Follow-Me Powers Dubai's Landmark New Year's Eve Celebration

	A total of six Follow-Me 3D SIX systems were configured with a primary and secondary server, plus three additional servers feeding data back into the main and backup server running the show. Photo: NEONBLACK / Whatever Live

Follow-Me played a pivotal role in the EMAAR New Year's Eve Spectacular centred on the Burj al Khalifa in Dubai. The Follow-Me 3D system was specified by creative lighting studio NEONBLACK, providing automated performer tracking across a vast outdoor water-based performance area for a show watched live on-site, and by millions worldwide via live broadcast and streams.

The production, which took place in the 20 minutes leading up to the midnight countdown, featured a 500-sq.-m. performance area on water, centred around the Dubai Fountain. With the Burj al Khalifa as the centerpiece, the producer and creative director, Our Legacy Creations (OLC), required a striking water-based show unlike anything previously attempted at the venue. At its peak, 24 moving objects, including autonomous rafts carrying performers, were active on the water simultaneously, creating a lighting and tracking challenge of enormous scale.

The project was led by Dominic Smith and Paul Johnson of NEONBLACK as lighting designers, with David Wolstenholme of Show Binary serving as key light programmer. NEONBLACK connected with Luke Edwards, designer relations UK at Follow-Me, during the design phase. A key factor in making NEONBLACK's choice of Follow-Me a reality was the involvement of production vendor mediaPro, who already held deep expertise in Follow-Me systems and infrastructure -- knowledge that proved essential to the project's success from the outset. mediaPro designed, built, supplied and deployed the Follow-Me system, with Alexander Kotov handling lighting systems and Bianca Mastroianni contributing during show week. mediaPro also engineered bespoke rigging solutions, developing custom brackets fitted to handrails and speaker towers around the outside of the lake to serve as mounting points for the primary key lights. The overall delivery was led by mediaPro's senior technical director, Semynov (Sam) Dsouza.

"There were no natural hanging positions to hang lights," explains Smith. "We were using a playing area that is essentially a loop of water about 25m to 30m wide that goes around the outside of the fountain. The challenge was figuring out how we put a lighting rig into a space that isn't designed for it, in an outdoor environment, over massive distances."

With no conventional rigging infrastructure available, the team needed fixtures bright enough to serve almost as theatrical sidelights across the water, lighting the production almost like a dance piece. In the end, over 70 fixtures were calibrated to Follow-Me, the majority being Robe LTX units, with Ayrton Domino LTs making up the remainder. The decision to use Follow-Me came naturally from the constraints of the project: a compressed four-month build timeline, a performance environment that was still evolving on site, and 24 moving targets that required tracking in real time.

"The development of the show was always going to be fluid as we built it in such a challenging environment," says Smith. "It was one of those shows that was only ever going to come together on site, so we needed a system that was flexible -- that wasn't stuck to a particular fixture if it needed to be. That led us to the world of Follow-Me."

A total of six Follow-Me 3D SIX systems were configured with a primary and secondary server, plus three additional servers feeding data back into the main and backup server running the show. Five cameras were available, with three ultimately used to cover the kilometre-wide site. Video-grade switching allowed camera feeds to be merged and distributed to the different servers, enabling operators to seamlessly follow a target moving on one camera and pick it up on another. Large multiview screens were distributed so that groups of approximately four operators shared a display. Shaam Pudaruth, mediaPro COO, believes the 24-handle mouse and console set configuration is "among the largest systems the company has ever deployed."

"All of the camera inputs being merged and sent to the different servers -- all of that was seamless. There were no problems there," says Wolstenholme. "Being able to follow a target moving on one camera and suddenly see that same target picking up somewhere else -- that's what made it work across such a huge area."

Among the standout moments of the performance was a conductor lifted from water level high into the air on a winch system. The Follow-Me system's ability to track on the Z axis allowed the lighting to follow her ascent automatically. Similarly, the system's manufacturer-agnostic flexibility meant that the team could reassign fixtures on the fly in the final hours of rehearsal -- swapping a beacon from one unit to another or redirecting a light to a different position, required only minimal configuration changes.

"With the Follow-Me 3D system you just dial it in and it works every time, and you're not relying so much on humans as you would be if you used a standard follow spot system," says Smith. "Literally the night before we were still able to make changes. It's as simple as turning off one beacon and turning on another. That flexibility on a show with so many unknown elements is really, useful."

Staging the show on what is effectively a live open-air shopping centre, one that does not close until the end of the day and has no backstage, added further complexity for the entire crew. Despite these challenges, the production was delivered on time and to critical acclaim, with the Follow-Me system performing exactly as required.

"The Follow-Me system performed well in what was an incredibly challenging environment, with a compressed programming and rehearsal schedule that left no room for error," says Nick Eltis, production director for the event. "The team at Follow-Me were fantastic throughout. Their support was invaluable and made a real difference to the success of the show."

"Being part of the Dubai New Year's Eve Spectacular was an extraordinary milestone for mediaPro," adds Pudaruth. "Our team's established expertise with Follow-Me systems meant we could hit the ground running from day one, turning a genuinely complex set of challenges into a seamless, world-class delivery. To see the system perform flawlessly in front of millions of people, on the world's biggest New Year's Eve stage, was an incredibly proud moment for everyone involved."

"We picked Follow-Me for a reason," concludes Smith. "And in the end, it did exactly what we asked of it."