Kuwait - Kuwait's 50th Constitution Day celebration featured over 235 Watts of laser power, plus lighting, audio, effects, and a record-breaking 77,282 firework in a single hour! Two weeks of setup, plus three tons of gear, culminated in the breathtaking gala witnessed by over a million people.
ER Productions of London, the event's laser and effects specialists, used the landmark Kuwait towers as the show's centrepiece. The towers featured elegant laser mapping which could be seen five miles away. Twenty large mirrors were positioned atop the largest tower, sending laser break-up effects to a three-mile stretch of the city's beach.
To control the massive array of lasers and effects, ER Productions used both wireless and fibre optic data control. Key to the system were multiple laser towers on the beach, firing not only to the Kuwait towers, but also to five 25m display cubes built on sea platforms 170m from the laser sources on shore. On each laser tower was a ProPlex GBS 10-port GigaBit Switch for data control, networked via ProPlex Fibre 'Rock & Roll Tactical' fibre optic cables.
"Our new ProPlex GBS and ProPlex Fibre solution was perfect for the five cube display systems along the corniche of Kuwait City," says ER Production's managing director Ryan Hagan. "The ProPlex system's extremely rugged design and stability secured 24-hour operation for over two weeks in temperatures over 40° C," Hagan adds, "Each of five laser towers used ProPlex GBS RackMount switchers with one located at front-of-house (FOH). The GBS units were each networked via 300 metre runs of ProPlex Fibre cable which even at these distances had a loss of only 0.86 dB! Truly remarkable performance."
Fourteen LOOK Solutions Viper deLuxe fog machines on the beach were controlled by 14 LumenRadio CRMX Nova wireless receivers and one CRMX Nova transmitter located at FOH. "Our wireless signals, across a half-mile of corniche with no line-of-sight, were 100% reliable," says Hagan. "Not only are LumenRadio systems reliable in the most challenging environments, they're also extremely easy to use. To say we love them is an understatement."
