Technical support and equipment supplied by Blue-i and mclcreate are set to transform the Edinburgh International Festival’s opening event.
The Standard Life Opening Event: Bloom will be transforming the city’s St Andrew Square with projection mapping, animation and a specially commissioned music score by award winning composer Nick Powell. The event celebrates the vibrancy of Edinburgh. The immersive environment will be created in part by Blue-i Theatre Technology and mclcreate.
Bloom takes place on August 4th and 5th. This is the third year that 59 Productions, the Festival’s artistic associates, have been commissioned to create animated architectural projections.
St Andrew Square will be transformed into a gigantic canvas for projection-mapped animations, thanks to mclcreate and Blue-i’s range of premium projectors and equipment. The Edinburgh landmark will be turned into a fully immersive environment, an innovative visual masterpiece, vibrant with rich colours, textures, sounds and sensations.
The event is inspired by the Festival’s first chair, Sir John Falconer – Lord Provost of the city. His belief was that the International Festival should ‘provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit’.
“It is always a pleasure to be a part of this spectacular event that celebrates the creative and diverse talent in the unique city of Edinburgh,” says Ross Blair, Operations Manager at mclcreate. “The city presents the ideal setting to employ the engaging nature of projection. Creating an instantaneous reaction when used correctly, projection can be a hugely powerful tool to create an all-encompassing atmosphere which is exactly the aim of the Standard Life Opening Event.”
Bloom is a massive project and there are only a few technical suppliers in the UK that could handle an event of this magnitude. mclcreate and Blue-i are the perfect partnership with their joint technical knowhow and volume of equipment combined with their close working relationship.
A grand total of 52 projectors will realise the creative vision. Blue-i will also be providing additional tech including 64 outputs; nine moving head camera channels; 2,700 metres of fibre; 10,000 metres of CAT6; 50 metres of label tape; a staggering 1,000 cable ties and 688 networking outputs from 38 switches.
“Edinburgh International Festival marks an exciting time of year for us at Blue-I”, says Ed Cooper, Director at Blue-I. “Projects on this scale are rare and always provide a welcome and exciting challenge for the team. Working alongside mclcreate allows us to provide effective support to this spectacular event and we are greatly looking forward to seeing this year’s offering which promises to be even more impressive than ever”.
“The Standard Life Opening Event truly demonstrates the commitment to innovation and ambition that the International Festival has even in its 70th anniversary year,” says John Robb, Head of Technical at Edinburgh International Festival. “It is a truly fitting start to what will be an incredible three weeks of the best theatre, dance, music artists and companies from both the UK and around the world. By working alongside mclcreate and Blue-i Theatre Technology we are able to utilise their expertise and facilities in order to successfully produce such a large scale projection event of immense technical complexity.”
