The 1870-capacity venue follows the theme of earlier Wonderlands where SGM is also heavily represented - an escapist venue loosely based on the 'Alice' theme, with references to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party and the White Rabbit. With a mandate to surprise, it commissioned the sensational SGM centrepiece, made up of 220 x 1-metre long pixel tubes, suspended over the main dance floor.
The effect produces a ceiling of dancing lights in ever changing combinations while colour chases are sent in waves or bars across tubes, designed into a giant rectangle and offering a 2 x 170° viewing angle. To create further dimension, 66 strings of SGM LB-100 LED light balls are interspersed, zipping along the length of the display from the ceiling.
The club's resident light jockey Harry Ross controls the 3D light scene via DMX from a media server working off a ShowCAD Artist PC-based lighting control programme. The effects can also be generated live and in sync with the music. "Customers are constantly commenting on the lightshow," Harry Ross says and continues "The effect is wicked; I deliberately hold it back until the dance floor is packed and then suddenly bring it to life."
The installation was conceived by Mark Damon of lighting and sound specialists, Cosmic Electronics, in conjunction with Ian Kirby at SGM's UK distributors, LED Projects.
In the set up at Wonderland, Cosmic has drawn heavily from the SGM catalogue, providing four SGM LED X-5 strobes down each of the two stage columns, eight SGM Galileo scanners, 12 SGM Idea Beam 300 and eight Idea LED 300 - as well as 40 Idea Par LED RGB stage cans (24 of them deployed in the second 'retro' 1970's disco room).
But in this magical world, it is the LT-100 which provides the real alchemy. The secret is in the 3D mapping, created from a 2D render in which each LED pixel is individually addressed. Custom scripts enable the 3D waves or bar effects to be generated and with 35mm pixel pitch the display can also be DVI driven with lo-res moving images. With these effects rendered in real-time, the LJ can easily manipulate all visuals in terms of speed, colour, brightness and direction.
As for the LB-100 LED Balls, which made their high profile debut at Playboy London, these are operated either independently from the server or as part of the overall lightshow. The 66 strings consist of 34mm colour-changing LED balls with 120mm pixel pitch (each pixel outputting less than half a watt).
Summing up, Lucy Herlihy stated, "We really needed a wow factor to bring this venue back to life and this lighting rig has delivered massively."
(Jim Evans)
