A cultural shift in the sands of Saudi Arabia
Until 2017, music was banned in public places, men and women could not mix and socialize, and it was common to be arrested for dancing. So, when 500,000 festival goers danced, mingled and partied during the four days and nights of MDLBEAST: SoundStorm ‘21, it meant more than the EDM music, art and cultural festival that it was. It meant the cultural sands had shifted in Saudi Arabia.
Held Dec. 16-19, 2021, in the desert outside of Riyadh, the event signaled the country’s shift toward becoming a top entertainment destination. It’s part of the Vision 2030 of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Arab newspapers report that the country’s General Entertainment Authority plans to pour $64 billion into its entertainment sector to establish “a vibrant society and thriving economy.”
Big Beast and Beyond
Event producer, MDLBEAST, held its first SoundStorm festival in 2019. For 2021, they wanted it to be the biggest, most design-forward event this region has ever experienced—and break a few world records along the way.
Alex Reardon of Silent House was brought into the project as design director for what was scheduled as a 2020 event. “Luckily it got moved to 2021 as we needed the 18 months of preparation,” Reardon says. His initial focus was the main stage, called Big Beast. But in preliminary discussions with Executive Director of Events for MDLBEAST Michael “Curly” Jobson, and MDLBEAST COO/Creative Director “Baloo,” Reardon was asked to spread his creativity over the entire festival. This would mean responsibility for the design of seven different stages for more than 200 acts on the festival’s footprint of two square miles in the desert. It also meant everything on the festival site had to be in line with the overall vibe and the festival branding. “We touched everything from signage to the massive chill-out area called MDLTown, to the 100m (328’) wide projection mapped entrances,” he explains. “Even to the signage on the water fountains.”
How to even start? “During that first step, we realized the MDLBEAST logo, a big B, is in essence made up of these four-cornered shards with tapered edges. I decided that if we apply this design language, influenced by their logo, it should be a great default to go back to. Then we started riffing on ideas.”
Big Beast was the centerpiece, appearing as a giant falcon, rising up from the desert, loaded with lighting and LED video panels in its outstretched wings. This was where EDM heavyweights such as Steve Aoki, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Major Lazer, Tiësto, and more performed, along with Arab acts as well. “When you look at the shape, it has a huge head and wings off the side of the stage. That was a modernist impression of what a falcon could be, influenced by the MDLBEAST language,” the designer explains. “It is quite simple in its lines because I thought as you increase scale you increase simplicity. And it worked. We had a great deal of help from TAIT and Stageco/Brilliant, who ended up having to pour a foundation because it weighed so much. It would have sunk into the tarmac and into the sand.”
MDLBEAST also wanted to set a Guinness World Record, which they did for the tallest temporary stage structure in 2021, Reardon notes. While the stage width didn’t make history, it did span 230m (755’) wide and require a full three and a half minutes to walk end to end. More than 1,000 lighting fixtures were used for Big Beast alone, which PRG supplied along with LED video, audio, and rigging. [More on PRG’s role on page 20.] The two control areas at FOH were enormous 45’ wide steel structures. It was built in one day, outfitted with vinyl flooring and recessed lighting. As one tech said with a laugh, “I’ve lived in worse apartments!”
The other entertainment spaces outfitted through other vendors [see vendor list] included a 14,000-person dance tent called DanceBeast, a four-stage music complex constructed out of 550 shipping containers called The Underground, and a chill-out plaza area called MDLTown. There was also DownBeast, the lower tempo/band-centric stage. ER Productions and Pyrojunkies provided pyro, lasers, and special effects across all seven stages. To top it off, after each evening’s final act, Fireworks by Grucci set off a show in the sky as a spectacular way to say good night.
“All Things Pixel” in Real Time
Trevor Burk of Visual Noise was the festival-wide screens producer who worked with Reardon on “all things pixel”—from the creative to the technical standpoint, and how it all related. Video was the biggest canvas in that space, Burk notes. All areas featured LED video screens, so they had to fill it with visual energy that matched the show. But it also had the ability to communicate visually as digital signage in case of emergency. Ultimately it was up to Kirk Miller and Burk to meet the goals of Reardon and the creative side, and Zach Wright and the Productionglue team on the technical side, and then the goals of MDLBEAST.
The Video Central Control Trailer was operational 24 hours a day. Festival doors opened between 3-4 p.m., and the last act would finish and clear by 3-4 a.m. Then the team would go into overnight programming for the next night’s headliners. “It was the first thing open every day. Once everything was open and online it shifted to the individual stage teams,” Burk explains. “We wanted to send any content to any screen on site instantly. For example, if the lineup had changes, or if the festival producers wanted to send messages to the crowd, it could be done instantly.” Each stage had its own video screens producer, tech team, lighting director, I-Mag, and camera director. These teams then reported back to Burk for video content or to Reardon for lighting design.
