The AFC Asian Cup Opening Ceremony was held Jan. 12, 2024, at the 88,000-capacity Lusail Stadium in Doha, Qatar, the largest stadium in the Middle East. The AFC Asian Cup, organized by the Asian Football Confederation, brought together 24 national teams in Qatar to crown the men’s football champion of Asia. The Opening Ceremony was a celebration of unity and inclusivity with performances by renowned Qatari and regional artists who revealed the secrets of The Lost Chapter of Kelileh & Demneh in a breathtaking visual narrative that featured actors portraying 24 animals native to Asia and the Middle East.
The ceremony was on an unprecedented scale, comprising a full-size stage in midfield with a set featuring sand dunes, colorful costumes, and stunning visuals around a central motif of giant mirrored petals. It was simultaneously broadcast internationally across the Middle East, Asia, and Australasia. The event was a first-of-its-kind in that a major opening ceremony production with such elaborate scenic and staging had never occurred on this scale for a football tournament. Furthermore, the event took place directly on the football pitch itself and all scenic and staging had to be cleared in under 30 minutes—by 700 stagehands—to prepare for the tournament’s opening match which took place directly afterwards.
Illuminating the Show
Lighting Designer Roland Greil was brought in by Executive Producers, Katara Studios to provide the lighting design for the opening ceremonies. “It was like the Super Bowl on steroids!” says Greil. His scope of work also included previz, programming and ultimately delivery of the lighting component of the show together with the creative and technical teams. He shared insights into the creative framework, stating, “From the beginning, the brief was to create a highly theatrical experience that was also flexible enough to deliver big ceremony looks and tick all the boxes in terms of a 360° live-for-broadcast show.”
Design studio Sila Sveta created a beautiful organic production design that embedded the local culture and history into an amazing 21-minute visual story. Collaborating with Sila Sveta, Greil supported the story by creating a picture frame for wherever the action was taking place, the stage or elsewhere. “We set the mood and framed the scenery and background with lighting to support the story but also collaborated together with all the other visual elements which were beautiful by themselves. At the end of the show, the theatrical storytelling then transitioned into bigger ceremonial moments.”
The show was a hugely complex, spectacular, yet very theatrical piece with a detailed story line. “We needed a rig that could support the beautiful story on stage and create magical looks for 80% of the time, but also to have additional fire power to create some big looks for the remaining 20% for the live broadcast, and to reflect the joy and enthusiasm for the game of football within the region,” explains Greil. Countering the constraints of stadium rigging positions, Greil worked with Technical Director Shannon Gobell to develop some “really good” lighting positions, the throw distances of which “bring their own physics with it!”
Lighting Rig with Firepower
With large outdoor shows of this caliber there is one major feature of a light that is essential and that is brightness and firepower. “When you do a full-on stadium ceremony you are limited in your lighting positions because you can’t rig lights in open space,” says Greil, “therefore you are dealing with quite long throw distances. With throws of 40 to over 100 meters, brightness can’t be substituted with anything other than more firepower. At the moment, that brings you to one specific beautiful fixture, which is the Proteus Brutus.”
The Elation Proteus Brutus, a 75,000-lumen output LED wash beam FX fixture housing a 1,200W peak field LED engine, is a fixture Greil calls “decidedly unique.” He adds, “as far as I know, it is the brightest wash/beam light on the market, which is a huge help in doing a show like this. At a throw distance of 100 meters there are very few lights that give you enough light to allow you to use color. The Proteus Brutus was the workhorse washlight to light the stage and pitch for this event and we used them in different lighting positions.” Those positions comprised 18 units on each of four catwalks along with 32 units on a circular truss about 60-70 meters above the field.
Greil sought to extend the beautiful stage design and architecture with lighting and therefore extend the picture frame of the show. In order to translate that into bigger looks, he was in search of a beam light that could work on such a large scale. For the designer, a few things were important—brightness and a narrow beam, but also key was a light with a large front lens. He comments, “And that brought us to a trusted partner that I have used before, the Proteus Excalibur. It has a big diameter front lens, creates a lovely beam, and did the job very well in the stadium at that scale.” Fifty-six Elation Proteus Excalibur luminaires spread across four upper balconies with 18 units on each of four catwalks were used to create expansive visual panoramas. “From the throw distance, there is currently no other product on the market that could fulfill the roles we needed those lights to fulfill.”
Key and Side Lighting
For his other lighting needs, Greil opted for Ayrton luminaires. Forty-five Ayrton Domino Profiles and 80 Huracán Profiles were rigged around the circumference of the pitch on Level 0 at a height of at 1.6m with a throw distance of 40m-50m. “These immediately gave us traditional theatrical side lighting without interfering with audience sightlines yet were high enough to fire above the heads of the security teams on the perimeters,” explains Greil. “Side lighting is your biggest friend for those magical looks, and the Domino Profiles and Huracán Profiles were our work horses for key lighting, side lighting, and eye-candy for background imagery from here.” Halfway up the grandstands on Level 4, the lighting team found another perfect lighting position which they filled with 110 Domino Profiles for more key lighting from a distance of 80m-90m. “Domino Profiles are basically an IP version of the Huracán Profile, so I was able to use them both as if they were the same light,” says Greil.
