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Stage One go for Gold in Athens
“It’s the biggest show we’ve ever done, said Jim Tinsley, Technical Director of Stage One Creative Services. He was talking about the opening and closing ceremonies of the recent Olympic Games in Athens where Stage One designed, built, rigged and operated all the complex flying sequences and the giant lake that filled the centre of the arena. “In fact, it’s probably the biggest show ever staged anywhere,” he added.
He could well be right. The statistics are staggering. A total of 57 kilometres of varying diameter wire cable was used for the aerial cable net for the flying sequences; 72 hoists; 2 megawatts of power just to run the automation system; 2,162,000 litres of water covering 9645 square metres filled the lake – it took 4 hours to fill but less than 3 minutes to drain; 480 power amplifiers for the audio system; 800 2-way radios using 44 different channels to name a very few.
Stage One’s adaptability was apparent as designs evolved throughout pre-production. “Initially we intended to use the roof to support the 18 separate cable trajectories radiating from the central hub,” said Tinsley, “but instead we designed our own custom towers to support the net.”
Brought in to work on the project by Adam Wildi, the project’s senior technical director, Stage One worked in partnership with Jack Morton Public Events, the producers of the opening and closing ceremonies. Tinsley worked as the technical consultant for the event, co-ordinating the work of a number of other companies contracted by Jack Morton for the ceremonies.
No-one who saw the spectacular opening ceremony could fail to be impressed as the 17.3 metres high Cycladic head rose from the lake to be lit up by a laser light display courtesy by Tarm Laser of Germany with projection by Creative Technology. The head then broke open to reveal first the Kouros figure then broke again to reveal the Classical figure. Then as the 18 pieces that made up the head flew around the stadium a giant rotating cube complete with a live performer was flown. The closing ceremony was equally impressive with 35 performers being flown along with large LED rings.
“We worked out all the sequencing, movements and timing using 3D modelling and a computer animation produced by Gareth Lowe,” said Tinsley. “Then, once we had it right, we downloaded the animation program to the winch control computers and we were ready to go.” That all sounds very straightforward but there were constant revisions and changes. Producing the programming sequence took a team of six people working 12 hour shifts, 14 days to complete.
The combined weight of the sculpture structure approached 20 tonnes. 72 simultaneous winch movements were required to lift it and in order to ensure precise positional control of the 18 pieces of the Cycladic, Stage One designed and developed a positional control computer from scratch. Christened QPOS, it holds five separate macro sequences, each with up to 15 minutes of motion information at each winch point. “We see considerable commercial potential in this device,” said Mark Johnson, Stage One’s joint managing director.
During the run up to the actual opening ceremony all three figures were rebuilt to form the Cycladic head; this was rebuilt five times, taking 38 man hours to do it each time.
15th September 2004
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