ETC turns to Christie to illuminate the opening ceremony of the 12th Pan Arab Games

The technical services provider ETC employed 42 Christie projectors for the lighting of the opening ceremony of the 12th Pan Arab Games at Khalifa Stadium in Doha (Qatar).

Khalifa Stadium in Doha (Qatar) was transformed for the opening ceremony of the XII Pan Arab Games into a gigantic screen on which paraded, on foot and on horseback, dancers, musicians, athletes and falconers. Conceived by the British event production agency David Atkins Enterprises on behalf of the Pan Arab Games Organizing Committee, the opening ceremony, titled Journey to the light, entrusted everything to the expertise of the French technical services provider ETC and the series of projectors Christie Roadster, expressly designed for event production.

The ETC project manager, Patrice Bouqueniau, describes the opening ceremony of the XII Pan Arab Games as “a totally original installation, even more ambitious than the one we carried out in 2010 in Vancouver… This time, we chose Christie projectors again, partly due to its unmatched lighting power, but also for its exceptional blacks and its incomparable reliability”.

Two towers were placed on the stands located on the opposite side of the projection area, covering the entire Califa Stadium., converted, when night falls, on a giant screen. In groups of three, los 42 Christie Roadster HD18Ks of a tower and the 36 Christie Roadster S+20Ks of the other were in charge of illuminating the stadium terrain and generating the spectacular 3D projections; while, otros ocho Christie Roadster S+20Ks (four per tower) They pointed to the central stage erected next to the stands.

“Covered with a white geotextile, The land was transformed into a huge screen of 136 meters in length by 72 wide”, Patrice Bouqueniau account: a whole pixel challenge 5280 x 3264, that had to face the conditions imposed by the grandiose scenic design. But that wasn't all: The Christie projector configuration deployed by ETC technicians required up to twelve matrix overlays in some sections of the image, all of them modulated using Christie's Twist technology.

Sistema Onlyview

For your part, ETC turned to its Onlyview media delivery system to map video according to 3D projection surfaces. “The Onlyview system allowed the same Christie projectors to be used to cast images on both flat and three-dimensional surfaces.”, commented Patrice Bouqueniau.

For the matrices, ETC opted for projectors 4/3 y 16/9, using Christie Roadster S+20Ks in one, and HD18Ks on the other. “The limitations imposed by the scenery are enormous: We opted for these two types of matrix due to the impossibility of achieving the same pitch angle from both towers that would cover the entire projection surface.”, has explained.

To guarantee the total absence of incidents in the ceremony, ETC decided on what is known as installation “redundant distribution”, in which a servant 'master’ It sends its control signals via fiber optics to each of the slave servers.’ associated with each projector. That way, each slave server stores everything and selects the image section that goes to its projector, sending the data stream via DVI. A parallel support network is updated live, so that, if necessary, each support player transmits the data stream through the second DVI input of each Christie Roadster. “Such is the capacity of a system so you can consider the support configuration you want”, Patrice Bouqueniau stressed.

40.000 spectators

Like every great event celebrated in the past, and like those who, definitely, will be organized in the future, The opening ceremony of the XII Pan Arab Games represented an ideal occasion for technological innovation and digital artistic creativity. In this case, It was projected onto the largest surface ever built on a track or stadium.. Contemplated by no less than 40.000 ecstatic spectators, Christie projection solutions made, one more time, show off its power and reliability at the heart of the action, more than justifying the repeated trust of its associated suppliers.

Journey to the light, a magnificent show that combines the representation of a large number of artistic forms, embodied, above all, a message of peace and freedom expressed through the values ​​of sport and tribute to Arab culture. In an allegory of the union of the peoples of the Middle East, the scenic design sang a song to the desert as a land of prophecy, where diverse tribes learned to live together in perfect harmony thanks to the brilliant light of knowledge.

David Atkins, CEO of David Atkins Enterprises, has pointed out: “In close collaboration with the Organizing Committee of the Pan Arab Games, DAE created a narrative inspired by—and shaped by—the stories and images of pre-Islamic and Islamic history. The ceremony was created to recognize the importance of the present moment, a time in which the very pages of Arab history are being rewritten”.