UAE National Day celebrations, Hatta

For the UAE's 50th National Day, the national celebration moved to the mountains of Hatta, and the lighting had to perform on a stage watched by the whole country. I led the technical teams specifying, supplying, and installing the lighting and control systems, then came back and did it again for ND51 and ND52.

Event lighting, no second takes

A building's lighting gets commissioned over weeks. For an event you get one night, so everything compresses. Specification has to be right the first time because there's no lead time for replacements, installation happens in terrain that doesn't appear in any product catalogue's mounting instructions, and the control system has to run the show on cue, full stop.

ND50 earned Lighting Design of the Year at the Index Design Awards, and we were asked back to deliver the next two editions in the same capacity, with consistent results.