Engineering the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony

The London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony required a great deal of innovative — but hidden — engineering to make it work. Stephen Harris spoke to the engineers behind the spectacle.

The London 2012 Olympic Games showed off British engineering at its best, from the sweeping designs of the Olympic venues to the rising importance of sports technology in training. But engineering was also vital in bringing to life an opening ceremony that blew away the nation’s cynicism and set the mood for what some international commentators around the world have called ‘the best Olympics ever’.

The Olympics were a chance for a prominent British team of experts who have worked on opening ceremonies across the globe, from Athens in 2004 to last year’s Pan-Arab Games in Doha, to make a triumphant homecoming. ‘The UK is the home of large event production, particularly for ceremonies,’ said the ceremony’s technical director Piers Shepperd. ‘To do it in London in front of a home audience was obviously really good. There was a massive trepidation after Beijing, which was obviously a spectacular and huge ceremony, and we were very keen to try and do something different.’

Working on a home Olympics also enabled an unprecedented level of co-ordination between the ceremony’s technical team and the Games organisers from the very start. Shepperd was brought on board back in 2006 — several years before the stadium was even designed — to advise on what was needed to make the ceremony a success. He then worked closely with the engineers at Sir Robert McAlpine and Buro Happold to ensure that the stadium would be ready for whatever demands the artistic team came up with. In particular, this led to a roof design that could support a huge cable-net system (see box), which allowed the ceremony team to fly in scenery, lighting and performers with ease and saw the introduction of panels of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) behind each seat in the stadium, which turned the audience into a giant display screen with greater resolution than ever seen before.
Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/in-depth/the-big-story/engineering-the-london-2012-olympics-opening-ceremony/1013640.article#ixzz290VFn9WG