Ferrari’s for everybody!

The Arena where the magic happened. Photo by Seth Ericsson.

On the 30th November last year, Visual act were in Abu Dhabi to help out with another groovy live event. 

Ferrari has built a theme park on Yas Island, right next to the recently christened Formula One race track. Have a look on Google earth, Ferrari world is the enormous red building beside the racetrack. This theme park boasts not only the largest roof in the world and the largest Ferrari emblem, but the fastest rollercoaster ever built.   

The grand opening of Ferrari world was an ambitious show that had thirty minutes to tell the story of the evolution of Ferrari; the main theme was the essence of Ferrari with the fusion of Power and Elegance. Power was represented by the black Arabian racing horse and elegance an excerpt from the opera “Madame Butterfly” with full orchestra. The opening scene was of an underwater paradise and paid homage to the host land with the depiction of the ancient art of Pearl diving. The pearl divers were connected to Visual act winches and the effect was that they would swim down from the surface of the ocean and collect pearls from the stage floor (sea bed).   

Later in the show the acrobats changed costume and became spacemen tumbling through space and time. The resting position of the spacemen depicted the star constellation of Pegasus (horse, do you see the connection). After the space section the acrobats changed costume again and had to represent Power in the shape of an internal combustion engine. The acrobats became Pistons and moved up and down in synchronization with a projected crank shaft. The ten acrobats moved up and down with an eight meter stroke. It was the best representation of a human piston crankshaft I have ever seen.   

Then the show turns toward Elegance with beautiful opera singing and an acrobat on a tissue (big stretchy bit of fabric). The tissue was connected to one of our winches and it raised the acrobat to 15 Meters where she performed very elegantly to the opera. 

The show climaxed with a phenomenal fireworks display and everybody was happy. The show was witnessed by all of the top Ferrari people and non other than the Sheik of Abu Dhabi, Sheik Al Khalifa. He was very happy with the show and bought Ferrari’s for everybody. 

So no matter if you want to fly a camera, a person or a group of people miming an internal combustion engine for the opening theme park, Visual act can provide the motion for your notion.   

The show was performed using the Visual act Stage Control System and 8 of our standard winches, each with a load capacity of 250 kg, 2,0 m/s and 60m stroke.   

written by Andy Colhoun, Visual act Operator 
 P.S. We never really got Ferrari’s (I made that bit up)

Related articles about the “Grand Opening of Ferrari World” >>

The winch stable. Check out the mounting solution! Photo by Andrew Colhoun, Visual act AB.

One of the platforms in the background. Photo by Steve Marcus.

The Visual act Advanced Wagon technology is in Las Vegas and has contributed to Celine Dion’s very successful opening night at Caesars Palace on March 15, 2011. The show is scheduled to play for another three years.

The orchestra and band are placed on six moving platforms of different sizes. The movements and navigation of the platforms are created by Visual act Advanced Wagon technology. The result was described in the following way by Robin Leach, Las Vegas Sun:

The floating in-and-out stages move silently in an interlocking jigsaw wonder as if they are dancing silently.

The project has been an intensive collaboration between Visual act AB and Fisher Technical Services LLC.  Fisher Technical Services LLC has license for the Visual act Advanced Wagon technology in the U.S.

The time schedule was very challenging and during the final weeks before the premiere, programming and rehearsals had to take place around the clock. Therefore, we had operators’ onsite not only from Visual act and Fisher but also from The Amsterdam Music Theatre (Het Muziektheater) and The Norwegian Opera & Ballet, who have experience of Visual act Wagons from their home theatres. We are very grateful for their support!

Martin Zetterström, Managing Director at Visual act AB

On Celine Dion’s official webpage you can see videos of the show >>

Articles about the show:

Celine Dion’s show is a masterpiece of majesty, elegance and amazing duets >>

Celine Dion, the tie that binds, makes a resounding return to Caesars Palace >>

Karlsson is flying with the help of Visual acts famous 3D system. Photo by Peter Knutson.

The famous children book’s “Karlsson-on-the-Roof is sneaking around again” (Karlsson på taket smyger igen) from the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren comes alive in a new musical at the Oscars theater (Oscarsteatern).

This time Karlsson-on-the-Roof is flying with the help of Visual acts famous 3D system. Karlsson flies from the stage into the auditorium at speeds of up to 1 meter per second with the help of four winches.  This involves some systems as lines pass through the path of the fire curtain!. An extra winch is used for separate vertical motion that is synchronized with the remainder of the 3D system. This allows for Karlsson-on-the-Roof to fly at the same time as “Little brother”, another character in the musical.

Johan Olsson the project manager from Visual act, says:

It feels really good to be a part of a project that involves a character that I grow up with. I think that the Visual act fly system is used in a tasteful manner and the Karlsson flights contribute to a very good performance.

Offical website for the musical >>
(only in Swedish)

Musical review (only in Swedish): Aftonbladet >>

Musical review (only in Swedish): SVD >>

Visual act has delivered the set design for the new musical: ‘Leva livet’ at China Theatre (Chinateatern), the first Swedish pop-musical since ‘Mama Mia’. Visual act worked in close collaboration with the set designer Rikke Juellund to adapt the stage design to the China Theatre and built and installed the complete set and stage technology. 

The set design consists of large gold-colored walls that are ideal for projections. In order to create more performance are, sliding doors were created in the décor and this allows the big props to be easily rolled in and out when necessary.

The stage design also included a number of large props including a fountain, a large dividable kitchen workbench and a Jacuzzi.

The offical website >>

Installation at China Theatre.
Photos by Günay Kulbay, Visual act AB.