Based on the outskirts of Maidstone in Kent, STL has designed and installed lighting at the Leeds Castle Fireworks display for five consecutive years. The company's ability to create a dramatic light show to music that compliments fireworks has become widely recognised, hence STL regularly works with pyrotechnic experts, Alchemy, who develop the theme for the annual Leeds Castle event.
Despite the essential maintenance work taking place on the exterior of the ancient building, which requires a permanent scaffold and white tarpaulin, onlookers were none the wiser thanks to the clever use of lighting techniques provided by the designers and technicians at STL.
Phil Parsons, project manager for STL said, "In previous years we have used the castle as a focal point, but on this occasion we needed to disguise the unsightly fixtures, which are very visible during daylight, yet we still needed to incorporate the building.
"We decided this would be the perfect opportunity to use the varying levels of the scaffolding as a platform for moving lights. We've never before had access to rig lights to the castle itself, so for this year only we interspersed 24 Robe Pointes and LED colour washes to the scaffolding and across the castle wall, while MAC 700 Profiles were spaced around the mote to project animal gobos onto the castle.
"For such a large light display, it's essential nothing goes wrong, I needed a lighting console I can rely on, so I used an Avolites Pearl Expert with touch wing, running Titan version 8 software, plus an extra for back-up. This desk is incredibly user friendly and gives me the opportunity to adlib during the live event, as the first time I see the fireworks is along with 8,000 people on the first night. Ahead of the show, I used the Avolites Titan App to focus and tweak position pallets from various perspectives. This was perfect, as the control position was off centre, proving difficult to programme."
Lasting 30 minutes the overall effect of lighting, fireworks and music was yet again a triumph according to spectators.
(Jim Evans)
