Arcadia 10th Anniversary Event London
Requirement
Is there any feat of human athleticism and endurance that hasn’t yet been demonstrated at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park? It has hosted the World Hockey Championships, the World Athletics Championships, part of the Tour de France, and – of course, the Olympics. A range of amateur and professional sporting clubs are based out of the park’s world class facilities, and it has been used for fun runs, marathons and Tough Mudder events. But for all this, the park has never had anyone climb a 50 tonne, fire spouting metallic spider while dressed as a tentacled creature covered in LEDs. At least it hadn’t, until Arcadia Spectacular arrived in May.
THE EVENT
Arcadia Spectacular, more commonly known simply as Arcadia, is a performance art collective that combines elements of sculpture, architecture, recycling, pyrotechnics, lighting, circus and music into large scale performance and dance spaces. Their 10th Anniversary Metamorphosis event promised an immersive experience, with leading electronic, drum and bass, house, techno and dance artists delivering their sets from a DJ booth suspended 30 feet above the crowd in the aforementioned spider.
Thankfully, enormous mechanical arachnids don’t simply appear out of nowhere. Like all of the show’s numerous elements, it requires careful planning and coordination both before and during the event to ensure it lives up to the reputation Arcadia has earned all over the globe.
WHAT HAVE BIG METAL SPIDERS GOT TO DO WITH TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION?
Wernick Events worked with the team at Arcadia and Slammin! Events who required temporary units over the early May bank holiday weekend. 11 cabins of different sizes and two secure cabins were needed for the event site. The cabins were to be used as; production offices, technical offices, artist liaison, crew rooms and prop storage – and positioned to create a central production compound.
THE INSTALLATION
Some difficulties were anticipated by the Wernick Events team: London venues can be more difficult to access, for example. However, traffic congestion, parking restrictions and tricky entry points are all in a day’s work for the Events team who were fortunate enough to see the event taking shape. Following a successful installation, Georgina Burden, Producer at Slammin’ Events took the time to express their gratitude and relief for a job well done.
“We wanted to say a heartfelt thank you for all the hard work your team put in to make Arcadia an amazing event. We look forward to working with you on other events in the future and please share this with your wonderful team.”
“We wanted to say a heartfelt thank you for all the hard work your team put in to make Arcadia an amazing event. We look forward to working with you on other events in the future and please share this with your wonderful team.”
