Lighting designer Durham Marenghi shares some photos and musings on his work lighting the Olympic Handover Ceremony in Beijing.

The lighting process involved being granted two hours to create our show cues for the Olympic Handover, after the technical rehearsal had taken place; the show was then changed in rehearsal and we returned to the Stadium to relight. Unfortunately the stadium was preparing for the soccer final that night and we were not allowed to turn out the floodlighting, a bit of intuitive lighting design here! If we put all 2,300 fixtures in white and pulled the master up and down you could just about see a light level change!

The London 2012 Handover Ceremony was performed at the Beijing Olympics 2008 and formed part of the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The sequence featured dancers from the Royal Ballet, CandoCo, and Zoo Nation with performances by Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page, and an appearance by David Beckham.
The creative team for the Beijing Show was headed up by London 2012 Director of Culture, Ceremonies, and Education, Bill Morris, Head of Ceremonies Martin Green, and Creative Director Stephen Powell. 

Musical Director for the show was Philip Sheppard, Ray Winkler was the Production Designer, Costumes were designed by Jonathan Bentley, Stage Management was led by Sam Hunter and John Farquhar-Smith was Production Director.

The lighting designer for the host event Opening and Closing Ceremonies was Sha Xiao Lin assisted by Paul Collison, Dennis Gardner, and Steve Kellaway; lighting programmers were Feng Bin, Wu Guoquing, and Huang Tao and the lighting in the Stufish Designed 2012 London Bus was programmed by Tim Routledge.

The Bus returned for the Paralympics Handover on September 17th and featured performances by drummer Cherisse Osei and Guitarist Sam Hegedus with an appearance by Wheelchair Basketball Medalist Ade Adepitan.

For additional in-depth Live Design coverage on the Beijing Olympics, please see the cover story in the September issue “Going For The Gold.”