Masters of ceremonies

Opening and closing ceremonies are among the most spectacular forms of event and set the standard for production technology. Aside from creating the wow factor through innovation, the key to a standout ceremony is ensuring it connects with the audience emotionally and teach it something new about the place in which the ceremony is held.

“Ceremonies are best when they avoid stereotypical or well-known storylines about the city and delve deeper into the culture,” says Sarah Grubb, an event operations and technical director who has played a part in events, such as the 2015 Baku ceremonies.

“We’re fortunate to live in an age when technology is rapidly changing and is literally taking centre stage,” highlights Anthony Bastic, founder and ceo at AGB Events, director of Light Vivid Sydney and senior events manager of the 2006 Commonwealth Games. “Audiences are becoming familiar with technology’s capabilities and therefore the challenge for creative directors is ensuring we keep across these advancements, engage with the technology and create magic for our audience.”

Planning on an epic scale
Many skilled people are involved in bringing a ceremony to life, from the creative, technical, operations teams and cast through to the contractors supplying the systems and services to deliver the show. Creating such an event would normally involve around 100 staff and from 200 up to 1,000 contractors, both international and local.

An Olympic ceremony can be years in the making and involves developing the structure of the show, knowing the details will change many times. This is an essential period for undertaking research, storyboarding ideas, experimenting with new technology and creative thinking. Working in absolute confidentiality, so as not to reveal anything about the show and to keep the element of surprise, is essential. The install can last six months or more depending on the design. “This is pretty incredible considering the show is usually loaded out in about 36 hours,” highlights Grubb.

Working in a new stadium can add complications and coordinating with the Organising Committees to ensure the show is supporting the sport side is an additional rewarding challenge. Contractors can get delayed and negotiating those delays usually results in fines and pushing the open date back. “But once our opening ceremony date has been picked, it cannot change,” adds Grubb. “I’ve done some negotiating around how we can continue working while the stadium is being built around us.”

Ambitious staging, atmospheric lighting and projection on a massive scale at the 2014 Sochi Paralympic Games ceremonies (Credit: Ralph Larmann)

Immersing the audience
Technology is often used as a tool to allow the audience to become part of the ceremony, such as the LED pixel paddles at the London 2012 opening ceremony which helped create a seating bowl low-res LED screen. It is also common for light sources to be distributed in audience ‘party bags’ and for specific sequences to be rehearsed with them in the warm-up before broadcast.

Apps give the production team control over colour output of the audience’s phone screens to map audience participation into the audio visual experience. Most shows are designed from the perspective of the television audience and in the control room, production teams watch through camera one. “Ensuring there‘s some audience participation is important, but remember the stadium audience is often only about one per cent of the overall audience,” Grubb adds.

Audience immersion is often achieved using techniques and technologies on a large scale, according to Scott Willsallen, audio director and sound designer for events, such as the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic ceremonies and London 2012 ceremonies.

“Big sound, big stages, big cast groups, big set pieces flying through the air. Ceremony events are typically immersive experiences already. The challenge is to make such a large spectacle engaging at a deeper cultural level rather than just big and flashy,” he says.

Painting a narrative picture
Producing an impactful ceremony demands a strong creative concept the audience can connect with as well as excellent video and audio content. “With a great idea and great content, impact is inevitable, but it’s also important to remember good ideas aren’t always expensive,” says Willsallen.

From a content perspective, Pierre-Yves Toulot, ceo at Cosmo AV, creator of content for ceremonies at events such as the 2013 Mediterranean Games, uses resources, such as realtime production, live compositing, content management and augmented reality layers. disguise also recently combined augmented reality graphics with live performance when they powered the longest ever AR-centred broadcast at the opening ceremony of 2019 Pakistan Super League.

Projection can help add more depth to the production and has become an important artistic tool in conveying narrative and allowing a creative director to ‘paint a picture’ of the themes. “Using animation, we can design a show that allows cast members to interact with projections and evoke emotion whilst enhancing the narrative,” says Bastic.

