as read on the MA site:
With the slogan "One World, One Dream" all nations were invited by the People's Republic of China to the Summer Olympics 2008, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. The Opening Ceremony has been held in the Beijing National Stadium, - the "Bird's Nest" - which can seat as many as 91,000 spectators. More than 2,300 DMX controlled fixtures ( Martin 2000 wash and wash XB )and 45,000 parameters transformed the stadium into a never before seen sea of lights. 3 x grandMA full-size plus 3 x grandMA full-size as backup, 2 grandMA light as well as 46 x MA NSPs controlled the highly sophisticated lighting network during the Opening Ceremony.
"Afterwards, all of the fixtures needed to be given a position in the grandMA 3D world for the pre-programming sessions", adds Collison, "This gave us the chance to use the wireframe visualiser in the grandMA as well as being ready for grandMA 3D to come online. Each session only had two user profiles. One was for the operator, the other for administration. Each session was named with reference to it's colour as were the show files – red, green and blue."
"We now had to set-up the pre-programming studio at the Beijing Olympic Committee Headquarters. This existed in various modes but the one I liked the best was each session with it's visualiser on a plasma screen in front of them. This, combined with a projector fed from grandMA video, with each session blended in to form one picture worked a treat. It allowed the team to see their programming all at work. By beginning of May we started the transition from pre-programming to on-site. Fixture by fixture, truss by truss, the system came online. On June 12th, rehearsals began." On August 8th the Opening Ceremony attracted the attention of millions.
Altogether 2,342 fixtures were used for the show which consisted of, amongst others, 308 x Vari*Lite VL3500 spot, 316 x VL3000 spot, 180 x VL3500 wash, 112 x Clay Paky Alpha Wash 1200. The first session had 15,921 parameters with 14 MA NSPs and 834 fixtures, the second 13,503 parameters with 16 MA NSPs and 884 fixtures, the third session 15,987 parameters, with 16 MA NSP and 624 fixtures .
The video system under the creative direction of media artist Andree Verleger from Germany included 60 x media servers, 86 x Christie Roadster Projectors with Orbital Heads and 63 x Cinema Christie Projectors. HP Pro-Curve 2626 field switches, HP Pro-Curve 8212zl and kilometres of multi mode fiber optic cable were the backbone of the huge network. "I am absolutely excited about the professionalism and support I was getting also for "my" video part during all those month from MA Lighting and the entire lighting crew", states Verleeger. "This underlines how important it is that lighting and video are going hand in hand. This teamwork gave trust and an ongoing motivation to realize another record in this show: the world's largest projection screen with around 600m.
Sha Xiao Lan was the lighting designer, Paul collision in charge of the control system and the broadcast lighting. Feng Bin, Wu Guoquing and Huang Tao worked as grandMA programmers. Lighting assistants were Quan Xiaojie, Zhang Wei, Wang Zhiyi, Ma Jiebo and Wang Tong. As lighting production company worked CCTV – Central China Television in conjunction with Quan Jiang, Shang Hai Televison, Gong Ti, Bei Ao, and Feng Shang Shi Ji. ACE - Advanced Communication Equipment Co Ltd. was responsible for the technical realisation.
