Although these spans, designed by Lifschulz Davidson, have been open since last year, they were officially inaugurated and named at last week's VIP ceremony. 11:59 Productions was approached by Murray Goth, promoter for the opening event, who was liasing with the two councils - Westminster City from the north bank of the river, and Lambeth from the south. The brief was to make the South Bank underside of the railway bridge as attractive as possible for the VIPs, which included dignitaries, politicians and royalty. Holmes explained that he picked CityColors because he believed they were "the only fixtures bright and powerful enough to do the job". As 'the job' was to take place in mid-afternoon, this was no easy task for the lights, mounted on the riverside sidewalk beneath the bridge. Apart from competing with bright sunshine, the area they were actually illuminating was dark, absorbent and not conducive to 'taking' coloured artificial lighting.
There were also power issues which made CityColors and MiniCitys ideal for the task: the only available electricity came from a 3-phase 32A supply, run 150m from the Royal Festival Hall. The CityColors' 2.5kW discharge light-source is approximately five times brighter than an incandescent source, drawing a fraction of the power. The lights were tech'd by Paul Galley and Mick Byrne and control was kept simple, with the luminaires set to 'auto-change' - a stand-alone facility allowing each unit to chase through the different colours without needing a lighting desk and operator.
The audio elements of the event were no less challenging: sister companies Richard Brooker Sound Design and Canegreen Commercial combined their talents and resources to create the effective, though complex, sound solution, which, as part of the celebrations, included set pieces from the musicals Mamma Mia and My Fair Lady.
The challenge for the sound team was to take feeds from the public speakers and performers on two sites and achieve good coverage in four areas, which effectively involved installing four PA systems for the event. The overall system was designed by Richard Brooker - the associate sound designer for both musicals - and implemented by Canegreen Commercial, carrying the sound to VIPs on the bridge and public on both banks of the river.
The entertainment and speeches came from two stages, with the main PA system placed in the centre of the western footbridge, where one of the stages was erected. The stage upon the bridge was flanked left and right by bleacher seating for the VIPs, posing the problem of distributing sound evenly around the crowd without restricting their sightlines. This was overcome by placing UPM speakers adjacent to the audience. The bridge system consisted of 12 EAW KF760 line array speakers, with six Meyer UPM1s and a single Meyer USW1-P sub bass speaker on either side of the stage. Tom Marshall and Miles Marchment managed this system on the day behind an Aztec 24 + 8 console.
Three hundred VIPs watched the proceedings from a boat beneath the bridge, into which the sound was beamed via a live microwave radio link. (Screens were placed on board to ensure the assembled guests could follow proceedings.) Sound was distributed around the boat via a main stereo pair consisting of Meyer UPA-1P SPs with EAW self-powered subs positioned at the front of the boat, with two delay lines feeding Meyer UPM1s position further down the boat
