Pearce Hire creates magical winter wonderland
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Pearce Hire were the clear choice for the Abbey’s events team as they designed and activated the brief for an enchanting 2km lighting and audio nature trail through the grounds and taking in the House, Mill and the aptly named Winter Garden.
“We may be better known in the industry for providing technical production support for festivals and tours, but this garden brief really got our creative side going”, says Jim Brown, general manager, Pearce Hire. “This year’s production took on another dimension and we were very happy to embrace this, and work in close collaboration with the team at Anglesey Abbey to help achieve their vision.
“The brief was clear, with the end goal of creating a ‘sense of place’ within the gardens; connecting visitors with the natural surroundings and environment they were walking through. Through this, we were able to embrace the natural beauty in the grounds and brought the space to life in an exciting, eye-catching and thought-provoking way.”
Kayley Wilcockson, senior programming and partnership officer from Anglesey Abbey expands. “Originally, Anglesey Abbey Winter Lights was created as a way to highlight our beautiful Gardens during the winter months. From small beginnings, it has grown into an inspiring annual installation which is now our largest fundraiser of the year, providing vital funds for our conservation work across the estate. We have worked for several years with Pearce Hire and so it made sense to work in close collaboration with them on the overall creative design and they truly embraced our strapline of ‘Nature by Night, Nature by Light’.”
Pearce Hire led the design and production team, supplying the full technical package including power, lighting, sound, projection and effects. In addition, some bespoke lighting units were customised in their workshop to deliver unique touches for this project.
2021 saw Anglesey Abbey’s Winter Lights celebrating its tenth anniversary and, having had an enforced Covid-19 year off, the team wanted to pull out all the stops with the production. Pearce Hire appointed Eddie Barcan of Splendid Events to co-produce the project, ensuring a cohesive creative theme ran throughout the trail. “I was able to work as conduit between the Anglesey Abbey team, and Pearce Hire to bring a fresh perspective to the design,” confirms Eddie. “Throughout the planning phase I challenged Pearce Hire to deliver the nature theme by bringing out natural elements such as fractals, murmurations and natural sounds.”
Collaboration was key to the planning, with an expanded team taking on various aspects. Lighting designer Andrew Keightley and Pearce Hire’s project manager John Huson were responsible for the lighting design and programming; Eddie Barcan and Jim Brown sourced sustainable nature-themed wire and wicker animal sculptures and other novel effects; projection content and interactive elements were provided by Ross Ashton of The Projection Studio and the Cambridge Film Project; and Gregory Ovenden produced the soundscape which covered the entirety of the trail.
As a result of this considerable collaboration, the 24,000 visitors who attended over three dark December weekends were treated to projections and illuminations onto trees, the House and the Lode Mill and an interactive projection in the Courtyard.
Key lighting fixtures used throughout the installation included Cameo ZENIT W600 IP65 rated washlights, the powerful and versatile IP65 rated StudioCob PlusFC LED PAR from Prolights, alongside the very bright and very fast Robe Pointes (protected by Selby Rainguards). Additional LED fixtures included 10W LED accent lights, 400W MBI floods, and LED festoon lighting.
An addition to the sensory Winter Garden location was the use of scent and visual effects including a murmuration pixel mapped across the East Lawn using SGM LB-100 LED pixel strings. Musical entertainment was provided by live performers from Cambridge Jazz Festival and the Cambridge Folk Festival in the intimate Courtyard and Orchard areas.
The PA systems positioned in the Courtyard and Orchard for these performances were Yamaha’s flagship DSR PA systems with an L-Acoustics PA system providing audio inside the shop and visitor centre.
Another important aspect of the brief was sustainability. “We needed to deliver an event which was sensitive to the conservation environment it was situated in,” explains Anglesey Abbey’s Kayley. “Pearce Hire totally took this on board which we were thrilled with.”
Pearce Hire utilised their extensive knowledge and experience of temporary power solutions to address this requirement. Integral to this was a synced pair of 100 kVA generators which ran on HVO Green D+ fuel, delivering an 80% reduction in CO2e emissions from previous iterations of the Winter Lights trail.
