The first-ever visual and audio production event in Saudi Arabia drew entertainment technology into the mainstream of national identity, commerce and creativity. John Offord, etnow editor, reports from Riyadh with an exclusive despatch.

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A spectacle at least on a par with and in my view considerably more creative than many of the celebrated New Year’s Eve events around the globe, the production that launched the Al Faisaliah Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s first skyscraper, will be looked upon as a landmark in the development of social life in the country. Day-after-the-event newspaper reports estimated over 500,000 people were out on the streets in the vicinity to witness the show on the Tower, and the nearby King Fahd highway was brought to a total standstill with police vehicles swamped by a sea of well-behaved spectators. In a country where gatherings of over 50 people are prohibited, the event was therefore a directly calculated move towards liberalisation by the authorities and the King Faisal Foundation, owners of the Al Faisaliah complex. It was a show for the whole of Riyadh.
   Designed by Lord Foster, the Al Faisaliah Tower is a commercial centre soaring to 267 metres and part of a £320 million complex that includes a five-star hotel, luxury apartments, an up-market retail mall and a major banqueting venue. The launch production was ‘fronted’ to 1200 VIP guests in the square, but the four-sided Tower animated on all sides so that the majority of Riyadh’s estimated 5-6 million population could witness the occasion. Apart from another skyscraper under construction a few blocks away, sightlines weren’t a problem, with the City set out on a vast plain and nothing much rising above two storeys in height.
   Architects and developers looking to launch buildings in the future might try to incorporate within their design briefs a few footholds and rigging points to offer up the opportunity to show off their creations with the latest lighting pieces, but for now we have to rely on innovative brainpower and sheer nerve. Entertainment technology watchers would be quietly confident that if personnel at the leading edge of the show production industry were given the task of lighting up Everest they’d sure as hell find a way of doing it. Here in Riyadh they had the logistical problem of working on a Tower with no holds, and that to all intents and purposes was a building site sitting in the middle of the desert, complete with sandstorms and extreme heat.
   The people who won the job were Production Technology of Dubai, a company set up by Steve Lakin in September 1999. Lakin was founder of the multi-national Gearhouse operation and not the type to be put off by something a little unusual or difficult or both. By the time he’d got his hands on the Al Faisaliah Tower project he’d already purchased the Vari-Lite Middle East operation and the automated luminaire inventory that went with it. And the man who’d been running it, Adrian Bell, came along too and stepped in as Protec’s general manager.
   "We then brought in Hares Shehab as business development manager and to add a creative element to the business," explained Lakin. "So there we were, around the end of November last year, with quite a lot of equipment, and some jobs, but not a huge amount of work." The situation was about to change dramatically, and set Protec on a path of major expansion. "Hares came in one day and informed us about the launch of Riyadh’s first skyscraper, owned by the King Faisal Foundation," Lakin continued. "We found out that four companies were pitching, but we were invited, if we wanted to, to take a brief."
   Protec had ten days to do just that. The four-strong team of Lakin, Shehab, Bell and co-founder James Rock arrived at Riyadh airport with 320kg of excess baggage that evolved into the set for their presentation. "We were told the decision would be made in about three weeks," said Lakin. "However, within about three hours of concluding our presentation we received a telephone call telling us we’d got the job. We had just three-and-a-half months to pull it all together."
   "The underpinning idea behind our presentation was the building coming to life," explained Adrian Bell. "The conception was one of breathing life into the building, with the sound of the heartbeat and the raising of colour. The magenta you saw last night is the magenta on the animated video walk-through of the sequence. What we presented is what we delivered, and the content we put together for the presentation won us the contract. Prince Bandar bin Saud bin Khalid Al-Saud, secretary general of the King Faisal Foundation, and his team, were completely bowled over, and with the time-scale in which we’d achieved it.
   "We then began the process of ascertaining how we were going to deliver what we’d committed to! First of all we looked at the searchlight technology and came out for Space Cannon who were keen to develop a partnership with us. It was a big decision, but Steve decided to place an order for 62 units (50 7k Ireos Pros and 12 2k Ibis). Jon Wood, the show’s searchlight specialist, then spent a significant amount of time at Space Cannon’s factory in Italy fine-tuning the specs of the units. Once we’d got the searchlight technology confirmed we could move on."
