Adele – Wembley Stadium, London

The power requirements for the Adele tour were as you would expect for a large-scale production, staged in the round, to a capacity audience at Wembley Stadium both extensive and challenging. Power Logistics began the load in on Sunday 25^th June and had until 6pm on Monday 26^th June for all power to be live and show ready.

Power Logistics installed six 500kVA generators, which worked in tandem with an 800A house supply to power the stage via eight 400A powerlock feeds. These were running from a generator compound, located outside the stadium. All eight powerlock feeds ran across the pitch via cable ramp to the stage located in the centre.

In addition, three 500kVA generators supplied the power required for the audience lighting, rigged in the roof, delivered by four 400A powerlock feeds. The feeds had to finish at the stage catwalks which was where the challenging element of the job presented itself.

The generators for the audience lighting feeds were located in a building site, which had recently been sold to developers, underneath the base of Wembley’s famous arch. It was also 15 metres below the arch, therefore cabling had to be rigged along a hand rail and the powerlock dropped down into the compound. These powerlocks then met cable runs that were fed down through the arch. To carry out the install, Power Logistics had to work closely with riggers from Hollandia, the company who maintain the arch. Several Riggers from Hollandia abseiled down the arch with each individual powerlock cable, with two members of Power Logistics coordinating the install from the roof level, and two members of Power Logistics’ crew waited on the ground to catch the cable and rig at high level to a scaffolding structure above the public concourse using scissor lifts.

At the top of the arch the cabling then ran across the roof. For this area, all of Power Logistics distribution and cabling equipment had to be craned onto the roof as the only the only access is via a small hatch in a plant room. The weight load rating of the roof is only 90kg per square metre, so essentially a well-built man is pushing the limit! To get around this, Power Logistics constructed a landing pad for the stillages, to evenly distribute the weight, once they were craned into position. Each stillage had a maximum weight loading of 280kg due to the delicate nature of the roof. This was all carried out of the first day of the build.