Leading UK lighting and visual rental specialist HSL created the lighting and video design for the 2013 Total Production International (TPi) Awards, and supplied all the necessary trussing, motors, rigging and control infrastructure plus crew needed to rig over 350 Robe lighting fixtures in the Ballroom of the Novotel, West London.
Working for TPi Awards show producers Mondiale Publishing and with Event Manager Ben Chadwick, the visual design was created by HSL’s Tim Fawkes in collaboration with Mike Oates. HSL’s event Project Manager was Spantax.
The basic concept was to make it “Funky, fun and more rock n roll than in previous years,” states Fawkes, adding that the biggest challenge was being under pressure to produce something amazing looking to impress all the top industry professionals who were present!
The Awards honour the most popular technical production, industry events and personalities of the year, and over 1000 guests attended to network, party, and appreciate the industry’s achievements in the last 12 months in the action packed Awards ceremony, presented by Lauren Laverne.
Other challenges for the event design included low ceiling height and limited roof weight loading in the room, which was greatly helped by the light weight of the Robe LED fixtures!
Multiple trusses were installed in the roof to provide all the lighting positions. The room was long width-ways, so it was important to try and ensure that everyone was pulled into the onstage action when it started, and also to involve a substantial number of tables further back in the middle section.
Fawkes decided on an innovative asymmetric video screen look for the stage, with a mixture of portrait and landscape format LED screens hung at different depths at the back.
He matched this with the lighting design. To bring a beamy rock ‘n’ roll edge to the room he used Robe LEDBeam 100s in clusters of four – ACL style – in-between the onstage screens and also dotted around the stage and the room. “The sheer speed and the great colours of these fixtures gives numerous options for modern looks as well as being able to create more traditional ACL looks” he explains.
At the back of the room they installed a scaled down version of the same screen design (all screens were supplied by VER) also interspersed by batches of LEDBeam 100s - Fawkes used a total of 132 Robe LEDBeam 100s!
Eighty-two Robe CityFlex48 LED multi-purpose fixtures were dotted around the room, 24 were used in high res mode against the black in the back wall, and the rest up-lighting the shimmering voile room-wrap (supplied by Blackout).
Of the 32 x Robe ROBIN MMX Wash Beams, eight were used over the stage, covering back light and creating breakup / beam effects, while the other 24 were placed on various trusses around the room to pick up on the walk-ups and make up comprehensive table looks and breakups.
Twenty-four of Robe’s new DLF LED wash lights were chosen as the work horse for the stage light – “The internal barn doors allowed for great control over the light spill when working in close proximity to the tables and the LED screens”.
Thirty three LEDWash 600s were used for the majority of the table lighting all around the space, and the B-Stage in the centre of the room was covered with four LEDWash 600s.
Fawkes operated the show using a Hog 3 Full Boar console and all the Robes were supplied by Robe UK.
HSL’s crew boss Mark Scrimshaw led a team of seven techs, and they plus Fawkes and Spantax commenced the get in on the Sunday at 7 a.m. and were ready for the show on Monday at 6 p.m. including full schedule of technical run throughs and rehearsals beforehand.
Numerous comments have referenced it as one of the best looking TPi Awards shows to date in terms of aesthetics, and HSL is extremely proud to have been able to show off its design capabilities in such a high profile industry event.
Fawkes concludes, “The pressure was really on to produce something special – and you are effectively performing for the whole industry. Our team was extremely strong, and WYSIWYG was an invaluable tool right through the process that meant that everything ran like clockwork on site”.