue was not adequately prepared for the arrival of the crew in terms of furniture, air conditioning, or protection for the track.
"Because the stadium was to be used during the Games, and the equipment arrived before the armor deck protection," Melzig added, "sheets of plywood had to be hand placed section by section to allow trucks and forklifts to get all the equipment in position.
"In addition, August is monsoon season, so heavy rains slowed the progress. We had generator issues as well, with a shut down followed soon after by a 330V peak killing somewhere around 300 moving lights. Fortunately the Clay Paky fixtures were surprisingly resilient."
"No one could have predicted the problems these lights had to face," said PRG Project Manager Johannes Wahl, "from generator spikes to heavy rain to high winds causing props to crash into the fixtures inside the aerostat, but the Clay Paky fixtures held up amazingly well."
The Alpha Beam 1500 and Alpha Spot HPE 1500 fixtures were located mid-level around the stadium, providing added front light and moving light effects for the ceremonies.
Lighting Designer Jerry Appelt credited the Clay Paky fixtures as "great, as always. They kept up with some heavy-duty lights including Space Cannons but allowed me to create more complex and dynamic looks thanks to their speed and sharpness."
The technical crew began working on site at the stadium on August 15, but planning commenced four years ago when India received the handover from Melbourne, Australia.
The programming team used a total of six grandMA Consoles: five full size consoles (3 active, 2 backup) and one grandMA Ultra Light as focus-console and for service tasks during the show.
They ran two sessions; one for all the Alpha Spots and Alpha Beams plus some GLP Impressions, programmed by Marc Brunkhardt, as well as the ground level Space Cannons and Biglites, programmed by Denis Hessberger and about 800 permanently-installed LED fixtures used to light the roof of the stadium programmed by Thomas Giegerich. A second session was for wash lights, programmed by Martin Rupprecht.
The programming team had to run two sessions because there were too many NSPs and PortNodes Pro to run them all in one session. Pre-programming was done by Olivier Legendre with wysiwyg and programming was carried out in a studio in Delhi (sans air conditioning). In all, the lighting used approximately 62 DMX universes.
The opening ceremony was held October 3 and the closing was October 14, with 71 countries participating in what India now considers one of its greatest achievements.
A short sample from the opening ceremonies can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_dTKoii85I .
For more information, please visit www.claypaky.it .
