The Youth Olympic Games

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The inaugural Youth Olympic Games were held in August 2010 in Singapore. The event hosted youth athletes 14 to 18 years old from 204 countries competing in 26 events—all hopefuls to compete in the upcoming Summer Olympics.

The opening ceremony was held on August 14 at the Float @ Marina Bay Platform, the world’s largest floating stage located in the heart of Singapore. The Singapore skyline served as a backdrop, which required a display of lighting, lasers, and fireworks to truly incorporate with the scenery and show off the venue at its best. An audience of 27,000 plus the 3,500 athletes and an estimated 2 billion television viewers were mesmerized by the spectacle.

The set involved a ring of shipping containers to symbolize Singapore’ significance as the largest harbor in South East Asia. A 54,000sq-ft. lake was created in front of the stage. In the middle stood a 105’ lighthouse, which held the cauldron for the Olympic flame. In a very different approach to typical Games ceremonies, the Singapore skyline was used as a background, which was tied in with tremendous lighting effects, skytrackers, and fireworks on the buildings, with signal delivered by Wireless Solution W-DMX™.

The lighting design for both opening and closing ceremonies was done by Koert Vermeulen, principal designer of Belgium-based ACT Lighting Design. PRG supplied technical services, rigging, and over 1,900 lighting fixtures for the ceremonies. Local supplier Showtec Communications Pte Ltd supplied the W-DMX equipment and signal support for the show.

For the opening ceremonies, the floating stage platform was flooded, turning it into a floating 2”-deep “lake” measuring 395’x272’, creating an additional projection surface. From the seating area, the audience members would see the Marina Bay and Singapore skyline explode into light and color behind the marvelous floating stage.

For the skyline, a total of 13 W-DMX BlackBox S-1 transmitters and 13 R-512 receivers distributed signal to buildings surrounding the main site, some up to a 1-mile distance. The system ran approximately eight hours a day for 12 days straight without a problem.

Vermeulen says, “As a lighting designer, it’s really not so much my problem to worry about the DMX signal, but I will say that when I knew we were using the W-DMX brand, I felt much better. It has the best reputation among all the wireless DMX brands available. Some I have used are OK only in a theatre setting, but when you get them into extreme conditions and long distances, the reliability disappears. Not so with W-DMX. We had to work within rules of the air traffic and the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) so we could only run certain hours of the day, but every time we struck, everything worked flawlessly.”

Creative Team

ACT Lighting Design
Koert Vermeulen, Principal Lighting Designer
Thomas Boets, Associate LD

Showtec Communications Pte Ltd
Henry Ang, Project Director
Safiee Sawai and Benard Lee, Technical Managers
Paco Mispelters, Programmer
Jimmy Stas, Operator
Jordan Lee Chien Yin, Night Show Operator

Equipment
13 W-DMX BlackBox S-1 Transmitters
13 W-DMX BlackBox R-512 Receivers
Syncrolite SXB 7/2
Syncrolite SX 8K
Clay Paky Alpha Spot HPE 1500
Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500
Martin Professional MAC 2000 XB Beam,
Philips Vari-Lite VL3000s
PRG Bad Boy
400 DTS FOS LED
2 MA Lighting grandMA2
1 MA Lighting grandMA2 Ultra Light