SARANGHAE KSA

SARANGHAE KSA 2022

JEDDAH SUPERDOME IS TRANSFORMED INTO AN AUTHENTIC SLICE OF SOUTH KOREA FOR SAUDI ARABIA’S FIRST K-POP FESTIVAL.

A three-day extravaganza of Korean music and culture taking place inside Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Superdome, Saranghae KSA was the first ever K-pop festival in the Kingdom. An immersive experience featuring authentic Korean street food, retail and some of the biggest names in K-pop – including ATEEZ, Victon and the all-girl Everglow – the festival brought together fans from all backgrounds to celebrate their love of Korean culture.

Like many events that have taken place over the past year since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the roots of Saranghae KSA 2022 can be traced back to well before the pandemic. “The story started in 2018,” recalled Steven Hetzer, CEO, sweetwater MEA, which produced the festival in collaboration with SELA for Jeddah Season. “It started with my good friend and one of our business partners here in KSA – HRH Prince Sultan Bin Mohammed – who is a fan of South Korean culture and had a vision for a K-pop festival.”

Hetzer explained how he listened to HRH Prince Sultan Bin Mohammed’s vision before engaging his creative team at sweetwater to develop the concept of the festival.

“He is a highly creative person who is very close to Korean culture, so it was important to draw upon his vision to help us create and design an incredible K-pop experience and bring it to a Saudi Arabian audience.”

While K-pop is at the heart of the festival, the concept aims to create a 360° experience that immerses fans deep into South Korean culture.

“It is about so much more than just K-pop,” Hetzer confirmed. “Typically, K-pop is a very touring-based industry where the bands tour around the world on their own – they come in, play their sets and that’s it. What we really wanted to do was to create a festival that incorporates all elements of Korean culture, from food to music to retail – we wanted to make something completely different and bring that to the people of Saudi Arabia. We used all our experience as a brand experience and activation agency to bring it to life.”

Translated from Korean into English, Saranghae KSA means ‘I love you KSA’ – a fitting name due to what Hetzer describes as “a strong affiliation” between the Saudi people and Korean culture.

“K-pop and Korean culture has been sweeping the globe, but Saudis in particular have a high resonance with it,” he stated when describing the festival’s target markets. “The core target market for a festival like this would usually be 12 to 25-year-old females. However, we wanted to create an experience for the whole family to come to the Jeddah Superdome, spend the whole weekend, see their favourite bands, eat Korean food, play Korean games, and have genuine cultural experiences.”

Standing at 46m tall with a diameter of 210m and a massive 40,000 sq m of internal space, Jeddah Superdome is an events venue on a massive scale – a fact that posed quite a challenge when it came to designing the site. “It’s a tremendously large space, so right from the start we were thinking about how we could take this massive venue and try to make it as intimate as possible,” Hetzer explained.

One tactic was to build large structures, including a massive main stage, as well as several communal gathering spaces to ensure a much wider appeal than just the main stage acts. “A core part of the festival was what we called the vibe

32 TECH PROFILE

street,” Hetzer commented. “We cut off almost a third of the dome and created a street with Korean food and beverage as well as retail outlets to recreate a street vibe and push people to the centre of the dome.”

One of the main aims of the design was to make sure that festivalgoers were encouraged to take in the whole of the site rather than being drawn directly to the main stage. “The main stage was busy whenever the shows went live, however, in those in between moments of downtime, the goal was to give people a space where they could explore what else was on offer,” Hetzer explained. “There were so many other elements going on that we wanted to encourage people to make the most of.”

To that end, the sweetwater team designed a large grandstand with a 15m-high set of stairs facing away from the stage. “We wanted people to congregate there, have food and see the world go by, checking out all the other things we have going on at the festival,” Hetzer commented, recalling the initial scepticism the team faced to the idea. “When we were setting up, a lot of people thought we had built it the wrong way round! However, as soon as the doors opened on the first day, there were loads of people hanging out there, grabbing some food, taking photos, and watching the world go by – it worked exactly as we planned.”

‘A REAL TEAM EFFORT’ As important as the auxiliary experiences around the festival were, Hetzer was under no illusions as to the biggest draw of the festival. “The fans are there primarily to see the bands,” he admitted. “So, making sure that we have the best technology and best partners in the world so those performances can live up to expectations was crucial.”

PRG Middle East was appointed as the turnkey technical supplier, providing a complete solution including audio, lighting, video, and rigging. “We have worked with PRG numerous times over the years, and they were the only choice for us,” Hetzer said. “The right technology and skilled crew are critical to delivering worldclass shows, and in an ever-changing and dynamic market such as KSA where timelines are often short, making sure that we had technical partners we can trust was paramount.”

Harriet Stewart, Sales Director, PRG, explained that the original brief for the project was led by the creative and technical rider for one of the festival’s key headliners, ATEEZ. “Our colleagues in the UK had recently delivered a show for the band, so it was helpful to work with them to understand the overall show design and delivery requirements during the initial stages of the brief,” she recalled.

With over five months of planning, site visits and meetings ahead of the festival, there was plenty of time built into the planning phase. However, during the later stages of preproduction, the scale of the show increased two-fold. “This was due to the scale of the venue,

and the client’s increased festival requirements,” Stewart outlined. “The additional scope of work required PRG to draw upon its inventory across Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which included 500 sq m of indoor LED in a single batch, a significant uplift to the PA system along with an additional 100 lighting fixtures, including our newly arrived Ayrton Eurus Profiles.”

The additional scope was confirmed just prior to the trucks being loaded, which required the PRG team to expedite the prep of additional assets in a short timeframe.

“The fact that most of these assets were already based in Riyadh certainly helped with turnaround times to load in, but there was of course a significant amount of pre-production work to complete in an extremely compressed timeframe,” Stewart recalled.

