The design had to simultaneously respect Québec City’s historical architecture and convey the modern mood of Red Bull events. Photo: Renaud Gagnon.

When energy drink Red Bull puts its name on an event, spectators aren't typically lined up by the tens of thousands to see any demure happenings like an Easter Parade or a county fair — not that there's anything wrong with them — but more along the lines of some extreme sporting event. In the case of the live finals of Red Bull Crashed Ice — described as a combination of downhill skating, hockey, and boarder-cross, and broadcast on Canada's TSN sports network — a crowd of 85,000 lined a 1,750' ice track to witness skaters racing head-to-head in many heats, after a double elimination round that narrowed the field from the top 64 qualifiers to a final four. To top it all off, the day culminated in a Three Days Grace concert open to the public and held in front of Parliament.

Granted, Red Bull Crashed Ice may not be as “household” a name as The Olympic Games. In fact, its origins only date back to 2000, but the event is gaining international momentum. January's event in Québec City, for instance, was so fondly anticipated that it was held as the city prepared to launch its 400th Anniversary celebration.

Here's how it works: The course requires around three weeks of prep and construction, during which approximately 100 local crewmembers — just for the ice — shovel 40 boxes of 1,700lbs each (that's 68,000lbs in total) of ice across the streets of Old Québec. A cooling system keeps the ice surface smooth and maintains proper temperature, and polymer boards act as guardrails at the borders of the track, where fans stand only feet away from the racers. For foundational support of the structure, 900 adjustable steel legs and several thousand wood screws keep the crowd-track boundary intact.

The Old Québec course started under the Château Frontenac, overlooking the Saint Lawrence River, down the rue du Fort. Racers reach speeds of over 30 miles per hour, winding through various streets and past landmarks and even sprinting down the iced-over stairs of rue de la Place, just before the finish on Place de Paris.

With so much area to cover for the race itself, as well as the celebratory concert to end it all, lighting designer Hubert Gagnon had several considerations, not the least of which was balancing tradition with extreme sports. “I tried to have the overall design respect the historic architecture, while bringing the modern spirit of all Red Bull events. The track was divided into five zones that were clearly marked with different architectural masterpieces. I wanted to make a different look for each zone while keeping continuity in the design.” Gagnon — hired by producer Patrice Drouin from events company Gestev, with whom he collaborated in 2006 on the same event — adds that keeping his design simple was crucial, while integrating strategically placed, “stunning effects” to make certain areas pop.

Equally important was making sure the design looked just as good for its broadcast as it did in person, all without losing the event's live onsite energy. “For this project, I just wanted to do something really aesthetic and fun to look at, but I needed to remember that it's a TV sporting event that transforms into a big finale and concert. I needed one beautiful big picture to play with.”

Having worked this gig before, Gagnon notes he learned from prior experience how to manage the massive area. His biggest challenge last year, for example, was keylighting the entire track, but he also contended with a lack of space for scaffolding, the danger of cable protectors crossing all roads, evenly lighting the track, load-in time, cost, electricity, “and lots more,” he says. “The solution was to use many custom small fixtures mounted on brackets that fit on the 4'-high Plexiglas^® sideboards that divided the track from the audience. Then, hooks screwed to the entire length of the track held all the cabling from the start to finish.”

All the scaffolding was provided and installed by Groupe EST, represented on this project by Steve Bouret. Gagnon worked with Bouret to devise a system that shared as much of the scaffolding as possible for lighting, sound, and camera requirements in order to save space and keep some out of sight. “The crowd is everywhere — climbing, jumping, standing, sitting — and the background of the show is the splendid 400 year-old architecture of Québec, so I couldn't hide all the set with scaffolding. This year, I decided to place at the bottom of almost all scaffolding towers a dimmer city mounted on a floor at 2' and protected by a roof and some plastic cloth and hidden by black or white scrim,” says Gagnon. “It helped to protect the gear and saved us time on installing cable, because we only had to bring a feeder and a DMX cable to each tower.” To supervise the rigging installation, Gary Bibeau, whom Gagnon calls “one of the best here in Québec,” was brought in.

Gagnon made particularly rigorous use of the 850 Stonco EQ500L Quartz Floodlights installed on the audience barriers, using them for keylighting as well as for effects for aerial shots that chase the racers. For additional lighting effects, he notes that the “VL3000 spot was a very powerful and reliable fixture that helped a lot in the visual signature. Its strength gave us the chance to hang fewer fixtures with the same results.” Three MA Lighting grandMAs and one grandMA light (used as a remote to focus the track area and afterward as a backup) controlled the event.

For projection, three Arkaos VJ DMX servers, as well a fourth with its pixel-mapping feature, were on site, all linked to a grandMA via Art-Net. One server fed 200 Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12s — two screens of a 5×20 matrix that formed a large LED display to scroll ticker text — hung on the Porte Prescotte, a pedestrian crossing over the road. Gagnon merged the output of the pixel mapper with one of the grandMA outputs to control the ColorBlasts directly from the console. Another Arkaos server ran direct video out to a Christie Digital Roadie 25K projector, with another doing edge-blending projection to two Roadies. “I am really satisfied with the pixel mapping,” says Gagnon. “It was a lot faster to program the ColorBlasts like that.”

While the screen of ColorBlast 12s — Gagnon says it “upgraded the overall look” — provided additional branding and race information to the audience, another 96 ColorBlasts were integrated into the finish line set and use to light the sculpture Dialogue with History at Place de Paris that Gagnon describes as “a big Rubik's Cube.” In another area, ColorBlasts provided uplighting on a fortification structure. “The ColorBlasts helped me a lot in doing interesting effects without adding too much power on the overall project,” says the designer.