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PWL lights WEGA Global Games opening ceremony in Doha

Painting with Light (PWL)’s creative director Luc Peumans was asked to design a lighting scheme for the opening ceremony (OC) of the first Qatar eSports WEGA Global Games. The OC event was staged in the Khalifa Stadium in Doha and attended by 14,000 eSports fans.

Show artistic director Steven Martin from The Cintamani Stone: Architect of Emotion (TCS-AOE) asked Peumans onboard for their pitch, and they were awarded the project by Doha-based event company The Planners LLC. The all-Belgium technical design and imagineering team also included OC technical director Ludo Vanstreels from Trimex.

Challenges for Peumans’ lighting design included the positioning of the stage in one section down the long end of the stadium, which meant that the whole lighting rig - and all other technical elements - had to be ground supported.

Integral to the winning pitch were projections mapped onto the stage floor and holographic images beamed on a special 30-metre-wide by 12-metre-high scrim - currently a trending aesthetic in the world of eSport tournament OCs. These had to be carefully ‘lit around’, combined with several flying and ground-based cast members and performers. Large amounts of video and LED screens to generally contend with were additional challenges for lighting.

Peumans’ design for the 25-minute show was based around seven 16-metre-high towers, three upstage and four downstage to the sides to provide a sense of depth and a basic structural framework around the 80-meter-wide oval-shaped performance space. These towers also served as lighting positions. Upstage was the 1000 plus square metre, 12-metre-high back video wall. The stage surface was mapped for projections and the holographic images were beamed onto special holo-scrims.

Peumans chose 100 Robe MegaPointes as his main effects lighting fixtures. These were distributed on different levels of all seven towers, as well as along the top edge of the video wall at the back and scattered on the stage deck, giving three layers of optical attack. This was needed to work with the combination of VR and cast, including the flying characters, dancers and holographic images all integrated in the collage of visuals. Peumans created a series of special looks with the MegaPointes to compliment the holographic characters.

Lighting was supplied - along with audio, LED screen, ground support trussing, vari-speed motors for performer flying, general rigging and trussing - by the Doha branch of MediaPro International who also built the stage. The stage was built by The Planners’ in-house decor team.

In addition to the MegaPointes, there were 60 x Robe Spiider LED wash beams, 36 x Cyclops LED washes, 50 x Claypaky Mythos and 42 CP Scenius Unicos which were used to highlight cast positions from the sides and for illuminating specific parts of the projection areas.

Much of the general lighting came from the sides as front lighting was minimal - just four fixtures - so not to spill onto the holo-scrims. Claypaky Stormy LED strobes plus beam lights and a variety of other available fixtures all added up to over 500 light sources. Programming was done by Peumans’ associate LD Raphael Demonthy and lighting programmer Sebastian Huwig on site, using GrandMA2 consoles.

Due to the short turnaround time, once the initial design proposals were accepted, Peumans WYSIWYG’d the stage and lighting in PWL’s studio in Genk, Belgium. A site visit was not possible for Peumans in the timeframe, however, Ludo Vanstreels, Steven Martin and Jo Pauly from Visual Solutions all visited, and Martin’s team produced a complete mock-up and storyboard of the show with soundtrack.

The video elements were assembled, coordinated and controlled by Jo Pauly, the video content was created by Pix & Real and Prismax. Music was compiled by Tino Plettinck with the support of Universal Production Music. A team of about 40 performing talents and five show runners were flown in with the TCS team.

(Photos: The Cintamani Stone: Architect of Emotion - TCS-AOE)

www.paintingwithlight.com

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