UK - Strictly Come Dancing decamped to Wembley Arena for the second year running during Children In Need weekend. LD Mark Kenyon reports, "Having an extra two load-in days provided more time to set up, rehearse and fine tune the look for each individual dance act."
Last time round crew chief Joe Sherno and his six man team performed miracles to have all the lighting set up in under two days. This time they had an extra couple of days on site and also spent several days prepping gear at ELPs main distribution warehouse in Alconburry before load-in. Shemo worked closely with ELP project manager Barry Denison on the technical drawings and specifying a vast amount of ELP truss for the job.
"There were 850 lighting fixtures on this year's Wembley show. That's about 50 more than last time round." calculates Denison. "The main difference on this production was the dominance of Clay Paky Sharpys across the lighting rig."
ELP supplied 130 Sharpys which completely encircled the giant Wembley dance floor from above. "Sharpys provide the dominant lighting look of the current studio based series and so I wanted to mirror that for the Wembley special," remarks the LD.
He continues, "Most people involved in lighting production are aware of how bright, long and parallel their laser-like beams are. So for a venue like Wembley, Sharpys are perfect. Production love them and they are light enough for crew to carry one in each hand. They really are the lamp of the moment."
Mark Kenyon was assisted by board operators Darren Lovell (generics) and Dave Bishop (moving lights) both using Vector lighting desks. Some of their important programming included: ELP's Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700s provided audience and back lighting while ELP's Clay Paky Alpha Sopts were set to cover a variety of 'specials' on the night. VL 1000s provided key lighting for all the people on the stage, the judges, presenters plus the all-important and dramatic voting sequence. Decorating the stage were 24 super-slim Robe Robin LED wash lights to give the stage some extra sparkle to Patrick Doherty stunning set design.
Another area where 2012 improved upon the 2011 Wembley production was in the lighting of audience. There was more colour splashed on the audience this year with ELP Alpha Beams and Par cans adding vibrancy to the seating areas. Plus an array of Chauvet LED banks at the very back of the stadium supplied "background twinkles" and ensured there were no dark patches on screen when cameras panned across the stadium.
"On the night everything came together and we had an excellent show," concludes Kenyon.