To create a visual spectacle through technologies, such as projection, other areas of the stadium need to be dark which not all venues are set up to allow with a large audience. As stadiums need lighting on all concourses, concessions and toilets, Grubb often hangs drapes in concourses to create a theatre setting and has taken control of lighting to ensure it does not ruin camera one shots.

disguise powered the longest augmented reality centred broadcast at the 2019 Pakistan Super League opening ceremony

An illuminating spectacle
When developing narrative for the creative, lighting has the power to completely change the atmosphere. The team responsible for this might include 60 riggers, technicians and follow spot operators, with a further eight on the core design team.

As the elements of ceremonies are mandated by the Olympic Charter, and cannot be changed by the host nation, the lighting designer gives clarity and gravitas to protocol sequences such as the athlete’s parade and broadcast lighting spectacle for the creative sequences.

An important change for Olympic ceremony lighting came in 1992’s event in Barcelona when the Olympic cauldron sequence was staged at night, all previous ceremonies having been performed in daylight. “Each country since then has sought to outdo the previous hosts, leading to a culture whereby only the most affluent nations could consider holding the ceremonies,” explains Durham Marenghi, the lighting designer behind opening and closing Olympic ceremonies at events such as the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games in Sochi and the Rio Olympic Games in 2016.

“For example, the opening ceremony at the Beijing Games reportedly cost US$100 million and we were very proud to have achieved what we did in Rio with a fraction of that amount and all those involved hope to have put the staging of Olympic ceremonies back on a less financially demanding even keel.”

Another significant development followed in 2010’s ceremonies in Vancouver when pitch-wide projection was introduced, reducing lighting levels during artistic sequences from as high as 1,500 lux to 150 lux to keep projected images visible. Scheduling of lighting programming at night with the needs of projection remains fundamental. Although projection content is prepared in an electronic environment, the line-up of multiple overlapping projectors is critical and can use up as much time as creative lighting programming overnight if not carefully controlled.

Lighting programmers sometimes need to be protected from changes made during daytime rehearsals to choreographic staging and soundtracks which can throw time codes out. “The trick is to find the balance and set ‘sign off’ dates for more complex multimedia sequences when time coded soundtracks are set in stone, to give everyone a chance to create accurately before the main challenge to us in all these outdoor events - sunrise,” Durham says.

Weather is also an important factor in most countries. When designing the 2006 Winter Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies in Turin, Marenghi could hang very little from the roof due to the snow load factor and spent over a third of the lighting budget on fixture protection. “Technological advances are seeing more IP65 weatherproof fixtures introduced but only the very brightest are suitable for massive throws in terms of distance from source to target.”

The sound of celebration
Music is integral to a ceremony. “It is the continuous thread the visuals attach to, so the faithful delivery of that music to a stadium and television audience is essential,” according to Willsallen, who deployed some of the first 3D immersive audio systems for ceremonies at events such as the UAE National Day in Abu Dhabi in 2017 and 2018 to engage and envelope the audience.

Designing a 36.1 channel audio system using the L-Acoustics L-ISA platform for the 2017 event added a new dimension of creative freedom for the music team when composing. “We developed new recording and production techniques to suit the loudspeaker arrangement,” he says. “Over time this will become more normal, but at the time we were inventing as we went.”

Sound design for such a large-scale event is a lengthy process and is broader than most projects, including audio systems design for the stadium and coordination with the technical team, design and music teams. “We also get involved in the music production to ensure it makes the best use of the venue acoustics and sophistication of the audio system design,” says Willsallen.

Offering the ability to manipulate the show’s timeline in realtime to suit stage management and show calling requirements, sound designers’ replay systems become the host and distribution point for timecode synchronisation to all other technical systems. “Replay systems’ robustness and reliability is important, as are the skills of the operators because so much of the show’s success lies in their hands,” says Willsallen.

Ceremony venues are often massive stadiums designed for sport and to make a half-empty venue sound full, meaning the architectural acoustics are typically at odds with the acoustic requirements of a concert.

