CW113 - Behind Closed Doors
Location Manchester, UK Client Cage Warriors
Cage Warriors 113 was originally planned to take place in London on 20th March but after the Coronavirus pandemic struck the UK and lockdown measures were announced by the UK government the fight card was under threat.
Travel restrictions were announced by a number of countries and the government announced that all pubs and venues should close on Monday 22nd March. Prior to this they also recommended that theatres and venues should close their doors to the public leading many major operators including AEG to announce closures of their venues. At less than a days notice the Cage Warriors logistics and production teams re-arranged the event to move venues to the BEC Arena in Manchester and took the event behind closed doors, without any audience in attendance, for an exclusive pay-per-view audience with long term broadcast partner UFC Fight Pass.
Extensive measures were taken to ensure adequate social distancing, screening and hygiene during the build and the event. A number of the fights on the card were re-arranged to find replacements for athletes who couldn’t travel from abroad and updates to the card were released.
“We will continue to adapt to changes as they arise, and continue to strive toward providing the biggest and best platform possible for our fighters and fans this Friday night, As long as the country remains operational, so do we.”
The rig for the show at the BEC Arena was a scaled down solution to suit the broadcast brief. The design by Production Manager James Quigley includes Robe Pointe, DL4X and LEDWash 600 rigged around our Litec QH30 Octagon truss with a range of generic fixtures for broadcast including the Arri 1k Fresnels. Clay Paky Alpha Beam 300 and SGM Q7 are hung on ladders at the entrance, with additional Robe 100 LEDBeam, 300 LEDWash and Sunstrips for the fighters entrance. Control is from a Chamsys MQ80 operated by Chris Gibbard-Walker and networking is a Luminex Gigacore system with Luminode nodes and Lumisplit buggers, with mains provided by Avolites ART2000 T4 Dimmers and 72 Way hot racks.
R&M Productions has a long standing relationship with the Cage Warriors productions team, servicing all their shows across the UK and Europe and look forward to getting back on the road in September.
Photo Credits: Connor Elliott, Cage Warriors