EE54 and the Opening of Zayed National Museum

Creative Technology provided lighting and video services for the 54th Eid Al Etihad celebration, the UAE's most significant national day ceremony, produced by People&Co on behalf of the National Projects Office.

The 2025 edition carried added weight, coinciding with the unveiling of the Zayed National Museum and the debut performance of the UAE National Orchestra, making it a genuine triple milestone event.

The ceremony took place within a purpose-built sunken stage directly in front of the newly opened museum, a site offering a 7-meter void below ground level before any production infrastructure was introduced. This presented both an extraordinary opportunity and a significant technical challenge: the production needed to feel as though it had been unearthed from the landscape rather than constructed on it, with underground cast entries and staged reveals emerging from below.

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The show’s vertical range, from deep below the stage floor to the soaring wings of the Sheikh Zayed Museum above, was described by Artistic Director Tim Elliott as “the greatest example of up-and-down production we’ve ever experienced.”

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Working alongside Lighting Designer Bruno Poet, Creative Technology deployed lighting and video systems that activated the museum's architecture itself as a storytelling canvas.

The dramatic wings of the Zayed National Museum were highlighted through precision lighting, giving the production a sense of monumental scale that no constructed set piece could replicate. This architectural illumination was synchronized with an accompanying drone show, layering the visual narrative across multiple planes simultaneously: underground, stage level, and the building facade high above.

The video and lighting provision also supported the debut showcase of the UAE National Orchestra, positioned within the pit in its traditional orchestral configuration, a staging solution made possible by the sunken design and brought to life through CT’s technical infrastructure. Content design from Moment Factory was integrated into CT’s delivery, ensuring the visual elements of the show cohered across screens, projection, and live lighting states.

CT's lighting and video delivery helped realise one of the most vertically ambitious live ceremony productions in the event's history.

CT’s scope ran concurrently with People&Co’s parallel delivery of the UAE National History Museum launch, two major national events staged simultaneously with overlapping supplier relationships managed on a case-by-case basis.

The team activated the architecture of a national institution as its primary scenic backdrop on one of the UAE’s most watched nights of the year.

Photo Credits: People&Co. and The National News

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