An international brand, with 154 locations including New York, Sydney, Hollywood and Hong Kong as well as London, Madame Tussauds gives guests the chance to get up close to some of the world's most famous stars - combining glitz and glamour with history.
ACSP were tasked with creating an energy friendly, flexible architectural lighting solution to help bring the exterior of the attraction to life at night, making it the focal point of its location.
ACSP project manager Lance Bromhead comments, "Up until now Madame Tussauds London had minimal exterior lighting. The attraction was looking for a versatile solution where lighting could be set to suit different events in its calendar - for instance washing the building in red, blue and white to mark the birth of the royal baby."
Lance had met with Madame Tussauds London at The Arc Show, which led to a demo at the attraction. "We used a selection of Pulsar exterior LED products," continues Lance. "The attraction was impressed with the demo and, following the scheduled refurbishment of the building's exterior, ACSP were employed to supply, install and commission the lighting solution."
To achieve the desired results, ACSP specified nine Pulsar ChromaFlood 200 IP66 tri-colour floodlights. These are used to dramatically uplight the column features of the building's façade. In addition, eight ChromaBatten 200 IP66 tri-colour battens are used to uplight the flat rendered panels in between. The result is a scheme that can bring dynamic colour changing or fixed colour looks to the facia of the building as required.
"Each fixture is individually controllable via a Pharos system with a built-in astronomical clock," explains Lance. "The fixtures and cabling are installed on a hard canopy which runs the length of the now illuminated building façade. The Pulsar fixtures were specifically chosen for their outdoor IP66 rating, high output levels and spread - they have to evenly light the façade to a height of 10-12m - as well as their colour-mixing capabilities and energy-efficient low power consumption."
Using their specialist knowledge and in-house cable manufacturing facility expertise, ACSP worked alongside Pulsar to develop a bespoke solution to the cabling. Power and DMX is supplied to groups of fixtures via single cables, which link back to a central 240v power and data distribution box. This eliminates the need to install separate 240v power sockets along the roof canopy to bring power to the fixtures. In addition, the fixtures were produced in a RAL colour finish to ensure they effectively blend in with the exterior colour of the façade.
At set up, the Pharos system was pre-programmed with some popular colour presets to service Madame Tussauds London's special events. For example the attraction has a green for St Patrick's Day, red for Chinese New Year, as well as the day-to-day plain white and a unique colour scheme for one-off special events.
ACSP also supplied ChromaStrip X3 LED strips to deliver lighting from inside the refurbished sphere on top of the building's famous domed roof, and a cool white ChromaFlood 200 to illuminate the Madame Tussauds London signage on the side of the building façade.
(Jim Evans)
