ChamSys Helps Ed Warren Immerse Emirates Stadium for Arsenal vs Chelsea Pre-Match

	"I wanted to create a grid of lines across the pitch, which had never been done before in this stadium," says Warren.

The British football club Arsenal's win over Chelsea on February 3 featured an eye-catching pre-match lightshow that Ed Warren ran on his ChamSys MagicQ MQ250M Stadium console.

Warren set ambitious goals for his show, visualizing it using Capture software. "Following the music as it built up, I wanted to have a multi-dimensional show that transformed the space," he says. "I wanted to be able to wash the crowd in color without blinding them. I wanted to create a grid of lines across the pitch, which had never been done before in this stadium. I also wanted to create a big searchlight look out into the sky -- and I wanted to make the inner roof of the stadium strobe."

Working with gear supplied by Basingstoke, UK-based supplier Zeal, Warren pulled it off without a hitch. "Everyone at the club was supe- accommodating from day one in every aspect, which really helps things go smoothly in a project of this scope," he remarks. "Woody, Steve, and John at Zeal and their crew -- Holly, Mitch, John, Caleb, and Lewis were a great help, as were Tim East, James Kirkup, Mikel Arteta, Gabriel Heinze, and Kai Havertz at Arsenal."

Although Warren drew on many of the performance features of his ChamSys MagicQ MQ250M Stadium console, including its high capacity and various playback modes and encoders, the key for him was the ability to program wirelessly via the app.

"The freedom was invaluable," he remarks. "I was walking on the pitch with an iPad connected to the MQ250M, focusing the perimeter lights, which helped me get them nice and straight. Before getting to the site, all my renders were visualized using Capture controlled by the MQ250M. I put everything in there first, then linked the ChamSys and imported the patch directly.

"Then once I had an MVR off the supplier, I did the same again, but this time with accurate fixture positions and orientations," continued Warren. "When you're dealing with a project like this one, the value of having this kind of flexibility at your fingertips cannot be understated."