Reardon shares an anecdote of how efficient the “almost instant messaging” from the central control room worked throughout the entire festival site: “Baloo was texting me from The Underground. There were LED screens on the sea containers that formed the spaces between the four stages. These were being used for local video artists. He asked that we put each of the stage’s names on the four LED screens in the walk spaces so people could easily identify at which stage they were. It took about 15 minutes to generate the relevant graphics and push them to the screen. We were even able to—in real time—adjust the ratio of stage info with local artist content. The system worked!”
Burk agrees. “The central control room was a robust and flexible tool that Zach Haywood—the tech producer for all systems across the entire festival—and Laura Frank, screens producer who drove that system, did an amazing job of designing and implementing.” He elaborates further, “Any place where there were screens or monitors in VIP booths it was all under our scope. We had running informational loops built to be wayfinding and keep people up to date. We had a programmer and coder building on a live information server that he coded, so we were able to pull off a database the real time set time changes or other real time data, and in real time create, format it, and bring it up in 3D layers to tell you what was live, what artist was coming up—that was the core functionality of this server. It also served emergency notices, like the need to evacuate the festival site—if it were needed. Because of its real time nature, we could push it to every server. This control room could route anything anywhere and push information signs to every single stage and those working with those stages could pop them up as overlays overtaking whatever content was there. For example, we could send a message like ‘Stay Hydrated’ or so on.”
Burk wanted the normal guest experience to be “exciting and pretty” in the brand of MDLBEAST. “We had huge, long ticker screens and triangle screens everywhere, but we wanted to push and elevate the experience of the artist. We had Notch and Notch effects with I-Mag. We tried to push the boundaries of what it means to have a repository of festival content curated and how it could be used.”
They needed to balance the needs of an art installation with quality content in the venues, while simultaneously cutting a live show that was going to all the closed-circuit loops and getting pushed out to the TV partner, Beast TV. This type of video control was a new idea. “It has never been done before so there was no point of reference,” Burk notes. “We figured it out. We pushed hard to break new ground.”
Laying the Foundation
Speaking of new ground… Before all this could happen, back in October 2020, MDLBEAST reached out to TAIT for help. TAIT put Productionglue forward to work as festival core planners. Zach Wright, a member of the core planning team who worked in support of MDL leadership, says it amounted to developing the semi-permanent festival site plan. “It felt like building a fairgrounds or amusement park,” Wright says, speaking about the 2.04 sq. mile area.
Some infrastructure was already in place from the first SoundStorm 2019. They expanded it. “We have a collaborative relationship with Alex Reardon,” Wright explains. “He defines the aesthetic, and we jump in there with him to support and help realize it. We helped MDL and Silent House develop the festival plan. We added a significant amount of infrastructure and helped support Silent House in developing a vision for how people experienced the festival. That collaboration extends to a number of vendors on the team that helped pull off the show. We didn’t do it alone—many other vendors and companies were a part of this enormous effort.” The core planning team also was responsible for coordination of all vendors and staff working on site, scheduling, access control, and the day-to-day feel of the site. They even had two convenience stores and filling stations, supporting the crew with sundries and yes, ice cream.
Wright says the stats on the show’s production were “staggering.” Among the many developments they designed were a permanent stage, a wall around the site and multiple paved parking lots. A core team of planners and vendors came together to create a massive temporary event site, and now they’ve laid the foundation for MDLBEAST to use the site for other shows year-round.
Shoot for the Moon with Pyro, Lasers
ER Productions Creative Director Ryan Hagan says this was by far their largest single show to date with 430 lasers, 100 smoke machines (using 4,000 liters of smoke fluid), 140 confetti and streamer machines, 80 flame heads and 11,000 pieces of pyro across a single site. “It created the perfect collaboration between lasers and SFX,” Hagan notes. They had a 49-member crew on site to work the event. Planning began in summer 2020 with a “spare no expense” directive from the producers, Hagan says. “Main Stage was true to its name Big Beast, it’s the biggest stage I’ve ever seen. With this directive in mind, we went away and designed the lasers and special effects for each stage with a ‘shoot for the moon’ brief.”
Keeping track of every rider requirement from the 200 performers was a challenging job, given to Dan Ivory, an experienced SFX technician and pyro designer/operator. “He worked tirelessly building daily operating schedules and ensuring the right product was in the right place at the right time.”
ER Productions uses WYSIWYG, Depence², and Finale 3D for visualization, which allowed them to present their ideas visually to the lead creatives for each stage for a preview. “All our FOH control systems have Depence² on-board, so we have full capacity to program off-line and or during daylight hours,” he says.
