PanAm Games – Closing Ceremonies

Posted on November 23, 2015

by darren

0

It’s been a few months since the PanAm Games blew through our city of Toronto. I was pretty pumped to be asked to come document the behind-the-scenes action and the performance portions of the Closing Ceremonies. This included covering rehearsals a few weeks out and rehearsals at the Rogers Centre the night prior to the actual Closing Ceremonies. The machine for this one was big, lots of moving parts. I was there to basically be a fly on the wall the entire time. I would walk from rehearsal area to rehearsal area, from backstage to main stage, and meander throughout the makeup and hair stations simply documenting what I saw.

The energy in the dome that night was electric. Everyone was buzzing. Once the ceremonies started I walked thru the upper level and covered the show from different spots to get some varied coverage. If you remember, with about 3 weeks notice Kanye West was added as the headlining act along with Serena Ryder and Pitbull. Moments before the end of Kanye’s set, I bolted outside to try to capture some of the fireworks coming off the CN tower. Luckily we had a heads up on it so I was able to get into a decent spot before the madness erupted.

It goes without saying that being at that event, knowing that you were a part of history was a very rare opportunity and I was pretty damn stoked to be there.

Check back on my blog soon as I’ll be posting some more coverage of the PanAm and ParaPan events. Also see below for an equipment list for this shoot.