“Our loudspeaker system designs distribute the sound to the audience through as many as 44 loudspeaker arrays to reduce the listener distance. This distributed approach also improves the broadcast sound by reducing the reverberation level in the atmos microphones used to capture the live sound of the stadium audience,” says Willsallen.

Broadcast audio has its own set of challenges to ensure the broadcast audience has the best experience. “Audio is a big part of the storytelling and we have a complete overlay of consoles and microphones, as well as the music stems and any live elements mixed specifically to follow the camera cut,” he adds.

Weather considerations: the lighting team working on the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics ceremonies spent a third of the budget on fixture protection (Credit: Helen Marenghi)

Experience and equipment
Rigging and automation challenges are dependent on the building. The hanging capacity in a stadium roof is invariably not designed to support the technology regularly put into arenas. “When working an old existing building with limited roof capacity many considerations need to be made,” says Mark Priestley, capital projects, Unusual Rigging. “Most often it’s a new building or one that has been built especially for the occasion. It also depends on the scale of the show.”

From a rigging viewpoint, there are no additional safety issues other than those normally encountered at a live event. “There might be a perceived increased risk because of the profile, but the reality is it has to be done in exactly the same way as every other job. Opening and closing ceremonies often involve flying people too so great attention is paid to safety. The scale of the event is huge and the eyes of the world are on you, so a team with the right level of experience and equipment is vital.”

Seamless coverage
Faultless connectivity between ceremonies audio and video and broadcast audio and video is key. “Multiple redundancies are needed as this is a live show broadcast globally. Good communication between ceremonies producers and directors and broadcast producers and directors helps ensure camera shots fit the story,” says Carl Gosine, technical director for multiple opening and closing ceremonies.

Televised events allow creative directors to create a show containing nuances designed for the home audience. “For instance, some projection segments are not usually seen in their entirety at a ceremony due to viewing angles,” says Bastic. “Technology allows for the live audience to be accommodated during these segments so all can enjoy the majesty of a large-scale ceremony.”

The key to seamless broadcast audio coverage is to remember everything seen on camera that would normally have a sound should have a sound.

“If a door closes on camera, the sound of the door closing should be heard, either by a mic capturing the sound or by triggered playback of an audio sample,” says Willsallen. “Audio and visuals must make sense and convey the creative intent of each shot and all sound effects tracks must be delivered to broadcast as stems so only the effects that apply to the camera cut are mixed into the world feed.”

Reinventing ceremonies
Every country has different rules and regulations. Ceremonies also use many radio frequencies meaning it can be difficult for the country’s spectrum regulator to understand why so many are needed. “Both of these issues require countless meetings to inform authorities how and why items are needed,” says Gosine.

“Sometimes we show them renderings of the show so they fully understand the undertaking we are about to embark on. Making them feel part of the process leads to better relations in overcoming some of these obstacles.”

The pressure placed on the team by national producers can be demanding too. “As the image of one or more nations is at stake, it is necessary to fully understand the political environment of the country you’re working for,” says Toulot. “This can often be overcome by meeting ever-increasing technological challenges, and therefore quickly appropriating tools in full development.”

Moving forward Bastic sees technology playing an even more significant role in ceremonies: “We can already share our experience whilst at these large cultural events of national significance, perhaps technology will advance to give audiences a greater role.”

From a sound perspective, spatial and immersive audio are already starting to be designed into ceremonies. Augmented reality and audience manipulation of audio and visual elements of a ceremony also provide creative directors with creative opportunities to do something new and exciting. “I can see a future of ceremonies outside of the typical stadium environment, providing opportunities to reinvent the ceremonies experience,” adds Willsallen.

The performance of more than 1,200 Intel drones at the 2018 Winter Olympics opening in PyeongChang inspired more live formations of drones, something which could continue to change the game for ceremonies.

Marenghi feels the emerging world of VR and AR will see more CGI introduced to what many consider should be a live performance experience. “It will be interesting to see what is presented in Tokyo in 2020. The TV audience at the Japan handover at the Rio closing ceremony saw a completely different show than we witnessed live in the stadium before electronic manipulation; it’s up to the public to decide whether this is a good or bad thing.”