The area holds a special significance in the history of Singapore, being a port from which the city started its development. The idea for the 2012 New Year celebration was to fill the reservoir with floating illuminated spheres, each containing a personal note from individuals stating their wishes for 2012. From an initial estimate of 2500, the number of spheres grew to an astounding 20,000.
The Esplanade handled the lighting of the floating spheres in house. Given the size of the area to be covered, an extensive DMX distribution was required. Relying on MA Lighting's proprietary MA2net, one side of the bay was covered with DMX via the 2PortNode distribution. At the same time this also provided the required backup possibilities in case of failures of equipment.
However, the biggest challenge was to integrate the LED fixtures on the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) complex. MBS had kindly agreed to grant the Esplanade access to their in house control system for their nearly 400 RGBA LEDs covering the building.
Located at the other side of the bay, no cable-based solution was possible to provide access to the control system. A few options were evaluated, but in the end, W-DMX by Wireless Solution proved to be the most appropriate.
Six W-DMX transmitters and six receivers together with directional antennas were set up to bridge a distance of approximately 800m and spanning over six DMX universes. Converting the DMX signal from the receivers to Art-Net MA Lighting 2PortNodes proved to be the solution as no configuration change was required on the Marina Bay Sands side.
Technical equipment and support was provided by Showtech Singapore. Henry Ang, managing director for Showtec Group remarked, "We used the W-DMX system for the grand opening of the Marina Bay Sands. It is a user-friendly system to set up and operate and the performance of the system at great distances and gave us the confidence to use it on projects like the Wishing Spheres that were beyond our imagination in the past. Well Done W-DMX."
(Jim Evans)
