Tag Archive: 300 ETC Source Fours

1. White Light Returns to Edinburgh Fringe with Gilded Balloon

   7 August 2017 15:40 Comments Off on White Light Returns to Edinburgh Fringe with Gilded Balloon

   The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the single biggest celebration of arts and culture on the planet. Every August, Scotland’s capital welcomes an explosion of creative work from across the globe, with this year marking the Fringe’s seventieth anniversary. 2017 is set to be the busiest festival yet, with more than 50,000 performances of 3,300 shows in over 300 venues. Gilded Balloon is one of the four largest venues at the Fringe and White Light is once again supplying the lighting equipment in all of its spaces.

   The Gilded Balloon has an international reputation for presenting a programme of theatre, comedy and cabaret.  The venue was established in 1986 and, in 2001, moved to Teviot Row House where it currently resides during the Fringe Festival. For over ten years, WL has supplied the venue with the latest lighting equipment and this year has proven to be no exception. Dan Last, WL’s Senior Hire Co-ordinator, comments: “The Gilded Balloon is one of the busiest venues during the Fringe. As a result, it is vital that we provide the latest lighting technology. Our brief was to supply equipment that was not only suitable for the numerous spaces but would offer lighting designers and their creative teams as many options as possible”.

   Gilded Balloon has over 14 spaces during the Fringe, including the Billiard Hall, Balcony, Dining Room, Turret and even the Wine Bar. Dan states: “Such is the nature of the Fringe that lots of spaces which are not traditionally considered to be ‘theatrical’ are transformed to accommodate the multitude of performances. Gilded is a great example of this and the spaces within Teviot Row House are each used to their full potential”.

   This year in the Gilded Balloon’s Nightclub space, there will be a range of comedy acts, including the Stephen K Amos Talk Show and Sean Hughes’s Blank Book, along with a Donald Trump satire and even a midnight rave party which lasts three hours. In the Nightclub, WL has supplied a range of Martin Professional MAC Aura LEDs, Mac Profiles, a range of Fresnels and ETC Source Fours along with Prolyte trussing.

   Alongside the Nightclub, the Debating Hall at Gilded Balloon also has an extremely busy programme, with children’s shows such as KID/DUB, a live stand up show by John Shuttleworth along with the grand final of So You Think You’re Funny?. For the Debating Hall, WL has supplied Martin MAC Aura Washlights, SGM LED Washlights, Unique 2 Haze Machines, Look Solutions Viper Smoke Machines along with DMX Splitters. Similarly, the Balcony space, which will host productions such as Ray Bradshaw’s BSL stand up show, is drawing on equipment such as ETC Source Four Lustr Profiles along with BB4 LED Washlights.

   Dan states: “Each space is of varying size, layout and caters for different types of show. Therefore we needed to ensure that what we supplied was perfectly suited for each one. As a result, we worked two weeks on the build of the various rigs, as well as oversaw the technical previews to ensure everything was in place and ready to go for the opening”.

   The Edinburgh Festival Fringe officially opened last week and will run until the end of August.

   Dan comments: “We’re delighted to be back at the Fringe again and supplying the lights to one of the busiest and most exciting venues in all of Edinburgh. As a company whose heritage is firmly rooted in theatre, we appreciate what a significant role that the Fringe plays in this, so it’s great to be at the heart of this”.

   Photos courtesy of Dan Last and Steve Ullathorne.

2. White Light ExCeLs at Google Cloud Event

   7 June 2017 08:12 Comments Off on White Light ExCeLs at Google Cloud Event

   Google Cloud NEXT, the internet giant’s largest European Cloud conference, recently took place at the ExCeL Centre in East London. Designed and fulfilled by independent events agency WONDER London, Google Cloud NEXT invited tech leaders, developers and IT decision-makers to explore the latest innovations in cloud technology, while experiencing what it feels like to be part of the Google community. WONDER London were tasked to design a free, interactive conference experience with a flexible agenda, allowing delegates to personalise content to meet their specific needs, and approached White Light to provide the lighting and rigging services.

   Google Cloud NEXT took place on 3rd – 4th May. The event space featured an interactive playground with demo pods from 25 key brand partners, including Accenture, Fastly and Intel, with opportunities to trial Google products such as Jamboard, Pixel, Spanner and Tiltbrush. WL’s Senior Account Manager Dominic Yates comments: “This was a large conference with over 5000 delegates in attendance over two days so we needed to provide a set up that would be able to accommodate the scale of the event, along with get the most out of the various sessions”.

   WL was approached by the production team at WONDER London to provide the lighting and rigging across five of the halls in ExCeL along with the rigging for the main keynote presentation, which featured speeches by Google Cloud Senior Vice President Diane Greene and Vice President EMEA Sébastien Marotte. Dominic adds: “We were working across several vast halls within ExCeL; all of which were extremely busy. As a result, we had to ensure that we planned our technical setup intricately”.
   The lighting design for the event was created by Cy Dodimead and Leigh Porter who worked with Dominic, Project Manager Martin Strods and the WONDER London team to recreate Google’s vision within the ExCeL space. Dominic adds: “We had a team of 22 technicians on site for the installation in what was a three-day build”.
   For Google Cloud Next, WL utilised more than 150 moving lights, including VL3500 Spots, Martin MAC Auras and ROBE Robin 1200s. There were more than 300 ETC Source Fours and Fresnels, along with 130 LED fixtures which included Chroma Q Colour Forces. Alongside this were more than 200 motors and over 1100m of Prolyte truss.
   
   Dominic adds: “As the event was focused heavily on technology, this needed to be reflected in the aesthetics, hence the reason we drew so heavily on both moving lights and LED fixtures. Similarly, as the conference had such a wide variety of events, including demo zones, key note speakers and even networking sessions, we needed to ensure each one could achieve a different feel”.

   The conference was a huge success, following on from the previous Cloud event that was held in San Francisco back in March. WONDER London will now deliver a unique Google experience across 5 more European cities over several months.

   Dominic comments: “When you’re working in a venue such as ExCeL on a high profile event like this, you want to ensure you create as memorable an event as possible. Drawing on our state-of-the-art equipment, along with our expert in-house staff and the WONDER London team, we were able to achieve this”.

   – End –

   Photos courtesy of BNB and WONDER.