Staging the State of Origin matches this year was a complicated affair due to the constant changes in Covid-19 restrictions. Originally scheduled for the MCG, Game I was moved to Townsville due to Victoria’s lockdown and Game III was moved from Stadium Australia to Newcastle and then to the Gold Coast amid Sydney’s lockdown.
The pre-match entertainment was once again production and event managed by The Spark with lighting designer Tom Wright on board. Acts performing included The Veronicas, Sheppard and Lime Cordiale.
To cope with the uncertainty of these times, it was decided that one truckload of lighting gear from Chameleon Sydney would travel to Townsville and remain there on standby and sure enough, all three matches ended up in Queensland. Consequently, all three games were afforded the same lighting gear and this is where Tom’s experience at lighting these events was invaluable as he created fresh looks for each act. At this point, it’s important to say that at the last minute the final game ended up with no entertainment (scheduled to be Lime Cordiale) as restrictions became too great in regard to the movement of people.
Of course, the other problem was getting Melbourne-based Tom to the venues! He managed to get to Townsville but that was all and so the lighting direction for Game II had to be done remotely.
“Last year I had appointed someone to look after the lighting for the Grand Final in advance and subsequently it was a lot smoother and had I been able to attend, it would have been a luxury!” commented Tom. “However, for Game II in Brisbane, Ash Neuendorf stood in for me at the last minute. We were able to share programming though by utilising the.BRIDGE from Just Networking, connecting Ash’s grandMA3 and mine in Melbourne, we were able to create a joint session and work on the same show file very successfully with no noticeable dropout or lag. It was a massive learning curve on how we can do multiuser programming with two people in different states but it worked brilliantly.”
Tom’s lighting design essentially consisted of two sticks of truss on field with six IP-rated Prolights Panorama Beams on each and a front flown truss of five or six Claypaky Scenius Unico. Brisbane also saw a back truss of eight Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash.
On stage, for The Veronicas and Sheppard, sixteen TMB Solaris Flares were utilised for colour and movement. They would have been on pipes with additional 2-way Molefays for Lime Cordiale. Also on the floor were nine ShowPRO LED Fusion Bars and up to eighteen ShowPRO DreamPIX Strips.
“The DreamPIX are great and easy to use,” added Tom. “They were used to line the edge of the stage and we ran them in dual-channel mode, so we didn’t use so many parameters, meaning we didn’t require extra NPUs. This way I can run them from the console, sending Artnet to the DreamPIX direct, and creating numerous effects to tie them into the overall look of the show.”
Smoke came from the pyros as well as four Smoke Factory Captain Ds with Tom reporting the wind was so strong in Townsville, it immediately blew out of the stadium rendering the beams almost invisible!
“There is always a desire to just use lots of moving lights, and this was a prime example of why I always say you’re best to have gear on the stage that the camera can see!” commented Tom. “What also looked great in Townsville and Brisbane were the new LED stadium lights, which we had control over, adding another level and making the show look so much bigger.”
What happens for the NRL Grand Final remains to be seen!
