Q Vision supplies Dohas Marine Festival

The 45-minute Secrets of the Sea production was a joint Qatari and Italian production and involved a cast and crew of over 300. On the audio side of the show Q Vision opted to go with Meyer Sound. ‘It was an acoustic performance, plus there was a lot of intelligibility required from the sound system because there is dialogue and storytelling as part of the show,’ explained Q Vision managing director Sharif Hashisho. To meet these needs the company used 24 Meyer Sound M2D curvilinear speaker array cabinets plus 16 M’elodie speakers and eight Milos.

Lighting for the event came from over 250 moving lights from Clay Paky as well as LED stage bars from Martin Professional. The visuals were supplied by a pair of 30k Christie projectors producing a 30m wide projection on a water screen installed in the sea.

It was with this part of the show where the largest challenge for Q Vision occurred. ‘The most difficult situation in Qatar is always the wind,’ said Mr Hashisho. ‘For the first few days of the Marine Festival it was very windy – around 20 knots. It was especially difficult for the water screen.’ However, the company was prepared for this eventuality and had contingency plans in place. ‘What we did was put the projectors above the control room to project on the stage floor. Instead of projecting on the water screen we projected on the floor of the theatre.’

The festival itself, which was in its second edition, was a celebration of Qatar’s marine heritage and ran for just under two weeks at Doha’s Cultural Village. It featured 16 attractions designed to entertain and educate and demonstrate the importance of the sea in Qatar’s past, present and future.

www.qatarvision.com