Production selection was key. Across the seven stages, ER Productions deployed 13 different laser fixtures for varied functions. They also introduced their KINEKT-AS Audience Scanning head. Six KINEKT-AS were chosen for the Underground 3, designed by Sam Tozer of Vision Factory, which was indoors and packed with people. “You needed a fixture that could safely be used as the effects shot all over the place due to the mirror clad walls and ceilings,” Hagan explains. “It looked great in there.”
In Dance Beast they used their new electric Stadium Confetti Blower, which did not require CO2 for pushing the confetti into the air. They also increased their stock of new Luminous Stadium Flames—which offers more operator safety because of its remote arm controller—and deployed 18 across the Big Beast. To shoot all the pyro, they purchased 200 modules and five control consoles of the G2 Fire Control System. ER Productions also manufactured 100 ATOLLA RGB diode lasers, called the AT-30, which is a 30W RGB white light head. “It was the unit of choice for its pure power; we had a lot of video and lighting to compete with, so we needed that kind of muscle. We opted for 66 spread in layers across the stage, with smaller audience-friendly units in between. We wanted to give every audience member an experience, so spreading fixtures out across the entire space was critical,” he adds.
Hagan takes pride using “the right product for the right job”—not just using what is available on the shelf. “We are known for manufacturing large quantities of lasers and even producing more than 130 new units for this show was a proud moment,” he says. “The main stage was simply impressive. Stageco’s structure was an immense piece of engineering that we complemented with flames and pyro across the space. Cheers from the crowd when our teams were smashing the cues one after the other, bang on time—it’s moments like that these that make me realize we’ve done our job properly.”
“Euphoria was palpable”
Looking back, Reardon considers the teamwork that it took to make the event a success. “It was the right people at the right place at the right time. We had a good collaborative vibe. Without Curly and Jim Digby and Productionglue leading the way it was to feel on this production site, it could have been chaos. This was the best organized event I’ve ever worked on in 30 years in the business,” the designer notes. “The whole thing was gratifying.”
While the production element was one of the biggest highlights of the event, Reardon says that perhaps even more impressive was the audience. “It was only a few years ago when it was illegal to dance in public there. The euphoria as a release from repression was palpable. The joy of people being able to come to these events and enjoy what we take for granted was wonderful. It was a great honor to be an observer at the fringe of such societal change. That is something I’ll never forget.”
MDLBEAST SoundStorm ‘21
Some “Staggering” Stats:
- Stages: 7
- Artists: 200
- Festivalgoers: 500,000 over four days at 125,000 per day
- Crew: 1,400 international & over 8,000 local crew and staff
- Festival site footprint: 5.3 sq km (2.04 sq. miles)
- Big Beast mainstage: 41.2m (135’) tall and 230m (755’) wide
- Sea containers: 950
- Fiber optic cable: 11 miles
- Time needed to walk the festival grounds’ perimeter: 2 hours
- Golf carts: 221
Production Credits
- Creative & Design: Alex Reardon/Silent House
- Associate Design Director: Amanda Hamilton/Silent House
- Assistant Design Director: Butch Allen
- Executive Director (Events) MDLBEAST: Michael “Curly” Jobson
- Executive Director (Operations) MDLBEAST: Jim Digby
- Festival Creative Designer: Silent House
- Core Planning: Productionglue
- SoundStorm Screens Producer: Trevor Burk Underground 1,2,3,4
- Lighting Designer: Samuel Tozer
- DownBeast Design: Dan Hill, Chris ‘Squib’ Swain, Cassius Creative LLP
- DanceBeast Design: Ian Tomlinson
Onsite Vendor List
- AES: Events Service & Staging—Underground
- Al Laith: Staging & Structure—Dance Beast, Down Beast, entrance structures
- Brilliant Stages: Staging/Set—Big Beast
- Cassius Creative: Creative design
- Clair Global: I.T. / Radio & Comms
- Coloursound: Rigging, lighting, video, cameras—Underground
- EPS: Barricades
- ER Productions/Pyrojunkies: SFX, Lasers
- Fireworks by Grucci: Fireworks
- High Scream: Creative design
- Irmarfer: Staging/tent supply—Dance Beast
- JR Scenic: Scenic—Big Beast DJ Booth
- Lightblueww: Creative design, graphics, Patron map
- Losberger DeBoer: VIP structures
- Media Pro: Lighting, video, cameras, audio—Dance Beast, Down Beast
- OSA Corp: Screens control room
- PRG: Stage Production (lighting, video, cameras, rigging, audio)—Big Beast
- Productions on Point: Layout
- Rock-It Global: Freight liaison and management—logistics & shipping
- Showforce: Local Crew—Big Beast
- Stage Miracles: Production/Crew—Big Beast
- Stageco: Set/Staging /Towers—Big Beast
- Vision Factory: Creative design
- Visual Noise Creative: Content/Screens
PRG Delivers 360° Services for MDLBEAST SoundStorm ‘21
PRG, an industry leading 360° solutions provider, shared the insightful content that follows below with PLSN.
