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FIRST LOOK MIDDLE EAST
JIM DIGBY, FORMULA E AFTER SHOW CONCERT SENIOR PRODUCER AFTER A CAREER TOURING THE WORLD WITH ROCK BANDS, AMERICAN PRODUCTION VETERAN, JIM DIGBY, HAS SET HIS SIGHTS ON SOME SPECIAL PROJECTS. RECENTLY, HE UNDERTOOK THE FORMULA E AFTER SHOW CONCERT AS THE EVENT’S SENIOR PRODUCER & SHOW DIRECTOR. HE TELLS TPMEA ABOUT THE SAUDI ARABIAN PRODUCTION...
I was requested to take on the Show Director / Senior Producer role of the Formula E After Show Concert by colleagues in the region. Previously, I’d been in the area with some of the artists I’ve worked with over the years; coincidentally one occasion was with Linkin Park at the Formula 1 race in Abu Dhabi. The experiences on each of those occasions were very positive and demonstrated an overwhelming ability to succeed that permeates the region. For the Formula E project in Saudi Arabia, the entire event came about in a significantly compressed timeline. The first contact relating to the music event with Formula E was a mere 80 days from the first performance. Initially defined as a three-day festival with some of the world’s foremost bands, it was an enormous undertaking. Fortunately, the Saudi stakeholders were aware of the challenges of the compressed timeline and empowered a fullcourt-press to succeed, and were prepared to move mountains to ensure success. Complete cooperation along the way with the full weight of the stakeholders was required and delivered to clear any obstructions to the processes. Early on, we collated the technical riders of the known committed artists at the time and began to design around their needs. With the help of Earlybird Visual we were able to homogenise the production requests into a festival rig that would satisfy the needs of the artists. The greatest challenge with this project was the short delivery window; fortunately, everyone tasked with delivering the project was ‘in for the win’ and worked to meet the challenge from the very first moment, keeping in mind the actual ‘go’ orders to move equipment to the site came with less than 30 days to go! There was an undeniable driving attitude of ‘we can do this’ as the deadlines loomed, which played a huge part of creating the success, thankfully the spirit of collaboration and cooperation prevailed keeping us from losing ground. As obstacles arose, we acknowledged openly and positively the enormity of the demands and took measures to address concerns immediately and aggressively. Long before we got the actual commitment, time was invested in face-to-face meetings with each of the regional vendors to discover concerns that might possibly impact the ability to succeed and the daily shrinking window of time. To our great advantage, the supply chain was made up of many of the known and
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