Earlier in June 2022, both Green Hippo and Cameo made headlines, bringing Buckingham Palace to life with cutting-edge, stunning technology for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Concert and 70th anniversary festivities.
Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 drives majestic visuals for Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Concert
As the royal family, politicians, dignitaries, and the public looked on to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Concert, a show fit for a queen unfolded, backed by LED screen content driven by Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 Media Servers.
Highlights of the show included Alicia Keys, Elton John, Rod Stewart, and a look back through seven decades of British music with dance group Diversity. The concert finale saw Diana Ross wow the crowds. The LED screen visuals were complemented by huge video mapped projections onto the façade of Buckingham Palace, and a drone formation displaying Royal crests and celebratory messaging.
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More than 200 square meters of ROE Black Quartz LED screens, supplied by Creative Technology, were erected on the stage, which surrounded the famous Victoria Memorial statue in front of the Palace. These were split into one large LED screen upstage center, and eight LED pillars edging out toward the audience.
Taking the throne for media server programming was Matthew Lee, who was approached by lighting designer for the event, Nigel Catmur. “We had two Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 servers, one main and one backup,” said Lee. “LED screens were fed from two 4K canvases, with other outputs used for my own monitoring, and as confidence feeds to the OB trucks. The Boreal+ MK2 servers were chosen for the number of outputs and inputs required, and their power.
“Having used Hippotizer for a long time, I'm always impressed with the ease of use, the power of the new systems, and that development is continuous. Also, the support team is excellent when you need something.”
The team was presented with the challenge of tight programming and rehearsal time, with on-site get-in, set up and testing restricted due to the huge number of events and people involved in the wider event. “This is when the ease of use, and the adaptability of Hippotizer meant I was able to tweak quickly and on-the-fly where necessary to achieve our target,” Lee added.
Lee programmed the Boreal+ MK2 using a High End Systems Hog4 lighting console, and the whole show was on a Cue Stack, with various manual buttons for items such as the ‘We Will Rock You’ stabs when the band Queen opened the show.
“I used a lot of timecoded content, so we were in Sync with the projection teams, which meant Hippotizer’s Sync Manager was my friend there,” Lee explained “We also used the NDI send to great effect, as I was feeding into the lighting team’s Depence visualizer.”
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LED Screen content ranged from live stage feed to custom made content, which was supplied by NorthHouse. Lee and the visuals team also utilized the live feeds to provide IMAG on various screens at certain points in the events, with screens rigged at sequential positions down The Mall for the thousands who were gathered to experience the event.
The Concert did, of course, begin in daylight and move into dusk. “The ROE Black Quartz LED enabled me to take control of the LED brightness via sACN from my control desk, allowing me to have fine control over brightness as the concert went from bright daylight, through to fully dark. It also meant we were able to push to its brightest output for the daytime events such as Trooping of the Color,” he added.
Cameo illuminates the Queen's 70th anniversary at Buckingham Palace
With more than 16,000 small-to-large street parties, the people of Great Britain celebrated the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's throne during the first weekend of June. But by far the biggest show took place on this day in front of Buckingham Palace in London. Approximately 22,000 spectators gathered in front of the three stages, where Queen and Adam Lambert, Rod Stewart, Alicia Keys, and Ed Sheeran played, among many others, and another 13.4 million watched the BBC's mega-event live on TV. For the lighting of the main stages, Buckingham Palace and the Tree of Trees sculpture designed by Heatherwick Studio, Version 2 Lights supplied more than 600 Cameo spotlights, including over 60 of the new hybrid outdoor all-rounder OTOS H5.
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In total, the forecourt of the world-famous Buckingham Palace as well as the palace itself was staged by 62 OTOS H5, 156 ZENIT W600, 392 FLAT PRO 7 G2, and 72 FLAT PRO 12 G2. The lighting design was done by Nigel Catmur. Nigel used the Cameo spotlights for the numerous live performances of the biggest British pop stars as well as for the moving speeches of heir to the throne Prince Charles and his son Prince William. In particular, the new superstars in the Cameo portfolio—the OTOS H5 Beam-Spot-Wash Hybrid Moving Heads—played a central role in the visual staging of the globally broadcast anniversary party. Prominently placed on high truss platforms, the OTOS H5 framed the action wonderfully and sent impressive beams into the royal evening sky.
The ZENIT W600 LED Outdoor Wash Lights also played an important role in the lighting design of the platinum party. With their massive luminous flux of 21,000 lumens, the wash lights ensured a strong and uniform illumination of the stage in daylight and in the evening. In addition, the Cameo FLAT PRO 12 G2 RGBWA LED outdoor spotlights have been integrated into the set base via circular cut-outs. The even more compact FLAT PRO 7 G2 also set colored highlights at various positions in the set.