A further 67 Domino Profiles were rigged along two overhead catwalk trusses at a height of 90m-100m providing two high lighting positions from where they could light the audience for background shots, washing them with LED spotlights. Ninety-six laser-sourced Ayrton Cobra fixtures were rigged on top the stadium roof to create aerial beams and extend the effect of the fireworks which were filmed by overhead drones and a heli cam. “We also used the Cobras to create some nice looks that worked from the inside of the stadium, positioning them to build a kind of roof of lights over the open stadium that could be seen perfectly from within.” On stage, Greil integrated 54 Ayrton Domino Washes into the floor which he used to light the scenic elements, but also to create a “beautiful shaft of light” in between the five mirrored LED petals of the main scenic element.
Remote Followspots
Traditional followspots were replaced by a FollowMe remote followspot system working in conjunction with the Huracán and Domino Profiles on Level 4. “In fact, we were able to calibrate each and every one of 450+ Ayrton fixtures in the overhead rig and choose any light or combination of lights we wanted to act as followspots,” says Greil. “This was very beneficial for broadcast as we could pick and choose multiple lights to ensure we had the exact perfect angle for both broadcast and the live performance at all times. This was the first performance of a FollowMe system on a major stadium event and it worked perfectly. We were able to follow performers over an entire football field, not just a defined stadium stage, and we replaced what would traditionally have been 12-20 followspots offering a limited number of angles, with 450 ‘followspots’ that could be used in an incredibly creative way. It gave us huge flexibility and saved us an immense amount of time in rehearsal too.”
Considering the scale of the production, as well as the fact that it also needed to be lit for broadcast, the overall size of the rig—fewer than 700 moving lights total—was relatively moderate and a testament to the efficiency of the design and rig. “In the Arabic world, lighting for the live audience is of equal importance to lighting for worldwide broadcast, so getting the key lighting right is the most important aspect of the whole lighting package to achieve both,” comments Greil.
Multiple Vantage Points
For the video elements of the opening ceremony, Katara Studios chose Creative Technology to provide the video equipment, including screens made with ROE Visual LED panels to bring the awe-inspiring visuals to life. The opening ceremony featured five shell-shaped screens, each with an impressive height of 12 meters. The screens, forming five giant petals, consisted of a total of 600 ROE Visual BP2V2 panels. This magnificent centerpiece enveloped all spectators in the musical, enabling them to understand the story’s background and follow the song lyrics.
“The show was designed to look beautiful from any viewpoint in the stadium. The five screens enabled a 360° view, corresponding to the number of regional federations that make up the AFC,” says Magriga Kamiyeva, Sila Sveta’s Producer of the show. Rooted in the spirit of football, the screens displayed the unique interpretations of the mascots chosen by the 24 national teams to represent their countries, uniting the Asian continent to celebrate unity and inclusivity.
“We’re grateful that Katara Studios brought us on board for this production,” says Riaan Gomes, Senior Project Manager at Creative Technology. “It was an honor to work on such a spectacular and memorable event. We opted for the ROE Visual BP2V2 to deliver mesmerizing visual content. This choice was backed by the fact that the BP2V2 has excellent on-camera behavior.”
“This is another big event we achieved in partnership with Creative Technology in Qatar, following the Qatar World Cup Opening Ceremony. Thanks to our partner for consistently prioritizing high-quality visuals,” says Grace Kuo, Sales Director of ROE Visual.
Collaborative Success
The event marked a significant milestone for producer Katara Studios as well, as it was one of the first times they had fully produced a show of such magnitude in-house. “Katara did all the right things,” Greil remarks. “They hired the right people and brought together a world-class team in all departments to create a beautiful theatrical show.”
Overall, the event was a huge success with challenges overcome, including the limited time allotted for build-up and tear down—which was completed in 27 minutes. “We adapted workflows and routines to the schedule, and it worked flawlessly,” comments Greil. “Thanks to these and a great collaboration between all the departments we were able to beat the challenges of lighting a huge profile event in a stadium. Reflecting on the collaborative success, Greil expressed gratitude to lighting vendor PRG for their unwavering support and excellent collaboration throughout the project. “This event exemplifies the power of teamwork and collaboration in overcoming challenges to deliver a beautiful show. It was a great team effort from all departments,” he concluded.
PRODUCTION TEAM
- Katara Studios Executive Creative Director: Ahmed Al Baker
- Katara Studios Executive Producer: Mahmoud Hamaky
- Stage Design & Visuals Creative Director: Artur Kond/ Sila Sveta
- Lighting Design: Roland Greil
- Associate Lighting Design: Troy Eckerman
- Lighting Programmer & Studio Associate: Michael Kuehbandner
- Lighting Programmer: Markus Neubauer
- Design Assistant & Spot Caller: Tom Levin
- Technical Director: Shannon Gobell
VENDORS
- Lighting: PRG
- Video: Creative Technology
- Staging & Automation: Stage One
- Rigging: Es:Me
