Painting with Light, a lighting and multimedia expert, has kicked off the inaugural Qatar esports WEGA Global Games with a high-energy lighting scheme for the official opening event.
Painting with Light is pleased to announce that it designed an eye-catching lighting scheme for the event’s grand opening in Doha. This unique multi-game competition features several fan favourites, such as CSGO, DOTA2, Street Fighter V and eFootball PES. 14,000 virtual gaming fans attended the opening ceremony at the Khalifa Stadium in Doha.
The event was an immersive spectacle, with elements of VR and AR alongside live performances and entertainment. The audience also enjoyed talks by gaming influencers and esports players. The WEGA Global Games season closes in December with the Global Games Great Final.
The rise of esports
The trend for esports shows no sign of slowing, with large tournament-style events taking place around the world. These competitions, using multiplayer video games played by professional players, attract millions of spectators across the globe.
Painting with Light was asked to create the lighting scheme for the opening event by Show Artistic Director Steven Martin of ArchitectofEMOTION and was commissioned by the Doha-based company The Planners LLC. The team also worked alongside Ludo Vanstreels of Trimex, Technical Production Manager of the Opening Ceremony.
The project required a fast turnaround of just four weeks, from concept to delivery. It included several challenges, including the positioning of the stage which necessitated a ground supported lighting rig. The show included elaborate projections which needed to be mapped onto the stage floor. It also featured holographic images, beamed on a special 30-metre-wide by 12-metre-high scrim.
Painting with Light needed to carefully light around these images, which were also combined with both flying and ground-based performers. The team also had to contend with many video and LED screens.
A spectacular show
The lighting design for the 25-minute show was based around seven 16-metre high towers, three upstage and four downstage, which also doubled as lighting positions. The lighting concept created a sense of depth and a structural framework for the 80-metre-wide oval-shaped performance space. There was also a 1000+ square metre, 12-metre-high back video wall.
The show included projection mapping on the stage surface and holographic images on special holo-scrims. These were located on different levels of the seven towers, along the top of the back video wall and around the stage deck. This created three visual layers, in order to accommodate the whole virtual and in-person cast.
The show told the story of how the country came to host the tournament, with scenes that brought to life the gaming worlds of CSGO, DOTA2, Street Fighter V and eFootball PES. Luc Peumans, CEO of Painting with Light, and his team created a series of special looks with the MegaPointes to compliment the holographic characters. “These offer multiple options for wild, crazy and off-beat effects that were perfect for this show,” he says.
Working together
In order to meet the tight deadline, the team WYSIWYG’d the stage and lighting in the Painting with Light studio in Genk, Belgium. During the process, the team was in constant communication with Martin and Vanstreels.
“Luc and I have worked together for over 25 years, and this synergy and understanding was a huge asset on this project due to the very short timeframe and distance between us,” says Vanstreels.
“The Painting with Light team created their lighting design with the equipment available in the region at the time. Working in WYSIWYG gained considerable time in the production phase with two teams remotely working on one master file, whereby we added all technical equipment and they drew in the light design: a perfect match! Having all these resources to hand plus everyone’s talent, experience, vision and passion onboard helped enormously in pulling a complex and high profile show together under a lot of pressure.”
Martin adds, “Many said it could not be done in such a short time, and yet again … our team nailed it! You need three things to achieve this within such short notice: a good idea and vision to start with, but most importantly the right talented and skilled people around you, ready to step onboard immediately and take on this huge challenge, in this case just before the Christmas holiday period!
“We had those people to support us: the best of the best! The customer’s reaction was sheer amazement with how we pulled everything together with such detail and quality level in such a short period of time.”
Painting with Light is also powering a new interactive gallery concept, The Art Hour, located in the former Holy Ghost Chapel in Mechelen, Belgium.
