Central Presentations Ltd (CPL) delivered full production, including lighting, sound – featuring brand new d&b Y8s and V-SUBS - video and rigging to an impressive end of year party for technology designer / manufacturer Dyson – which was staged in the grounds of Bowood House in Wiltshire, where a large elegant Trispan marquee was giving a 45 metre deep and wide party space.
CPL have been the event’s technical supplier for the last five years, and there’s always an exciting and ambitious brief to be fulfilled from production company Bright. This year their production designer and technical manager was Nick Diacre who liaised closely with CPL’s PM Mike Radford.
‘Luminescence’ was the theme of this year’s event, putting a big emphasis on lighting and visual presentation and treatment of the whole environment.
CPL flew a 10 metre diameter circular truss in the middle of the main room on six ProLyft 650Kg motors –- picked for their lighter weight – rigged on six structural arms making up the inner tent frame. This provided a central point for lighting positions.
Also rigged on this circle was a Panasonic 21K projector beaming on to a custom 17 metre wide by 10 metre high curved screen from J&C Joel, installed at one end of the space, video mapped using a combination of Mad Mapper and Resolume running on a pair of MacBook Pros.
A central stage was built beneath the circular truss and used for a series of Awards presented earlier in the evening followed by a hi-energy performance by LED percussion troupe Spark!, after which it became the dancefloor hub as the party really got started.
Another stage towards the back of the space hosted a DJ and band for the whole evening.
Weight loading on the tent superstructure and arms was extremely challenging at 750Kg max, so lighting on the circle truss had to be carefully selected to produce the specific effects wanted whilst staying within the low SWL.
The lighting design, created by Liam Griffiths, included 8 x ADJ UV LED COB Canons (chosen for their weight and ability to strobe), flown from the main circle and a further 6 flown from 1.5 metre trusses dead-hung below each of the 6 outer tent arms. These arms were also rigged with a Clay Paky Mythos moving light, a Sharpy beam light and, 2 x Martin PAR Zooms per length.
Floor mounted at the base of each of these truss sections was a Vari*Lite VL3000 Spot, firing light up onto the white tent roof creating more textures and effects, which had great impact.
Four Martin Jem compact hazers assisted with the atmospherics.
Positioned on the stage itself were six Clay Paky a.LEDA K10 LED wash fixtures fitted with B-Eye lenses and another four Mythos as well as some of the new GLP Impression X4 Bar 10 and Bar 20 tilting LED battens, mounted vertically, made available via A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd.
ARRI 650 Watt fresnels flown on the circle and the two tent arms nearest the stage provided general wash lighting for both stages.
All lights were programmed and operated by James Washer using a Chamsys MQ100 console.
The brand new d&b audio kit, used for the main PA, came to site directly after it had been delivered to CPL’s warehouse in the West Midlands. Five Y8 speakers and one Y-SUB were ground-stacked each side of the stage creating the main Left and Right Array, whilst four V-SUBS under the stage itself provided a substantial sub-array. The brief was to provide a clean high-clarity sound throughout the space, a task which the Y-Series excelled at.
The system was driven by d&b D12 amps, with one cab per channel, and mixed through a Yamaha QL1 console. CPL’s audio crew used the R70 CAN interface to utilise the d&b Array Calculator and Array Processing software controlling each individual amp channel and providing improved control over the system.
Mike worked with a crew of six – two each for sound, lighting and video departments – and they started on Thursday morning to be ready for Friday afternoon rehearsals and then a live event that evening – so it was tight!
“The aesthetics of the structure were amazing,” commented Mike on the stylish tri-span which was supplied by Silver Stage, “as well as presenting many challenges which included the short get-in time, outdoors, during some extremely hostile weather! However this galvanised everyone involved from all companies and we produced a great looking party for the 700 guests”.
Light Initiative also created two major sculptural LED lighting installations using LED strip tape, – one in the middle of the room spanning across the central trussing, and two behind the bars – plus their own control processors and fed with video content from Resolume.