Rolex Mentor And Protégé Gala At Hamlyn Hall Royal Opera House

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HG Lighting Design (HGLD) was asked by Bounce Event Management to light the Rolex Mentor and Protégé ceremony at the Royal Opera House’s Paul Hamlyn Hall. The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative is an international program that seeks out talented young artists and brings them together with masters in the fields of dance, literature, film, music, visual arts, and theatre. Paul Hamlyn Hall is the newly refurbished atrium adjacent to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

HG Lighting Design was tasked with devising a lighting scheme reminiscent of fall foliage and a late-autumn afternoon to complement the event’s scenery, a 40’x25’ wood surround that glowed softly from 12 inset square panels surrounding the projection screen. Tables for 400 attendees were scattered throughout the hall and topped with mirrored glass, autumnal flowers, and place settings.

The key was to impact the hall as minimally as possible with rigging and other lighting elements. The hall itself had to be the centerpiece. Mirrored tabletops dictated the use of steep angles to avoid reflection onto the projection screen or into the faces of the guests.

The five truss girders are the only structural supports from which to hang in the hall’s glass and cast iron architecture. As a rigging solution, HGLD devised a 50’-long, wrapped “mother truss” system that ran the length of the hall, as high up as possible so it would disappear into the barrel-vaulted glass roof. The truss carried most of the lighting for the tables and handled cable management for two small trapeze trusses holding 20kW projectors and key lights for the lectern.

The truss was arrayed with Martin Professional MAC 700 spots that illuminated the tables using square and rectangular Rosco gobos to simulate shutters. These were overlaid with Rosco leaf and grillwork gobos to create a chiaroscuro that played light over the mirrored tabletops and combined with the effects wheel, slowly moved for a gentle kinetic effect.

Five Philips Vari-Lite VL3000 spots were suspended on the far upstage structural curved girder. These echoed the shape of the curved roof and splashed textural elements across the iron beams and windows.

The look was further enhanced with an array of leaf-motif gobos overlaid by Rosco Prismatics and Colorizers using both sunset palettes and a warm-contrast prismatic blend. The Prismatics gave a kaleidoscopic tonality to the other breakups, and when they were focused in a variety of ways, each looked unique. Each moving light had a custom load of gobos to mix and match the textures and slowly shift them as the evening progressed. The animation wheel in the MAC 700s provided just a slight amount of breeze in the leafy textures.

In the balcony area, overlooking the main floor, ellipsoidals were used to focus the Prismatics and gobos tightly on each of the square, mirror-topped tables, with the same warm and cool contrasts for each table to shift between the looks. Each ellipsoidal had a gobo rotator to emulate the kinetic effect that the moving lights were creating. In the balcony, this caused the textures to bounce off the mirrored tables and painted the ceiling of the balcony in a shifting splay of color.

The large scenic piece, comprised of a custom wood surround and projection screen, enabled the mounting of 13 fixtures on top of the wall. The VL3500s have a larger beam spread and shutters that covered the 20’-long tables with a single light. The 12 decorative squares inset in the scenic piece were set alight with 2’x2’ Rosco Litepads. These elements gave the scenery a special glowing quality and seemed to visually motivate most of the light in the room.

Design Team
Event producer: Bounce Event Management
Design: HG Lighting Design Inc.
Lighting designer: Herrick Goldman
Associate LD: Susan Nicholson
Gear/labor: Fisher Productions London
Lead: Chris Clay

Equipment
2 MA Lighting GrandMA
21 Martin Professional MAC 700 Profile
5 Philips Vari-Lite VL1000 TS
6 Philips Vari-Lite VL3000 Spot
6 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Spot
12 2’x2’ Rosco Litepad
34 Rosco Single Indexing Rotator
1 RSC Lightlock
34 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal 70°
20 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal 26°
3 MR-16 Birdie
1 ETC Sensor+ 96 Dimmer Rack
6 Rosco Dimmer
34 Rosco Prismatic Gobo (17 Fiery Sunset, 17 Warm Contrast)
72 Rosco Stock And Custom Gobo