   "We then started placing orders for further equipment," said Steve Lakin, "but we had a call in January to say that the job had been delayed because the building work was running behind schedule and that the new opening date was expected to be in September. The news came as something of an anti-climax but in some respects also a bit of relief. Then, in early March we got a telephone call saying that they’d change their minds again and the launch was going to take place on 12^th May, subsequently changed to 14^th May. So there we were, with just over eight weeks to go, with quite a lot of equipment ordered – around £750,000-worth - but with an awful lot of preparatory work still to do. We literally bust a gut through to D-Day!"
   "A major challenge was the cumulative ‘build’ on the four edges of the building," continued Adrian Bell. "We’d demonstrated this on the presentation video, and looked at a number of off-the-shelf products. However, very few offered what we wanted without either a huge amount of technology or a mass of dimmers. The result was that Andy Cave of Entertainment Innovations and Steve Lakin developed what has now become known affectionately as the Lakin Edge Batten. Andy produced the electronics and Steve took care of the engineering. One of the criteria on this project has been that we must on no account damage the building, and the battens are actually bungee-strapped to the structure. It’s an incredibly clever idea, which Steve should take full credit for.
   "We then had a number of moving light options. In addition to our own 200 plus Vari*Lites we settled on two major purchases, Coemar Panorama wash units and Stage Colour 1200s from Clay Paky. All these purchases were acquired over a period of three months and we also placed orders for the cabling nightmare the building challenged us with. It’s all been incredibly well thought-out, and Andy Cave was responsible for master-minding the whole cable distribution management system. On the supply side we dealt almost exclusively with Nic Tolkien of AC Lighting in the UK who delivered a wonderful service."
   As the equipment ordered was ultimately going to become part of Protec’s own inventory, it all had to be shipped into Dubai for sorting, preparation and assembly prior to the onward journey into Saudi Arabia. Twenty-three 45 foot trucks were involved on the often protracted operation that involved understanding the communication channels involved and who to talk to on the importation trail.
   The main build for the event ran for a period of six weeks through to the end of April. "Mark Armstrong came out from the UK and spent a week on site setting up safe working systems," continued Adrian Bell. "Aerial rigging was an inevitable consequence of the project. The core rigging team consisted of Richard Estridge, Bill Macklin and eight riggers. We told them well in advance that they’d be working on a building site, on a very high building and in challenging climatic conditions! The first job was to get all the 480 Parcans into position on the building’s sunshades."
   Nick Jones, lighting director for the production, had spent seven days in Riyadh in December, and he takes up the story. "Steve Lakin showed me the video he used to sell the idea to the client. It was a very slick computer generated video of the Tower, fireworks and all, and it was our job to reproduce it. The basic design wasn’t too difficult, but things such as the edge battens had to be devised and this is where electronics wizard Andy Cave came in while also having the problem of dealing with rope accessing the corners of the building. The building had to turn magenta, however, although it might sound a lot, 62 Space Cannons wouldn’t go very far. We therefore decided to put two Parcans under each window blind on each side of the building on all 30 floors, and all had to be rigged with rope access only. Brackets had to be designed and cabling sorted out."
   The key production grouping of Steve Lakin and his Protec team supported by Nick Jones, Andy Cave, Jon Wood, Richard Estridge and CAD man Jeremy Lloyd spent early March brainstorming the project and getting their equipment lists finalised. They started working in earnest with a crew of eight on 1^st May.
   "The sequence of the show involved an initial brief reveal of the Tower with minimal lighting, which lasted for about one-an-a-half minutes," explained Nick Jones, "but then the action started again and slowly built up, adding more and more effects, working its way to the top of the building. The essential part of the Tower is the glass globe and it was very important it went to gold. We lit this with 36 Molefays and it worked well. Finally, we had the excuse for using lots and lots of fireworks and we went for it with all the effects we had, with the Space Cannons on all K-brace floors, the Parcans on the outside with as many chases as we wanted, 100 Diversitronics strobe units on the comms deck above the globe and so on – a total of eight minutes of colour and fireworks. As you saw, it was massive. Then it completely quietened down and the Al Faisaliah logo was reproduced in white pyro at the base of the Tower."
