Roshn Saudi League Closing Ceremony

Technical drawings for the closing ceremony of the Roshn Saudi League, staged at Al Awwal Park in Riyadh on the final day of the 2025–26 season. Lighting designer Alex Douglas brought us in to support the drawing process; the design was his, working under technical director Nick Toll and the creative direction of entourage.

Two shows, one whistle. The title was still undecided going into the last matchday, and the ceremony had to be ready either way — so entourage built two complete five-and-a-half-minute shows, in two different cities, knowing only one would ever be seen. “Projects of this scale are normally planned around fixed dates, venues and schedules that are confirmed weeks or even months in advance,” executive artistic producer Jean Marc Chandoo told TPiMEA. “This was the exception.” Al Nassr took the title — their eleventh — and the Riyadh show went ahead in front of 26,000 people, built on 45 days of planning.

The rigging problem. Al Awwal Park offered no mid-tier lighting positions, and a perimeter truss would not fit. The plot went through multiple iterations before settling on a series of 1.2m totems, which lifted the strobe and beam fixtures clear of the LED advertising hoarding and turned the bowl itself into part of the show. Above it sat a roof-mounted flown rig. The drawing set had to keep pace with each iteration and resolve it against the venue’s real constraints.

On the plot. More than 50 flood/strobe fixtures around the field, 20 Claypaky Skylos for sky beams, 26 Ayrton Cobras at pitch level, and a flown rig of 72 Ayrton Cobras, 80 Zonda 9s and 16 Robe FORTEs — the FORTEs keyed the trophy stage and the championship lift. Programmed on a grandMA3 and run to timecode, with the trophy lift triggered by hand. Around it: fourteen 35W lasers on Pangolin BEYOND, Barco UDX 4K32 projectors mapping the pitch, 15 wireless wave flame generators, a 360° firework design firing almost 3,000 effects from 30 rooftop positions, and a drone flight that drew the league crest and an Al Nassr scarf across the sky.