Their Past Your Future is a new educational project led by the Imperial War Museum, and funded by the Big Lottery Fund, which aims to inspire people of all ages to discover the Second World War, how it shaped and altered the world's course, and why it is still relevant now and in the future. It is now showing in nine different locations around the UK, including: Bluewater Shopping Centre in Dartford, Kent, Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, Action Stations at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Forest of Mercia Innovation Centre, Staffordshire, Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, Ministry of Defence at Whitehall, Rhyd-y-Car Leisure Centre, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, Royal Ulster Rifles Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland, West Dunbartonshire Town Hall, Glasgow, Scotland, The exhibitions will move to a further 60 venues over the next year.
For the exhibition's national launch, White Light Events' lighting designer and project manager Matt Holliday had to light both the exterior and the interior of the building, with the ground floor used for VIP presentations and a drinks reception for 250 guests, and the exterior hosting vintage World War II vehicles. His design for the event included ETC Source Fours, PAR64s, a Robert Juliat Marius followspot and White Light's own Exhibition Uplighters. He also used Martin Mac2000 automated spotlights, some mounted in protective domes, to create searchlight effects outside the museum. Control for the rig was from a Zero88 Fat Frog console.
White Light Events also co-ordinated the audio and video projection sides of the event, bringing in Lee Dennison from Autograph for audio and Miles Poulton from Metro Broadcast for video.
"I was delighted with White Light's service, both from a technical and creative view," commented Dowd, "It helped make the evening an enormous success. Our guests were impressed at the display when they arrived at the Imperial War Museum; the atmosphere the lighting provided really gave Their Past Your Future's launch a wonderful send-off."
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