   Andy Cave had the task of ensuring everything Steve Lakin had visualised and shown to the client and Nick Jones had developed onwards into a practical design concept, was feasible, practical – and worked.
   "Our total power requirements came to about 2.8MW - over 4000 amps per phase," explained Andy. "Fortunately the Al Faisaliah complex is well-equipped with about 15MW of substation capacity to cater for its air conditioning systems. As the tower was unoccupied (and unfinished) at the time of the show we were able to use this capacity. The completed and occupied hotel and retail mall probably got a little bit warmer for a week or two while we 'borrowed' supplies from the air conditioning chiller units! The only real problems arose from working on a construction site, where the electrical contractors were also trying to commission systems in time for the opening deadline. Locations for control equipment that were clear of building work were also at a premium.
   "Within the tower, dimmer areas were positioned on the floors below each of the three ‘K-Braces’, allowing most of the cable runs to be kept to around 80m. A fourth dimmer room was located in the plant room just below the globe, to feed all the lighting in the globe and above. This was the largest mains room on site, with eight racks, and over 5km of multicore leading from here up the tower - but the lifts stopped two floors down! All equipment had to be carried up the staircase or hoisted up an unfinished lift shaft on a wire winch, in between the 2m triangular panes of glass for the globe! A further five mains areas were located on the surrounding rooftops, and underneath the plaza seating tribune.
   "A specification was drawn up for a range of new mains distribution systems to complement Protec's existing inventory, providing the large numbers of non-dimmed outlets required for the Space Cannons, strobes and other automated lights. The distribution systems, built by SES in the UK, combined a number of Cee and Socapex outlets, all fitted with individual RCD protection. To increase electrical safety, and to assist in complying with the diverse electrical regulations in ProTec's potential markets, Powerlock connectors were chosen for all incoming mains connections. Ten Avolites ART2000 racks and a handful of Light Processor Paradims were also purchased for the show.
   "The large number of automated lights and the several hundred channels of edge lights meant that we needed a total of 10 DMX universes. Protec had just added a couple of Avo Diamonds to their console inventory, so we used a WholeHog II,  a Diamond II and a Diamond III synchronised together with a second Hog as backup. The Hog, programmed by Stuart Porter, had control of the tower lighting, both conventional and automated, and John Harris' Diamond took care of all the lights on the rooftops and around the Plaza, as well as the several hundred channels of lights on the tower profile. All four consoles ran to timecode to ensure accurate synchronisation with music, fireworks and lasers over the ten-minute show.
   "As the lights illuminating the profile of the building were one of the key elements which sold the Protec concept to the client, the need to slowly reveal the profile by building the lights from the bottom of the tower was also essential. During initial planning meetings in December it became obvious that to achieve this effect without vast numbers of dimmers and an enormous bundle of cable running down the outside of the building required a fixture including its own controller. 50W 12V capsule lamps were chosen for their small size, low cost, and relatively high brightness for a small power consumption. The batten length was restricted to 2.4m due to metal fabrication limitations, and the need for the finished units to be easy to handle. Three circuits of three lamps each per batten achieved the desired bulb spacing, and kept power and cable requirements sensible. A xenon beacon was added to each batten for extra sparkle. Artistic Licence developed a custom DMX controller card to switch the lamp transformers and the xenon beacons using solid state relays. The 400 ‘Lakin Battens’ required were duly manufactured by Protec in Dubai."
   Nick Chapman of Protec took calm care of the production’s sound engineering. "We ran the specially commissioned music off two Fostex D1624 16 track hard drive multitracks," he explained. "A linear time code actually ran the show. Twelve stacks of Turbosound Floodlight enclosures were involved, with a Midas Heritage out front to control the multitracks and all the video. Processing was all via BSS Omnidrives, XTA graphic equalisers, SPX 1000 and D5000 for effects and a Klark Teknik DL6000 analyser.
   "The audio was obviously nowhere near the scale of the lighting, although on the day it was just as important as everything was all linked up to us! We had heavy restrictions on sound levels during rehearsals, so we ran it very quietly, making use of a bunch of monitors behind the control to listen to. On the night we ran it out full volume for the precise 9 minutes 58 seconds of the show, and if the police had thought about turning us down it would have been all over by the time they arrived!"
