Mushroom, which has created window display lighting for the store's branches in London and Leeds for the past three years, and the new Birmingham branch which opened in October, came up with the idea as a follow-up to last year's seasonal decoration when strings of fairy lights adorned the store's façade. The snowfalls are created by three snow machines, mounted on the store's roof, which produce a totally safe, detergent and water-based, white foam. Forced through a fine mesh and released into the air, it takes on the appearance of snowflakes. Mushroom designed an automatic timer for the machines which monitors the flow of fluid and refills the machines' tanks when necessary. In the run-up to Christmas Eve, 3,000 litres of fluid were consumed.
Mushroom also lit the store's Christmas window display, the theme of which was giant slices of Christmas cake adorned with oversized cake ornaments and holly. The lighting used was a mixture of PAR56 lanterns and Source Four PARs, controlled by NJD Logic 8000s; in three of the windows Mushroom employed a new effect from Gam Film FX based on the Source 4 Profile which creates the effect of giant falling snowballs. The company also installed a large quantity of Rosco diffusion gel on the windows to create a warm, even glow across the windows. To carry the magical effect instore, Mushroom rounded off the project by installing 40 mirror balls.
(Lee Baldock)
