06 May 2010
The VW Vivo Polo launch had everyone talking, held at Sun City’s Supberbowl in March 2010 and attended by 6 000 guests. This was not the conventional motor car launch but rather a “spectacular spectacular” featuring Kelly Clarkson, Westlife, The Parlotones, Freshly Ground and other local performances, all complimented with an outstanding lighting display of 102 Robe units. 
Strike Productions were commissioned by Blue Moon to handle the full technical requirements. The show warranted two Technical Directors namely Strike’s Eben Peltz, who was involved from concept to the final event while Jason Fritz, having worked on countless international acts, stepped in as client liaison and additional support. The Polo launch was attended by numerous celebrities and Strike also took care of the VIP area.
“This really was a team of committed and experienced professionals, from the production team to the client” commented Leah Mccrae, owner of Strike. “I was very proud of our team.”
Robert Hoey from Dream Sets was called in by Strike as lighting designer and operator. He in turn received the lighting design from Kelly Clarkson’s LD as well as a lighting spec from Westlife. He altered a couple of things in regards to truss height to make things fit.
“The big thing for me to consider was the set, it was large and filled the Superbowl from left to right,” explained Robert. “ It had been designed to be a lighting surface, so I needed to light it well using different angles. The next challenge was the cars! There were three cars that were lowered from the roof and there were an additional four cars positioned on the set which also needed lighting.”
Lighting List:
22 x Atomic strobes
120 x Par 64s
60 x Souce 4 profiles
28 x Robe 2500 washes
12 x Robe 700 wash
62 x Robe 700 spots
4 x audience blinders
64 x RGB led pars
100 x LED power banks
With 16 dance numbers in the show, Robert added a side lighting rig. In the upstage area the full orchestra utilized a small Intel rig with a strong blue parcan backlight. The emphasis on a whole was to keep lighting bright and colourful yet maintain a clean and fresh look.
“I had a great time with the Robe fixtures, there were no problems and I had a stable rig,” Robert commented. “ The larger units in the Robe range are great lights and I had the pleasure of working with the new Beam 700ws which rocked. Part of my brief was to time code the reveal section of the show, having never done it before, it was a great challenge and the results were outstanding. “
The show was seamless and allowed no delay time on stage. Strike’s Eben Peltz and Jason Fritz explain that one of the obstacles was taking an empty stage and putting Kelly’s full band on it within five minutes. “We built special roll on rises measuring 15m x 4.8m, designed by Dream Sets, which were strong to push five tons of equipment into place within a minute,” explained Jason. “What we did was mount all the vertical stage light trusses onto the back of the rises in their correct positions as they would be placed on stage.” The full backline trussing had lights and cabling all connected and rolled into position by six crew hands. Each of the six vertical trusses on the roll rise was equipped with 1 x Atomic 3000, 1 x Robe 700 Wash, 2 x Robe 700 Spots. 
“I need to say thanks to Strike productions and the team who put this rig up, they all put in so much to make it happen in a small amount of time,” said Robert Hoey. Congratulations on a job well done to Mauritz Jacobs (Lighting Crew Chief), Marco Diewenhaar (AV Operator), Marius Marais (Sound), Richard Smith (Monitors) and the hard Strike Production crew.
To view a video clips of this impressive event, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6UOpIFmn68
