Mandylights travelled to Shenzhen to light China’s latest massive pop sensation – GEM – at her first stadium show at the Shenzhen Bay Arena. After selling the show out in minutes and with renowned British directors Splinter Films shooting the entire event for a documentary and television event, Mandylights was engaged by artist management to produce a huge stadium-filling lighting and production design that would not only look spectacular on camera but also keep the 30,000 strong audience happy.
With less than four weeks from engagement to event delivery, designer Richard Neville and lighting director Daniel Mercer created full production plots, created previsualisation for the entire arena (including drawing the entire venue in 3D for the first time), designed, specced and supervised the installation of nearly 600 lighting and laser fixtures, programmed over a thousand lighting cues and delivered a massive 24 song show with only one rehearsal the night before the event. The company provided previsualisation in both their Sydney studio and on site with their new mobile system which proved invaluable as Richard had less than eight hours with the fully functioning rig before the live show. Mandylights also assisted with the stadium-wide network architecture design and equipment and brought their NPU and networking system along for the ride.
The entire production loaded in over only five days, with Daniel Mercer running the markup and technical teams to ensure that the design was installed exactly to specification despite the extremely challenging conditions. Temperatures in Shenzhen rarely dipped below 30 degrees and 100% humidity, and the daily monsoonal storms, high winds and baking hot sun were all faced admirably by the Impact lighting crews. The result: a massive, spectacular production design that was over 140m wide and saw lights, lasers and effects placed in almost every location around the stadium – all delivered on time, on budget and with Mandylights’ increasingly well known outstanding creativity.
The project was delivered in an incredibly busy month for Mandylights with the company lighting the opening of a new touring production of Cats in Seoul, South Korea, lighting design, equipment and direction for Parramatta Council’s stunning Winterlight Festival in Sydney, continuing sell-out shows with the Backstreet Boys across North America, an amazing Ricky Martin: Live show next to the King’s palace in Rabat, Morocco, the fifth month of lighting direction on the Rocky Horror Show which is now in Melbourne and a host of great corporate and private events. In the second half of the year, the company will add another two major international tours to it’s portfolio and continue to travel and light events in over a dozen countries… and all that is before revealing where the team will be on New Year’s Eve….
More pictures and a time-lapse video of the whole event can be found on Mandylights’ Facebook page at www.facebook.com/mandylights
Intelligent Fixtures
161 x Martin Mac2000 Wash XB
106 x FineArt 2500 Spot
150 x FineArt Xtreme Beam 230
31 x Martin Mac300 Wash
35 x Martin Atomic Strobe
68 x RGBW LED Par
19 x FineArt Beam 2500
68 x 5×5 Custom LED Matrix Panels
200m RGB LED Tape
Conventional Fixtures
96 x 500w QI
48 x Molefay Duet Blinder
11 x Molefay 4way Blinder
Laser
6 x 30w RGB Laser
1 x Pangolin Control System
Atmospherics
12 x Fog Machine
8 x Haze Machine
Follow Spots
6 x 4kW Gladiator Spot
Control
2 x MA Lighting GrandMA2 Console
4 x MA Lighting NPU
2 x PRG MBox Studio Media Server
Suppliers
Production & Lighting Design: Mandylights
Lighting and Video: Impact Shanghai & Impact Hong Kong
Mandylights Crew
Lighting Designer / Programmer: Richard Neville
Lighting Director: Daniel Mercer
