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Strictly Lights Up Wembley for Children In Need

“The highlight of my career!” claimed ecstatic Lighting Director Mark Kenyon as the final credits rolled after the live broadcast of Strictly Come Dancing form Wembley Arena.

This Wembley special was part of Children In Need week and all proceeds from the 6,500 strong Wembley audience (the biggest in the show’s nine series history) were donated to the charity appeal.

Strictly continued a recent trend and, once again, triumphed in the Saturday night ratings battle with X-Factor, reaching a peak audience of 12.5 million viewers.

“The Programme was ground breaking on so many ways” says Mark. “It really raised the  stakes for the celebrity dancers, the pressure was turned right up as the couples had to dance across our largest ever dance floor, while trying to impress our biggest ever studio audience. And to top it all we got to fire Russell Grant out of a cannon!”

Mark continues, “But the reason I’ll remember the show most is because everything came together perfectly in terms of the lighting production. I had the right crew, the right equipment, the right budget, the right venue…in fact, I could not have asked for any more.”

The Lighting Director had around 800 luminaires supplied by ELP at his disposal including 450 moving lights, plus five lasers (provided by ER Productions), projectors and hippotizers to orchestrate an amazing spectacle.

And it wasn’t just Mark singing the praises of this monumental Strictly.

Effects Board Operator Roger Williams remarked. “I was excited when I discovered the music line up BBC production chose for the night. There were no slow ballads, just full on pumping rock and pop numbers which really got the crowd going and gave us a great opportunity to crank up the lighting effects and put the moving lights through their paces. The rig looked enormous and fantastic. My Vector lighting desk has never been so busy!”

Darren Lovell, also operating a Vector desk, controlled all the ‘generic’ lighting on the night and he remarked “Simply the best we’ve ever done. With a rig this big you have so much more potential. It was a privilege to work on.”

Dave Bishop who controlled the screens and LED ribbon, on yet another Vector desk, remarked that “there was no expense spared with the lighting budget and it felt great that all this extravagance was in aid of a great cause”. Dave was also keen to praise the creativity of set designer Patrick Doherty the professionalism of the crew who he says “performed miracles to install the entire rig in under two days”

A six man ELP crew, led by crew chief Joe Sherno had to work fast to prepare everything before rehearsals could begin. It helped that Joe and his team knew the venue very well, not least because he had already crew chiefed the X-Factor Boot Camp auditions from Wembley Arena this year for Mark Kenyon. Alongside Joe were five experienced lighting electricians: Mike Sherno; Craig Broughton; Mark Newell, Sam Madden and Karl Lawton.

A quick run through the vast equipment list shows the range of fixtures supplied by ELP. Their VL3500s were chosen by Mark Kenyon to produce a dramatic search light effect across the dance floor and onto the famous Strictly mirror ball.  VL3000s provided gobo infused patterns across the dance floor, while ELP’s VL1000 TSDs provided key lighting for all the people on stage, the judges, the voting sequence and of course presenters Brucie and Tess.

Martin Mac 2000s wash lights provided a colour wash across the whole dance floor. The dance floor was also decorated at ground level with 32 x shiny silver Robe 700 beams.

ELP’s Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500s were deployed to back light the orchestra and the singers. While ELP’s Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700s were positioned at the end of the truss T-pieces at either side of the stage and dance floor. They created parallel untra-bright light beams which could compete with the rest of the rig and offer dynamic colour changing ‘sky-trackering’ for the LD

ELP’s Clay Paky Alpha Beam 300s, on the other hand, had a very different role. They were placed on tiers throughout the audience seating area. With at least half the seated venue audience looking directly at another audience section, it was important for the LD to create some visual interest for them. This also made for stunning wide camera shots.

ELP’s trusty par cans also got a run out. Supplied in 6 lamp bar configuration, they too were used to back light the audience and to provide added wash to the dance floor.

“It was like layering an amazing cake recipe and I had all the best ingredients” said Mark Kenyon about his lighting design.  “From the Robe’s on the dance floor, through to the LEDs within the stage set, the Vari*Lite’s  and the Clay Paky movers at doorway level all the way through to the rig above the dancefloor and the audience backlighting at the back of the Arena… it all blended together perfectly."