Held in a luxury marquee erected adjacent to the Members' Clubhouse on the Friday evening of the 2008 Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix weekend, the ball has always attracted the crème of the membership, including leading GP drivers and motorsport stars past and present.
This year's event was a special double celebration to mark the 80th anniversary of the BRDC and 60th anniversary of Grand Prix racing at Silverstone. The event was hosted by Martin Brundle and included interviews with top drivers, as well as a speech by BRDC President Damon Hill.
A.C. Special Projects, a sister company of A.C. Lighting, which is a Patron of the BRDC's Rising Stars Programme, was approached to make the Clubhouse look spectacular for the occasion.
The challenge was to design a system that would be unobtrusive, as the Clubhouse was open to entertain Members and guests during the day, as well as the evening Ball. It also had to be quick to setup, as there was only a two hour window in which to connect all cabling in public areas and check the system before the Ball.
A.C. special projects managing director, Peter Keiderling, developed a design to illuminate the Clubhouse roof level canopy and first floor with colour-changing LED lighting, accompanied by a video effects wall draped across the balcony viewing areas on the two levels to display various messages and visuals.
The Chroma-Q Color Punch fixture was specified for the roof canopy uplighting due to its powerful 1250 lumen output in a compact, IP65 housing, which enabled units to be safely clustered together in one corner away from the visitors and still achieve a very bright and even lighting coverage across the canopy.
For the first floor level, which was turned into a casino environment for the evening, Chroma-Q Color Blocks were positioned in window alcoves to provide uplighting around the room perimeter.
The Chroma-Q's lightweight, flexible, IP65 design was suitable for rigging a 40m wide curved LED screen across the roof level viewing balcony, and 10m screens across the balconies at each end of the first floor below. Utilising the Color Web 125mm panels, programming included a BRDC 80th Anniversary scrolling congratulatory message and various images referencing the shared colours of the BRDC logo and British flag.
(Jim Evans)
