Singapore National Day Parade 2009

On 9 August Singapore celebrated its 44th year of independence with the NDP 09 held at The Float at Marina Bay. The theme for NDP ‘09, was “Come Together – Reaching Out, Reaching Up” which drew inspiration from the Singapore National Pledge.

Highlights of the event included a Presidential Gun Salute held for the first time ever on the water, a parade with 23 marching contingents including the Singapore Armed Forces, Police Force and other public services, and a spectacular multi-media show lasting approximately 45 minutes and ending with a major fireworks display.

The floating platform, which measures 120 metres long and 83 metres wide, was the holding area for the multi-media show. The platform carried 1,070 tons, equivalent to the total weight of 9,000 people, 200 tons of stage props and three 30-tonne military vehicles. The gallery at the stadium, with a seating capacity of 30,000 people, was filled to capacity.

The Show Company (ShowCo), official multimedia contractor for the parade, chose Creative Technology Asia to provide audio visual equipment and technical support for the multi-media portion of the celebration. CT supplied 8 Sony DXC-D50WSP cameras complete with a Grass Valley 1 ME flypack, an 8 in 8 out Vista Spyder system replete with a Medialon Manager V5 and 257sq metres of LEC 15mm LED mesh. Given the complexity of the parade and the constant rehearsals over 7 weekends, CT chose to base the Manager V5 as the heart of the show control system, using it to execute show cues to a master time code that was fed to all other technical departments.

Creative Technology’s Aaron Durdin programmed the AV elements of the event. “The constant updates to the show content after every weekend rehearsals meant that we had to ensure that Manager V5 was accessing the right clips/files on the Grass Valley Turbo units to be played back and taken in as input on the Vista Spyder system”, said Aaron; Melvin Lee adds “At last count, there were more than 80 cues on the Vista Spyder system alone – it was quite a complex show”.

The end result was a combination of powerful, vibrant images and sharp video content on the LED screens, appropriate to the mood and order of the day.

“This is one of the most complex video control system that has ever been put out on the NDP”, concluded Rony Xu CT’s General Manager Singapore. “It was certainly an honour to be part of the National Day Parade celebrations.”