A glittering ceremony marked the opening of the first phase of the $1.5 billion Bahrain Financial Harbour (BFH) in Manama at the beginning of May. An invited audience of 350 high-profile guests, including the Prime Minister Shaik Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, watched as displays of fireworks, lasers, and lights announced the opening of the twin towers of the financial center.
“We’ve used two MA Lighting grandMA full-size, two MA NSPs, grandMA 3D, and grandMA on PC to prepare and pre-program the full ceremony including the lighting for the official speeches, dance performance, and final opening show,” notes Pawel “Spider” Pajak, lighting designer, operator, and programmer of the event.
“During this project it was very useful to have a PDA remote because we needed to have the possibility to adjust the positions of the 4Kw searchlights and architectural lights from different views,” explains Pajak. The main stage was placed on a barge in the middle of the harbor. Among others there was one center screen and two side screens as well as 48 moving lights and 80 LED units attached on the boat. “The 50W green laser was placed at the bottom of the building in the middle of the twin towers and together with two 8W lasers on the barge they created a spectacular beam show,” adds Pajak. Additionally three 10W multicolor lasers were used to create a graphic show on the barge’s center screen.
“The MA system always gives me the chance to save a lot of time on site because of its pre-programming capabilities. Working with the NSPs and the network is just perfect and extremely stable. The ‘worlds option’ gives the possibility to work simultaneously on two consoles and speed up your work, especially if you have lights that are placed in different areas,” says Pajak of his experiences with the MA technology. “The console is very user-friendly and can be setup any way I need. For the preparation of this show, two consoles were used to program at the same time different sections of lights. During the show one was used as a backup console.”
Tomasz Szwelicki worked as programmer, operator, and crew chief. All lighting, sound and laser equipment was provided by Nabil Bourgeili of TechnoPro L.L.C from Dubai. The spectacle was choreographed in cooperation with Flash Art Dubai who added an impressive fireworks display.