The vision
New Year’s Eve is the night that every metropolis stages its own impressive celebrations. Emaar, the Dubai-based global property developer, had the vision to top everything before and create the most advanced and visual exciting New Year count down on planet.
“Everyone was expecting what we are going to do next. And our promise to them: We are going to do something fantastic. Something never-done-before.”
Ahmad Al Falasi, Executive Director Group Operations, Emaar
The idea was to deliver ‘the biggest show in the world in Downtown Dubai and its center Burj Khalifa and make a positive, lasting impression, not only on the people celebrating in Downtown Dubai, but on the whole world.
Challenges
Light Up 2018 conquered a massive creative and technical task: Implementing a spectacular multimedia show at the 828-metre-tall Burj Khalifa was huge challenge.
“It´s like climbing the Mount Everest.”
Alain Al Tawil, Head of Rope Access, AO Creative
The whole team was pushed to the limit. Although five months for the execution were given, the onsite team could only install the hardware during the final two months, often in very tough and restrictive conditions.
Once the installation was done, perfectly the creative team would have run the show in its entirety many times over. However, the content and its nature had to be kept secret until New Year’s Eve. This was never going to be easy when the canvas is visible from across whole Dubai!
Guinness World Record
Light Up 2018 inspired a global audience and broke the Guinness World Record as ‚the largest lighting and sound show on a single building‘. The show attracted over one million visitors from all over the world, as well as reaching more than 2.5 billion viewers through live TV broadcasts and social media live streams.
“On the night of the event, an audience of 1.5 million viewers was able to experience #LightUp2018 on Twitter, as it happened in Dubai. The live stream transformed Downtown Dubai’s celebration into a global event.”
Source: twitter
So huge was the show’s impact that the installation was extended for the celebrations of the Chinese New Year. AO Creative delivered a brand new narrative and video, sound and light content for the night, following which the original production extended its run until 31 March 2018.