TORONTO – Around the world, March 29th marked a day dedicated to raising awareness for global climate change, by many communities and businesses around the globe promising to turn off their lights for 60 minutes starting at 8pm. Canadians totaled about a third of the 300,000 pledges made on the official “Earth Hour” Web site established by the event organizers the World Wildlife Fund, and had an awareness raising concert planned in Toronto. The Concert was appropriately titled after the Canadian headliner Nelly Furtado’s song “Turn Out The Lights.”
The show opened with a darkened City Hall as its backdrop and Nelly Furtado singing the title song accompanied by a sole acoustic guitar. The show employed 24 Adamson Y10 enclosures, 16 Adamson SX 18’s and two Clair FF2 Front Fills. The out fills were made-up of 8 SpekTrix cabinets. The entire set-up was powered by Lab.gruppen amplifiers using only green, renewable energy provided by Bullfrog.
Six Clair 12AM monitors were used on-stage, and two Digidesign venues used at FOH for Nelly Furtado’s FOH Engineer Jeffrey Holdip, Philosopher Kings’s FOH Denton Fraiser and for John Halliwell who manned the rest of the performances and speeches during the show. Dave Donin performed system tech duties for the event, for which full production was provided by Toronto’s own Towers Clair Showco. During the lights out hour, only minimal front lighting creted by LED Candles and a few spots were used. During the show the crowd stayed dark, with only cell phones, lighters and cheers marking the audience’s presence.
The event took place in downtown Nathan Phillips Square, where reportedly over 10,000 people attended the event, during which Mayor David Miller spoke proudly of Toronto’s participation in the event. Artists Fefe Dobson and the Philosopher Kings also took the stage between Nelly Furtado’s opening and closing performances. Many downtown businesses, hotels and even restaurants turned off their lights and held candle-lit dinners in support of Earth Hour. Toronto’s 1,815-foot landmark CN Tower, which until last year was the tallest structure in the world, went dark promptly at eight, followed by many of the skyscrapers and high rise condominiums that make-up Toronto’s skyline.
It is reported that Toronto saved more than 900 MegaWatts of power during the hour, making it an 8.7 % reduction when measured against a typical March Saturday night.
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