   Two Megascreens supplied by Screenco and showing scenes of Saudi Arabia’s history and development were used pre-show as VIP guests were taking their seats. Projection, looked after by Protec's Damien McGurn, involved four 7k Hardware for Xenon projectors running 30 slides apiece as cross-fade pairs, with two each on the roof of the hotel and the apartment block opposite. The show lasers, supervised by Tim Matthews from Illuminatum, were two 45 watt YAG systems driven from Laser Studio’s PFE2 control. They were positioned on the first K-brace level of the Tower, and fired out and above the audience at the ‘front’ of the building.
   Fireworks were the responsibility of Pains Fireworks from the UK, with managing director Bill Deeker in charge of a 12-man team. Debris-free single shot Roman candles, calibre ranging from 20mm to 60mm and mines were used in the proximity of the building and audience, all controlled by a computerised Pyrodigital system linked to the time code output from the Fostex D1624s. Off adjacent rooftops aerial shells ranging from 125mm to 300mm were employed.
   The Layher grandstand structure, purchased by Protec from StageCo of Belgium, was configured for three tiers of audience seating, complete with appropriate stairs and rails. It was located on the Plaza facing the front of the Tower and above the ballroom and banqueting suite. A major part of the new complex, the suite sits within the biggest single concrete span in the world and can seat 4000 for conferences, take care of 2000 people at banquets or weddings and seat 1200 for dining.
   Coupled with the launch of the Al Faisaliah Tower was another major event that could have been an article in its own right, but will have to be a mere footnote to this one. Following the speeches and the dynamic 10 minutes of music, lights and fireworks, guests moved down to the banqueting hall mentioned above for the presentation of the annual King Faisal International Awards. Here, Protec had a team working on lighting (Vari*Lites in the main), sound (Nick Chapman and Richard Snape with four Turbosound THL4’s per side, a delay half way up the hall, an Allen & Heath GL4000 in control with Omnidrives and XTA graphics) and video (Damien McGurn with two Barco 9200 Reality projectors doubled up on a 20 x 15 rear projection screen).
   The launch of the Al Faisaliah complex with total involvement from Production Technology proved an enormous success. The company’s first major mission worked extremely well for them, proving that they have the organisational and tactical skills – and the equipment – to take on high profile event production right across the Middle East region, and further afield if needs be.
   But just as important, this event was a landmark in the social life of Saudi Arabia. "We made something happen from which there is no going back," said Hares Shehab. "We’ve given them the taste of mass media and live enjoyment. We have done what we said we would do and more. It is comparable to the introduction of television: once you start you can’t stop! We had the total support of Prince Bandar and the Foundation. If it hadn’t been for their open door policy and total support and understanding of our priorities, we would never have been able to pull it off. It is as simple as that. It is indicative of the new generation taking control in Saudi Arabia – they are determined to make things happen, they are extremely sophisticated, and their understanding of events is on a par with their global counterparts."
   Steve Lakin, who’d seen and managed with bigger events in his time, admitted the project posed the toughest rig he’d ever been involved with. "I don’t think any of the crew – who were absolutely phenomenal – has ever been on a rig as tough as this one," he commented. "None of us expected the extent of the elements out here, most certainly in the last week. We clocked up 58 degrees centigrade front of house yesterday. The gaffer tape was melting and plastic on control boards warping. However, we quickly put in fans, umbrellas and air conditioning and managed to get temperatures down to a sensible level."
   And there were sandstorms. Not pleasant at the time, the aftermath did leave behind the advantage of a very fine dust in the air that acted as a desert smoke machine, showing lighting off to good advantage. To keep the crew alive, well over 100,000 bottles and cans of water and soft drinks had to be ferried out to various locations with a huge base stock on hand in the production office down the street.
   Steve Lakin and his team had seen their show beforehand in rehearsal, of course – but not in concert with full sound and pyrotechnics. "It was a stunning success," commented Steve when I accosted him on the morning after his big night. "To hear the cheers of the crowd when the fireworks went off was something special. From my point of view, seeing the pyro and fireworks exploding into action exactly in sync with the music was the real highlight."