Yorkshire Company Shines at Special Olympics Opening Ceremony

Yesterday marked the opening of the 2019 Special Olympics World Games in Abu Dhabi, UAE. North Yorkshire based company Stage One Creative Services was commissioned to install the aerial flying system and build the Cauldron for the spectacular Opening Ceremony, designed by Martin Sutherland for People Creative.

Stage One was appointed as a supplied in November 2018 and since then has designed and installed a flying system above the stadium where the opening ceremony was held. In addition, they engineered and fabricated a telescopic cauldron that was lit by torch bearers at the climax of last night’s opening ceremony.

This is the second Olympic Cauldron that the company has created. The first was Thomas Heatherwick’s Cauldron designed for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.

With such short lead times, the process of drawing, engineering, testing and design was fast-tracked. The components were fabricated in Yorkshire before being air freighted to the UAE. The cauldron was only ever assembled as a complete unit once it had arrived on site in Abu Dhabi. To accelerate the process further, re-use of existing components was encouraged. In fact, the burner and gas train that sits within the telescopic cauldron were the same ones used in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio.

Mark Johnson, CEO commented “Being asked to deliver Olympic Ceremony engineering is a tremendous privilege. The technology we have to offer is world class and well proven. The cauldron, designed by Martin Sutherland, is a thing of beauty and I’m very pleased we’ve been able bring his design to life."

Stage One is scheduled to deliver further flying and automation services to the closing ceremony on 21 March.