Shanghai Expo

[RoderickvG]

OK, I'll put my neck on the line.
Did anybody else watch the Shanghai Expo opening on telly last Saturday?

Being touted as "what organisers said was the largest searchlight display in history, the largest collection of multi-coloured laser firepower ever assembled in one place, the world’s largest LED screen, one of the largest dancing water fountains ever, and the “largest light show ever attempted”" I would like to add one more adjective: most boring display of technology.

To me it proved that having all the toys in the world doesn't necessarily make an interesting show.

And equally annoying, why isn't there a credit list for this extravaganza? Some people like equipment lists, I like to know who did what? David and Ignatius get regular mentions but no-one else. Does anyone know who worked on this gig?
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Think it is too expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire an amateur

[Andy Ciddor]

I'm in Shanghai at the moment, but missed the opening as I was in the air on the way here. Yesterday, from in the grounds of Expo I saw the site of the rig, including the rigging for the now-removed video wall. All of the searchlights were still strapped down in their towers. Looks like a vast project from what I could see.
Paul Collison has been here working on the project for months. When I speak to him, I'll try and get him to visit this Forum to answer some questions.
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Andy Ciddor

[Don Allen]

I saw it on tv and it was let down by the camera work or director. There was lots of equipment, lots of activity, but no cohesive image of what was happening. This would have been a great show to see live because it catered for a large viewing audience spread out over a large area.
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Lighting Designer and manufacturer of Theatre Electronics

[BLOW]

I'm actually in Shanghai at the moment ( working in the australian pavilion ) and saw the opening from the window of a hotel.

Didn't see the TV version of the show but given the size of the site the equipment density would have been much bigger at the logies ( not that I saw this years )

What I did see was a very impressive amount of equipment spread over a huge area. From my observations the term searchlight has probably been extended to include 1200/1500w wash lights. That being said there were probably 200 or so searchlights and truckloads of LED fixtures spread across the entire city. There was a bridge ( the Nanpu ) that I gave probably would of had 40 or more search lights mounted on scaffold towers on its pedestrian side walk.

The other bridge at the end of the site ( the Lupu ) had a lot ( at a guess 2-300 ) of relativley smaller lights. From the rehearsal I saw from my hotel room each evening the operators/programers were doing some very interesting effects

I have learnt a while ago that judging the quality of a production from its TV coverage is a risky thing to do.

Also working in china and all the obstacles thrown in your way tends to results in jobs talking much longer to do than you would normally expect.

$0.02

[enoch]

Well said Richard.

[JBoer]

[Kris Heinceslater]

I Believe the fireworks was also run by an Australian. As to whether he desgined the show I am pretty sure he did but not 100% on that.
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[RoderickvG]

Fair comments from all.
Whilst I agree that judging anything from television coverage is dangerous, reality is that 99% of the target audience will watch it on telly. I believe that if you design something that will be broadcast, you should take that into consideration.

In general, what disappointed me was that it was just a display of wobbly lights changing colour that could be anywhere. Maybe there were some pretty patterns, but what made it relate to Shanghai or the Expo?
It could just as easily have been Melbourne or Brisbane, any city with a river really.

I don't have any answers, I wasn't there and don't know what could have been done differently. I fully appreciate the difficulties of working in China, but that is a known issue that can be factored in when developing the concepts.

I am not trying to bash the hard work of a lot of talented people that would have gone into this display, just expressing my disappointment.
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Think it is too expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire an amateur

[p_c]

Equipment & People list as requested.

Lighting Fixtures
453 Lighting positions (towers) distributed along both sides of the Huangpu River. One tower every 12.5metres
749 AutoLT 7kw Xenon Searchlights
477 AutoLT 4kw Xenon Searchlights
130 Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes
200 ClayPaky Alpha Wash 1500LT

Lighting Control System
Grand MA2 Control Network
3 Fullsize
3 Light
6 NPU
4 NSP (4-Port Node)
36 2-Port node
2 x GMA1 Ultra Light- Water Barge
1 x GMA1 Ultra Light- Water Fauntain

More Optic Fibre,switches, FSO and battery powered Haibao's than you could possibly muster. 250m Long 32m High LED screen.

