|  |  |  |
| Aerial view of the Birds Nest Stadium looking towards the crew apartments (group of 5 towers slightly to the left) the "Quonset Hut" enclosure on the top of the stadium hid the torch construction. | This was what we saw on our walk to work each day. | Simon Korzen, the Tech director and Radauan Assadi, Pete Erskine's assistant for the wired comms, play hacky sack with a Riedel C3 digital belt pack (it still worked). |
|  |  |  |
| Opening ceremony drummer - note the ear buds. The total cast numbered over 22,000 and ALL but 4000 had in ear monitors. | THAT'S RIGHT - 18,000 FM in ear monitors on 5 channels. The receivers were custom made for Riedel in, where else, China. However the chip was from the USA. It was the only chip that could do the job. | This was one of the 5 smaller Artist nodes. This one was in the center field pit. 3 more were on the field level and the 5th in the TV compound. |
 |  |  |
| This mess was typical of fiber installations all around Beijing. | Five stereo Sennheiser Evolution in ear transmitters also were connected to the stadium wide master antenna system. | Ten Telex BTR800 wireless intercom systems with 40 beltpacks were used and interfaced to the stadium wide antenna system. |
 |  |  |
| This was a typical smog in Beijing before the Olympics | ..and here it is during the Olympics. I guess closing a few factories for 3 months works. | Here is the Olympic construction crew parking lot. |
 |  |  |
| Radio repeater room. First 3 racks have the simplex radios (1 RX and 1 TX each). The 4th rack contains the master antenna system and the last the 5 FM transmitters and 1 of the three 128 port Artist nodes in this room. | This view from the other end shows 3 of the 5 FM Transmitters | This is the second row of racks containing an Artist patch field in the first rack along with the two other 128 port main Artist nodes, Duplex radios in the next 4 and Sennheiser ears and Telex BTR in the right rack. |
 |  |  |
| Now you know how to write our department name. | No body said they could translate | Is this where they bring in the net? |
 |  |  |
| This was Pete Erskine's desk. the Riedel station had 5 expansion panels for a total programmed buttons numbering 216. | During dress rehearsals the security personnel stood out. Do you think they will be able to manage? | The directors table was on the balcony outside our booth. |
 |  |  |
| Cast arriving. Note that they are all the same height - within an inch of each other. Each different cast department was matched in size - maybe it was easier to do costumes if everyone was identical. | Several of hundreds of prop delivery trucks. When they arrived they were more than enough to fill the stadium tunnel completely. | Directors table |
 |  |  |
| RF coordination notice - posted everywhere. | Nighttime at the stadium. |
Ready for opening ceremonies - director chairs for the important people. |
 |  |  |
|
Pyro wiring outside the stadium. Two dress rehearsals had FULL pyro shoots. Grucci Fireworks with Phil Grucci managed several Chinese companies to make it come together. | Directors table during rehearsals. | This store sold only cameras for your computer. |
 |  |  |
| Dead batteries going to be recycled. Over 70,000 AAA batteries were used for the in ear monitors during the Olympics and the Paralympics. | Yet another beautiful night coming home from one of the 33 full run-throughs we did to prepare. Yes full run throughs! | Some of the production crew. Mr. Shang, our Chinese Communications Engineer in charge, is on the Left. Fourth from the left is Yves Pepin with
ECA2. Ric Birch, the only non Chinese producer, is the one sitting 5th from left. Pete Erskine is on the right wearing his Sydney Olympics shirt, of course. |
| |  |  |
| | One of the terrific wire service photos from opening. | Rehearsal of the athletes entrance. The Chinese had a full stand-in cast for every expected athlete. |
