The Scots College Tattoo 2025 was a landmark event celebrating the 125th anniversary of the College’s Pipes and Drums program and the official opening of the John Cunningham Student Centre. Taking inspiration from the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, the event brought together military pageantry, massed pipe bands, highland dancing, and fireworks – all within a purpose-built outdoor arena on the College’s Bellevue Hill campus.
Scope of Work
The principal technical producer, The Media Joint, provided Lighting, Audio, Video, Special FX, Staging, Power, and Event Communications. The scope included full pre-production planning, site design, live event broadcast, and technical execution.
Meeting the Brief
The brief was to deliver a spectacular tribute to the entire Scots College community – drawing direct inspiration from the world-famous Edinburgh Military Tattoo, where the College’s Pipes and Drums band has performed on multiple occasions. The Principal’s vision was to properly showcase the depth and breadth of the College community, highlighting students from the Early Learning Centre through to Year 12 across all campuses, as well as the alumni (Old Boys). The Media Joint approached the project by integrating cinematic storytelling through live visuals, audio, and show-synchronised effects, using a broadcast-style rig within a live outdoor environment.
Technical Components
Lighting
One of the things that The Edinburgh Tattoo in Scotland does well is the lighting to support the acts of the show. Consequently, this was a detail that Scots was interested in including from early discussions. Performing a twilight through to evening show meant that some lighting was essential.
Given that this was also the official opening of the new Student Centre, the school wanted the 5-story building to be highlighted appropriately during the show.
The parade ground (performance area) was also relatively large at approximately 60m long x 40m wide. To provide sufficient lighting and effect lighting across these surfaces would require many fixtures. The Media Joint engaged Latarka to support the lighting equipment and design of this project.
- Gear Used: 200+ lighting fixtures, including:
- ACME Lighting GEIST BSWF, Claypaky Mini B, ShowPRO LED Blinder II IP, ShowPRO FusionBAR Q XV, ShowPRO FusionPAR Q XV
- Control: MA Lighting grandMA3 Light and Compact.
- Towers: Fixtures were mostly rigged into 4x 13m scaffolding towers to provide lighting and effects for the parade ground and building facade.
- Architectural: C-bus/Dali to DMX integration using a Visual Productions IO Core to control the building’s internal and external fixtures
Audio
While the audio for this show initially seemed straightforward, as the show developed, the requirements also grew. The Media Joint knew they wanted a solid system that could deliver enough punch for high-impact parts of the show, such as the finale.
The main acts, like the pipes and drums band, didn’t require amplification but did need some monitoring for clicks and cues.
Signal distribution around the performance areas took some planning to manage cable run lengths and power for the PA. Planning for these factors, with support from Focused Productions, who provided audio elements, ensured everything sounded great!
- PA: 13x db Technologies VIO ground stacks with subs, distributed for even coverage.
- 4 x Opera 10’s used as foldback monitors
- Mixing: Allen & Heath dLive C3500 console at FOH with 3x Dante-enabled I/O stage boxes around the parade ground and building.
- Wireless: Shure ULXD for wireless microphones. Sennheiser EW G4 systems for IEMs.
- Outcome: Seamless reinforcement of massed pipes and delicate narration alike. Timecode triggers aligned track playback, fireworks, and lighting.
Video
There were a couple of details for the event that the video department had to take into consideration.
Scots wanted to be able to show the audience outside what the inside of the new Student Centre looked like. So, “live crosses” inside the building during set changeovers provided a “virtual tour” for the audience.
The size of the parade ground was designed to be as small as possible; however, the audience was sometimes up to 70m away from some performers. The Media Joint provided live IMAG from seven cameras around the parade ground.
The school also wanted to be able to share highlights with the broader community after the event, so all of the cameras were iso recorded in 4K where possible. Consequently, Blackmagic cameras were chosen to achieve the “large sensor cinematic look” as much as possible throughout the show.
- Capture: In total, there were 8x cameras comprising:
- 4x Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2s
- 3x URSA cameras with 90x box lenses
- 1 URSA on a 12m jib (thanks to Alex from Cinemotion)
- 2x Pocket Cinema Cameras on DJI Ronin gimbals, Easy-Rigs, and with Teradek Bolt transmitters,
- DJI Inspire 3 drone
- 4x Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2s
- Playback: Live camera mix via Blackmagic ATEM Constellation 2ME switcher.
