It is the second year that locally based Marcus has designed a lighting scheme for Bath Abbey, which was founded in 1499. His client was Bath Tourism & Leisure.
He needed a selection of reliable, flexible, bright lightsources which could be rigged over four levels of the Abbey. Having large quantities of both Robe and Anolis units in Enlightened's hire stock, and long experience of using them for many applications, he knew they would be suitable for the job. He also took the opportunity to use six newly purchased Robe Robin 600 LEDWashes.
The creative challenges included making it look very special, and doing something different from a 'standard' building lighting scheme, something that would engage and impress the huge numbers of people who flock into town for the festival opening night.
"It's rare to have the opportunity to illuminate such beautiful architecture with no other purpose than to produce a sense of wonder. Accentuating the symmetry, understanding and working to enhance the structure, whilst aiming for the wow factor was the most challenging and fun part."
Around the base, washing up the walls on the north and east elevations were Robe moving lights - a combination of ColorSpot 1200, 700 and 575E ATs. The Robin 600 LEDWash fixtures were positioned at the corners and bathed large areas in striking shades of colour. "The new Robin 600 LEDWash heads are very nice bits of kit," comments Marcus, "extremely bright and very versatile, particularly for lighting at a very steep angle". All of the movers were encased in Robe IP43 LightDome enclosures from Enlightened's hire stock.
Rigged further up on the four roof areas of the Abbey and along the narrow passageways snaking around the roof were a total of 118 Anolis and other LED fixtures. With only a series of tiny, winding passages and staircases to access these areas, having fixtures that were light and portable was essential.
To contrast the building stonework against these finer elements, the flying buttresses down the north and south sides of the Abbey were lit by a series of LED units including Anolis ArcPad 48s.
All the Abbey architectural lighting was powered from hard power within the church and the control FOH position was in a door well on the east face - which made programming challenging as there was no way to view the installation from the desk position. A Chamsys MagicQ 120 Pro desk was used to run the lights, operated by Rob Taylor.
(Jim Evans)
