The annual winter event put on by Kirklees Council was this year expanded to fill the weekend across 2-5 December. As well as the usual street theatre spectacular which traditionally packs out the town's St George's Square, the council prepared other events, all project managed by TG Events' Tim Garbutt.
The major new addition to this year's festival was the illumination of The Media Centre. James Bawn - normally of A.C. Entertainment Technologies - designed a temporary lighting installation for the exterior of the prominent building. Bawn has worked with TG Events on many architectural designs in the past.
Eighty-four PixelLine 1044 batons were each situated on the building gantries within the inside of The Media Centre to upwash each framed window area. The fixtures focused towards the inside of the building, where the inner aluminium walls reflected the light. This idea was not only to hide the source but create a softer, more diffused finished image.
The various looks created across the building's facade were run via a Green Hippo Hippotizer HD media server. Luminex Gigaswitches and Luminex Ethernet to DMX boxes were also used to convert the Artnet signal to DMX. A total of 4536 DMX channels were used.
James Bawn comments, "I knew exactly what I wanted to use for the installation to make the best impact available. The PixelRange PixelLines and the Hippotizer HD proved me right - and the PixelLines just suited the job perfectly. The depth of colour from PixelRange fixtures is second to none."
Bawn also designed the lighting installation for the Byram Shopping Arcade which was transformed into a Ballroom for the festival, using a further six PixelLines 1044 battens amongst various Robe fixtures.
(Jim Evans)