6000 500mm LED Balls


Project Manager- Paul Collison
Lighting Design- Robert Dickinson
Lighting Design- Ted Wells
Assoc Design- Chris Werner
Assoc Design- Noah Mitz
Lighting Programmer/Director- Mark Butts
Lighting Programmer/Director-Jason Rudolph
Lighting Programmer/Director-Paul Sharwell
Project Manager ACE- Zhang Wei

Television broadcast by CCTV of China.........

Target Audience most definitely was the VVIP balcony.

[BLOW]

p_c

What were the lights on the Lupu bridge ? Were they the Alpha washes or did you use the search lights.

Cheers,

Rich ( now back in Melbourne )

[p_c]

Hey Rich,

The Lupu had 60 7k Searchlights on the arch and 50 on the roadway.

The Alpha's were extra "fill" from the VIP side and centered around Celebration Plaza for the water elements.

[hdmcc]

there's an article on the MA site

http://www.malighting.com/show_cases.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=2310&tx_ttnews[backPid]=143&cHash=e0ce2318a2

Out of interest, what was the res of the LED screen? and what was running it?

[Bivio]

I know we're specifically talking about lighting and associated infrastructure here.

I've read conflicting reports that the total budget was about $4 Billion (US?), but others in the mainstream media have quoted nearer $60 Billion; without much explanation as to where that sort of money was spent. Australian media also pointed out that China were able to pay cash for such an extravaganza, in the context of current global financials.

$4 Billion is a lot of money in AUD, US or the Pound. As we know, most countries undertake a significant project (for a large city) with that sort of budget. By comparison, $60 Billion is off the radar (unless it's a low value currency)!

Does anyone know where that sort of money was spent on this expo ? Did they build whole new convention centres and associated facilities ?

Even massive lighting and fire works displays wouldn't put much of a dent in that sort of budget. It's surely a good thing for our industry, in the bigger picture. If China are buying lots of top end gear the economies of scale should flow down the line. Like the engineering that goes into a Farrari and ends up in a Hyundai.

I wonder if they even have a strict budget for lighting? Maybe they allow it to grow organically and put the budget in place afterwards? Great for the options and creativity that would allow.

[Andy Ciddor]

They re-tasked an area of some 5 or 6 sqkm of riverside land in a city of 20+million people to hold many dozens of pavilions and performances spaces and shops and toilet blocks and dozens of centralised aircon plants the size of 3 storey blocks of flats. The elevated pedestrian walkways are the size of six-lane freeways. The site is designed to handle 400,000 visitors per day for 160+ days. The queues to see pavilions run into thousands of people with wait times of up to 3 & 4 hours. You can't even get into the queue for the China pavilion. At 6pm on Monday night I waited two hours to see the Japanese pavilion (fabulous shows though).
The opening ceremony was a very minor side event in the whole scheme of expo. eg. the China Shipping pavilion, just behind where the video wall was located, is a converted ship building yard that would probably fit most of the Docklands Arena (whatever it's called this fortnight) under its roof and till have space to spare. The whole Expo project is an extraordinary undertaking.

There has got to be $10 million spent on those extensible crowd control barriers and many times that spent on temporary fencing to manage queuing lines. Volunteer uniforms alone probably cost as much as the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony.
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Andy Ciddor

[BLOW]

>> Volunteer uniforms alone probably cost as much as the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony

Did you notice that there was there were 3 sorts of "volunteers"
1 - The seemly warm and fuzzy younger kids who were most likely "encouraged" who were in the guest relations sort of rolls.
2 - The older people given the red "volunteer" arm bands who were probably told to "volunteer" to sweep streets , man pedestrian crossings and other sundry roles.
3 - The government goons put into under cover rolls and given a red "volunteer" arm band to disguise them. Perfect example of this was the undercover policemen at the entrance/exit of every metro station eyeballing every one who entered.