The Dino Fantasy Park World Tour 2006 recently wrapped up a two-month touring exhibition in Thailand, thrilling visitors with life-sized dinosaur replicas and a special effects light show provided by LDS Show of Bangkok.
Although the set and props were imported from Japan, the lighting was locally contracted to LDS, with lighting design by Poon Limpapun and Sermsak Boonyhai. Because the venue was not capable of supplying enough power for 4,000 PAR cans as originally planned, the team had to get the biggest bang from the fewest number of fixtures as possible. They fit 300 PAR-64 1,000W fixtures with Wybron Forerunner color changers and another 14 Kupo 8-lites with Wybron’s Coloram II. In addition, 24 Nexera Wash and Profile fixtures were strategically placed in hard-to-reach areas throughout the hall to add additional colorful effects.
The equipment was rigged on 20 strips of Miloz 12" (30cm) truss, which spanned 330' (100m) horizontally along the roof of the venue. The color changers were aimed at the life-sized models of the dinosaurs to add exciting effects as they moved. Pulses of red tones were added to enhance the mood of the audience and give them the feeling of a dinosaur attack. Lighting designer Poon Limpapun describes the scene, “There is one point during the attraction that T-Rex becomes alive and starts to attack… and there it goes – scrollers go red, PAR cans chase, and moving lights swirl around…a Syncrolite shoots up a high beam… and there it goes – a high beam of Omnisistem's Pyrofog.”
Wybron color changers also provided subtle shades of green, orange, and blue wash to create the look and feel of changing sunlight patterns that helped tell the story. The audience would enter the exhibit, surrounded by blue sky and soft daylight. It was then complemented by a wash of ambers to represent noon and then dimmed to blue as it went into the night. After the T-Rex attack, the audience moved on to the Golden Land of Paradise with all the scrollers turned to ambers and pinks. Finally, Syncrolites washed the set as the audience exited.
The installation was certainly not without concerns. “One of the main concerns for the team was that the light would have to be on for more than 12 hours each day for 30 consecutive days, so we felt that the gels would definitely burn,” says Poon, “but thanks to the cooling fans in the Wybron units, none of the gels burned and the same effect was achieved daily until the last day of the show.”
He continues, “This was a touring show that was headed to another province in Thailand (Chiang Mai), and we didn't even need to change the gels when we finished the final tour in Chiang Mai.” The challenges didn’t end there. “The biggest problem we had was that the roof of the Exhibition Hall in Chiang Mai leaked during a major storm, and it leaked water onto an array of our scrollers,” he explains, “but luckily, the water didn't effect the operation of them. We made sure by drying them using hair blowers, and it turned out that they still worked fine, even after spending hours under the leaking roof!”
Poon finally adds, “I personally think that Wybron scrollers did make our day and helped us in saving the needs of dimmer racks and not exceeding our power limits at the venue. They proved to be a very reliable product after our continuous use for more than two months under outrageous conditions. It was fun to work with the Wybron products and achieve lots of cool and "HAWT" effects, as we say in the modern language.”
The client, Jurassic Park Entertainment of Japan, was delighted with the results, claiming, “The lighting scheme exceeds our expectations by being so dynamic. It gained lots of 'wows' from the patrons. We're very happy with the lighting for the event!”