Learn more about PRG at www.prg.com
After an impressive debut in 2019, EDM fans have waited with bated breath for the return of MDLBEAST SoundStorm–the world’s largest (and loudest) festival. The wait was certainly worthwhile as SoundStorm ‘21 roared back with an even grander and extraordinary second edition. The line-up across the four-day festival featured the biggest names in dance music, including: Martin Garrix, David Guetta, DJ Snake and Tiësto, as well as 11 of the Arab world’s biggest stars, from Nancy Ajram and Elissa to Tamer Hosny and Amr Diab. They performed across multiple stages, including the behemoth main stage, Big Beast, which stood at 250m wide and 42m tall—one of the world’s largest and Guinness-record holding tallest temporary stages. PRG was on hand again to provide 360° technical support for Big Beast, along with site-wide EVAC PA and lighting activations for one of the site’s “VIB” [Very Important Beast] entrance gates and projection mapping of the MDL Town Sculpture.
Supplying Solutions
This epic vision for the main stage was a huge undertaking for the PRG team. PRG supplied gear from its newly established Riyadh warehouse, and this was then supplemented by its various European depots. Over the course of seven months of continuous prep and planning and almost three months of set up on site, nearly 600 tons of technology, including the stage’s entire video, lighting, audio, comms, and rigging package, was delivered.
The record-breaking, continuous screen comprised of over 4,000 sqm of LED, and around 70 million pixels. For the screen’s center, PRG supplied 2,200 sqm of the recently launched Titan-X which was developed by PRG and INFiLED. This was supplemented with ROE MC-7H for the mid wing sections, plus ROE CB5 for the DJ riser. To cater to the mass of stock, weight, power, and pixel considerations that come with such a large single screen project, PRG designed a comprehensive control system, delivering a large yet flexible sync network solution for all artists.
The main stage lighting rig included over 1,000 fixtures, with 130 universes of DMX, six 400A supplies, and 26 km of cable. Fixtures included GLP X Bars and JDC1 strobes, Robe Pointes, Hybrid fixtures, and LED Bars. For audio, PRG supplied and distributed L-Acoustics K1, K2, and KS28 systems across the main stage and the delay towers which ran using L-Acoustics LA12X controllers and were monitored using P1 processors. Carrying it all were 3.3 km of truss and 410 hoists handled by PRG’s rigging team.
“The great thing about working with the 360° team from PRG is that each department can draw upon its own wealth of expertise and resources, and then come together to deliver one exceptional event,” says Yvonne Donnelly Smith, UK Sales Director, Music. “This is a bespoke project, and so PRG built a bespoke team. Such a vast production really needed the internal workings and conversations between all our expert technicians to flexibly develop solutions smoothly. From a production point of view, this certainly makes things a lot easier and has definitely been appreciated on this show.”
To match and deliver the increased scale of the 2021 festival, PRG mobilized its global workforce. Working over 3,000-man days, 130 members of PRG crew headed to the event site from offices in Riyadh, UK, Dubai, Belgium, Germany, and Spain.
At the Forefront
“We’re at the very forefront of the formation of the entertainment industry in Saudi Arabia,” says Michael Jobson, Executive Director – Events, MDLBEAST. “We’ve insisted that our vendors have a Saudi Arabian presence because we can’t continue to support events unsustainably. We have to get going here and everyone has shown a willingness to do this and PRG have now moved into Saudi Arabia.”
In the spirit of the Saudi 2030 vision, this focus on supporting the region and its wealth of talent is certainly shared by PRG. Thanks to its newly launched Riyadh office and warehouse, PRG now has a pool of regional assets and resources for future events. After proudly supporting the Saudi Arabian F1 Grand Prix in Jeddah and SoundStorm ‘21 for MDLBEAST, PRG has established a regional depot that already houses a great selection of assets, building a foothold for accessible equipment in Saudi Arabia to deliver exceptional events in the future.
“Part of our drive within Saudi Arabia will be to make sure that we are recruiting and empowering local Saudi resources and training them to ensure that they develop the skills to deliver large scale events,” comments Bruce MacLean, Managing Director, PRG Middle East. “That’s one of the key drivers of our expansion within Saudi over the last three years.”
PRG also noted that they wanted to send congratulations and thanks to MDLBEAST, Productionglue, and Silent House for this outstanding second edition of the festival and extend special thanks to their incomparable global PRG team for their incredible work.
Learn more about the 360° Services and Solutions that PRG provided MDLBEAST SoundStorm ‘21 at https://bit.ly/3IC6fnp.
