Maestra delivers for Warner’s Brits party
- Details
With Jason’s vision, the team led by production designer Jenny Woollard, senior project manager Aisha Tarayan and technical managers Adam Jones and Edwin Higgins coordinated all elements right down to the colours, textures and styles permeating the rooms. This year the entrance was graced with a spectacular sculpture made from 30 silver helium filled spheres, attached to a custom truss ground support structure wrapped in silver lamé and lit with 8 x Robe LEDWash 600 moving lights ensconced in the truss and hidden from view. These were programmed into a number of sequences complete with strobing chases creating a realistic paparazzi flash-bulb effect as guests rocked up to the event.
After the door, at the end of a sumptuously draped tunnel, guests then entered the Entrance Hall. A false ceiling and back wall were installed, and hung in the middle of this was a 1.8m wide Warner logo – which has a distinctive lozenge like appearance. The first upstairs area entered by guests was Bar 1, which evolved as a boudoir like space with soft tones, dusky pinks, purples and reds, tungsten warmth and leopard print flooring. A combination of Robe LEDBeam 100s and LEDWash 600s – were installed down the sides of the room on ground supported truss, and Robe Pointes fitted with custom ‘Ciroc’ gobos (for sponsor Ciroc vodka) beamed onto the bar area.
Lighting was crucial to bringing this and all the other rooms alive and completing the atmospheric touches. Around 150 CORE ColourPoint up-lighters were used around the building, skimming up walls, panels and drapes.
Sound from the PA in the Club Room was fed into distributed d&b systems in both bars. The Club Room hosted the main DJ and dancefloor, and revellers were treated to a live set by singer / songwriter Dua Lipa.
A 1.5m gold mirror ball above the dancefloor boosted the glitz and worked in perfect visual harmony with the shimmering dancefloor.
Lighting was rigged on a discreet ground supported box truss that started from behind the stage and came out over the seating area, rigged with Robe LEDBeam 100s, LEDWash 600s and Martin Atomic 3000 strobes, together with 6w RGB lasers and single colour blue beam lasers, all operated via a Chamsys MagicQ MQ100 console.
A d&b Y series line array PA ensured a clean high fidelity sound with plenty of power, utilizing a combination of Y8 and Y12 speakers plus eight Y-SUBS - the sub count was upped this year - all mixed via a DiGiCo SD10 console
The main special set piece in Bar 2 was an 8m wide by 7m high feature wall behind the bar which was built by Maestra, and for which Jenny created a striking image working with a scenic artist briefed by Jason. She took an original hand painted panel and collaged it in Photoshop to create a totally exclusive graphic effect.
The VIP area exuded opulence and desirability as guests entered down a leopard print floor corridor lined with heavy black velour drapes.
(Jim Evans)
