The event was staged in the edgy but charismatic Hangar 92, one of a number of decommissioned aircraft hangars on the former RAF Hullavington airbase near Chippenham, Wiltshire, which dates back to the second World War.
CPL's Nick Diacre was asked to design and specify a high impact projection system by Bristol based production company Bright, The initial sense of anticipation started as guests trekked through the bleak and uninviting landscape of the disused airfield to reach this exceptionally discreet location.
On entering the hangar, they were immediately confronted with a latter day Armageddon scene - apocalyptic mass destruction, a dramatic environment brilliantly recreated through an onslaught of scenery, props, lighting, sound, images, bar staff in NBC outfits, etc., a vivid, alarming, intensely loud, scary immersive experience!
Into this entrance space, CPL supplied a 20m wide by 6m high sharks-tooth gauze, onto which was projected highly realistic content depicting universal disaster, destruction, explosions, post nuclear landscapes, etc. Combined with lighting and sound effects this highly effectively heightened the rawness.
Within the projection screen was a small baffled entrance - that guests passed through (but could not see around) and went straight into the main 'Regeneration room', a 50m long by 20m wide fully enclosed draped black box space created within the hangar ... the complete antithesis to the Armageddon.
It was brightly lit in positive colours, and replete with wonderful organic visuals and scenic elements - waterfalls, flowers, birds, growth, life, etc, with avatar-pastiche visuals filling the screens. Living trees and foliage in the space were provided by Living Props.
As the evening advanced, the Armageddon area was gradually toned down simultaneous to the Regeneration area undergoing a series of complete 'transformations' from a nascent, new, developing environment into a vibrant life-giving space, replete with rich flora and fauna, nature, hope and life, which then morphed via a final transformation into a 'Digital' futuristic era - modern, invigorating, high tech and ravey .. at which point the DJ kicked in and really got the party started.
In this second black box area, CPL supplied four screens - a 10 x 3m Stumpfl wide fast-fold screen behind the stage, with a custom surface to enhance soft-edge blending. This was fed by two 10,000 Lumen Panasonic DZ110 projectors.
Directly above the impressive central bar feature, CPL flew three 12ft 2 inch by 6 ft 11 inch Stumpfl fast-fold screens in a triangular configuration. They were suspended on steel wire ropes to give the appearance of being floating in mid-air!
These were projected onto with three Sanyo XP100 machines flown from trusses installed around the room, which also provided technical positions for lighting and sound equipment.
The two wide screen surfaces - in the Armageddon and Regeneration spaces were fed content via a quad-head Coolux Pandora's Box media server. A separate Pandora's Box Player Pro was used to control video footage appearing on the triangulated screens.
Projections onto all five surfaces were managed using the Pandora's Box Media Manager that synched the servers and was operated by Nick Diacre. He also created a custom 'soft' screen interface using the Pandora's Box 'Widget Designer' enabling him to set up an individual screen of 'soft' cue buttons to trigger video material for the five 'transformations', all of which were timed sequences
It was also used to add in images of fancy dress competition winners and synch the video and audio effects in the Armageddon room. Live bands