“To add to the compression of timelines, the festival was loading in over the same time as another concert at the venue, so schedules needed to be reconsidered and updated to accommodate a unique set of parameters.”

The final lighting rig comprised 150 Claypaky Scenius Unico and Mythos fixtures, 140 GLP JDCs and impression X4Ls, 50 Robe BMFL Blades and 60 of the aforementioned Ayrton Eurus, as well as eight follow spots and eight hazers. The audio requirements were handled by a full L-Acoustics PA system, including 24 K1s, 12 K1-SBs, 24 K2s, and 32 SB28s. “We had to think out of the box when it came to the audio setup,” Stewart revealed. “Because of the shape of the dome and the backwards-facing stands on centre FOH, unlike traditional PA, we used K1s as outfill and K2s as main PA.” The experience of PRG FOH Engineer, James Waterson, who has mixed numerous K-pop bands, proved invaluable onsite.

PRG also supplied a large video package, including a 17.28m by 7.68m central screen, four 13.44m by 7.68m screens used on the wings and for IMAG, as well as several smaller LED screens in strategic locations to support activations around the festival.

“As always when working with such large screens, the impact on all departments is felt and we had to work together on a cable management system that worked for all,” commented Stewart. “As the scope evolved, PRG worked with sweetwater to ensure updated pixel maps and resolutions were shared so that the content for each band was modified.”

Described by Stewart as “by far the most complex part of the project”, rigging was a major consideration as the scope of the project grew. “By the very nature of the design of the Superdome and weight capacity, a complex system was designed to achieve the rig above the stage, so, as the AV requirements evolved, so did the design,” she continued. “After various meetings with the venue and other parties, the design was approved.

“All rigging points in the venue required to be hung off nodes, and each node has a load capacity of 350kg,” Stewart continued. “This meant that most points needed to be on a twoway bridle, and some needed to be on a threeway bridle. Because the AC system in the venue is not symmetrical, PRG designed a system that had two-way bridles on one side and three-way bridles on the opposite side.”

The increase in scale also drastically increased the point load in the roof for lighting, video and audio, so the decision was taken to bring in a scaffold system to handle the load of the LED, meaning that the team could rig from single point instead of having to bridle off two or even three points. In all, 430m of Prolyte H30V truss and 280m of S52V truss were deployed, along with 78 1,000kg and 500kg Lodestar motors. Looking back on the project, Stewart was proud of the team’s

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ability to move at the pace required to ensure that the job was delivered to the new specification.

“The scale of the setup was very impressive, and all departments worked hard to produce the result,” she reflected. “The team rallied around one another and came together to ensure that the required workload was not double handled. This was a real team effort, and all areas of the company had some level of involvement in the successful delivery of the show.”

Aside from the technology, the Sales Director also commented on the “unique” reaction from the crowd. “Listening to how they reacted to the teaser videos let alone the bands on stage was truly amazing to see,” she concluded.

‘DECIBEL LEVELS WERE THROUGH THE ROOF’ For sweetwater’s Hetzer, one of the main challenges of the project revolved around time. “Timelines are always a challenge in our industry,” he laughed. “Decision making in Saudi Arabia is very short – you’re rarely given a lot of lead time as the country and the industry is developing so quickly and the level of the deliverables is so high that there’s no room for error.”

Another consideration was sourcing and securing the right artists. “Making sure we had the right talent onboard in a post COVID-19 world where artists are in incredibly high demand and getting booked at huge rates was a major challenge,” he revealed. “Concerts are back in full swing now, so attracting the right artists was a major consideration.”

The CEO was keen to praise the “fantastic” Jeddah Superdome team. “Doing an event of this nature in a new venue that not everybody is accustomed to was never going to be straightforward, but the Superdome team was incredible,” he said. “They were very accommodating and did everything to make sure that we could give fans the best possible experience and produce a great festival.”

Hetzer reflected on the importance of creating shareable content – something he believes worked particularly well on this project. “Everything we do today in the live space is designed for sharing online – from the main stage concerts, to installations, experiences, and even the cups and food bowls. It’s those details that really elevate the experience to become a festival brand,” he proffered. “We threw everything we had from the brand experience world at it, and the social media response was incredible – I’ve never seen engagement like it.”

One thing that stood out for Hetzer was the significance of Everglow’s performance. “We were delighted to have the first all-female K-pop band on stage in Saudi Arabia,” he beamed.

“The band understood the importance of the movement and seeing the fan reaction was amazing. The decibel levels were through the roof. People of all ages, genders and cultures were together dancing. Seeing fathers with daughters on their shoulders dancing to an all-female K-pop band was a great moment.”

This thread of fan engagement ran through the festival. “I’ve been working on brands, music and events for a long time, and this was something special in terms of the fan reaction,”

Hetzer recalled. “The emotions were so raw, the passion of the fans shone through.”

Naturally, after such a successful first iteration, the sweetwater team is already looking ahead to where the festival can go from here. “We definitely want to produce another festival for Jeddah Season 2023 and we’re going in typical fashion to make it even bigger and better,” Hetzer commented. “We are keen to do more in the region. The appetite for K-pop is large and we have great partners, so we’ll see where the journey takes us.”

Reflecting on the project, the CEO was proud of the whole team. “Having started the planning in 2018, it was quite something to see it come together,” he concluded. “Everybody signed off to the vision and it showed in what we achieved. It takes hundreds of people to pull off a project like this and everyone had the same mindset, which helped a lot. When people care about what they deliver, you can tell the outcome.” Photos: sweetwater MEA www.saranghaeksa.com www.sweetwatermea.com www.prg.com