- Screen: 30sqm of Lampro LSK 3.9mm LED outdoor rental screen.
- Live Stream: The live feeds were using Vivi media players that the school had deployed across its classrooms (the greenrooms) to provide the cast with a real-time view of the show.
- Outcome: “TV ready” live coverage of the whole event, supporting the storytelling during the show, and providing a vast amount of digital media for the school to use in the future.
Another key detail for this project was to provide students with hands-on learning experiences whenever possible. On the show, there were ten students across the video department, operating cameras and live switching.
Staging
Scots wanted the new John Cunningham Student Centre to be the backdrop for the show. Beyond that, there was not anything that could be used on the school’s oval from a production standpoint. In conjunction with the event organiser and the school’s leadership team, The Media Joint quickly realised that the bleacher stands they had on-site wouldn’t be sufficient for the number of people interested in attending the show.
Clifton’s Productions were initially engaged to supply the structures and engineering for the production elements. That scope expanded significantly when the addition of 2600 seats.
- Structure: Tiered parade ground seating for over 2,600 guests. The remaining 500 seats were using the school’s bleachers.
- Support: 4 lighting & pyro towers at 13m tall, covered 9m FOH tower behind the main VIP grandstand, and a custom LED screen scaff tower.
- Power: 3 diesel gensets providing a total of 7x 32A 3-phase distribution across the site.
- Outcome: Structures were safe and made a minimal impact on the school’s main oval. The lighting fixtures and pyro launch positions were positioned exactly as needed, and there was sufficient power delivery across the whole production.
Special FX (SFX)
One of the requests from the school was for fireworks in a similar capacity to milestone events they have held in the past and comparable to the Edinburgh Tattoo. The challenge here was the proximity of the crowd to the performers and the building. The Media Joint wanted to maintain the close and intimate feeling, so finding a solution that still provided the wow factor without compromising on site plans or safety was key. Foti Fireworks handled this part of the show effortlessly.
- FX Units: 8x G-Flame units on 2.5m truss and 4x close proximity fireworks launch sites via Foti Fireworks. This show was time-coded with Qlab and the lighting consoles for acts, such as the finale.
- Atmosphere: 5x Look Solutions Unique 2.1 haze machines.
- Outcome: The finale was the cherry on top for the show. Mobile phones were visible throughout the crowd, and people continued talking about it months after the show. Haze was a challenge due to the wind (as is always the case with outdoor events), and next time they would deploy more haze machines to adjust them with greater control, depending on the wind.
Communications
A key part of any event, and a detail that often gets overlooked or under-resourced, is communications. The crew working on live events need to be able to adjust quickly and on the fly. That’s only possible with a solid communications system.
The Media Joint had to provide a solution not only for their production crew to communicate between departments and hear show calls but also for the school staff to manage the 500+ performers. The staff needed to be able to communicate across the entire campus as they coordinated acts from classrooms (green rooms) and the parade ground.
- Intercom: 30x Riedel Bolero belt packs, 10x Hytera radios with SmartPTT integration, and 3x Artist SmartPanels.
- Networking: Dante and VLAN-separated gigabit IP backbone for audio, intercom, and control systems via both copper and fibre on the parade ground and through the school campus using spare patching infrastructure.
- Outcome: Rock-solid comms across tech departments and show callers, with redundancy across critical systems.
Challenges
- Working in a school on an event of this scale required a considerable amount of planning around the necessary infrastructure and its placement. The Media Joint had to bring in every part of the production to make the show happen on the campus, which was a blank canvas from a technical perspective.
- Most of the acts included students, and they had to work in and around a school that still functioned like a school. For example, this meant bumping in and out with truck and machinery movements had to be coordinated with recess, lunch, and sports training.
- The school had never produced an event of this scale before, so there was a steep learning curve for the stakeholders involved in the process as to what it takes to create one.
The Result
The event was a resounding success. Feedback from the College leadership, performers, and guests praised the precision, professionalism, and emotional impact of the experience.
Dr. Ian PM Lambert, Principal of The Scots College, remarked:
“Your calm, considered nature under pressure was nothing short of phenomenal. You truly set the standard for how to manage an event of this magnitude.”
The Scots College Tattoo 2025 now stands as a flagship example of what we can do at The Media Joint for large-scale event delivery—bringing innovation, storytelling, and tech together.
