A radical re-think of traditional festoon lighting, the Digital Festoon System offers users the ability to individually control the level of each bulb along a length of festoon, while still being formed from a traditional two-core festoon cable.
The first to use the system in a real-world project was lighting designer Gary Collins, on a large outdoor event for VS Creative. "VS Creative had asked me to come up with an efficient and cost-effective way to light a 400m path through the woodland grounds of the venue, allowing guests to return to the car park after dark," Collins explains. "Light levels had to be generous as this path was cut through 1.5metre high grass and the surface underfoot was uneven with the odd rabbit hole! We also had to be considerate to the natural environment; we couldn't use hot lamps to light the trees because of the fire risk, and LED units were out of the budget. Festoon seemed the natural choice."
Collins then remembered a conversation he'd had with White Light's managing director, Bryan Raven. "Bryan had mentioned the DFS to me, and this seemed like the perfect project to give it a shot. We installed a low-level run of DFS with the lamps at 1m spacing along each side of the path, interspersing the DFS units with standard static Festoon lamps. The static units provided a safe constant level of illumination that cast a warm glow along the path; the Digital Festoon System was then programmed with a rippling chase along its length, mirrored on either side of the path. This added an extra element of movement and interest to the last environment that the guests experienced that night."
With this the first real outing for DFS, White Light were on hand to support the system. "There were a couple of teething problems," Collins notes, "but they were quickly resolved by the White Light team. The system proved very effective - I can imagine many situations where it would be a useful lighting tool and I look forward to using it again for different effect."
As well as event lighting, the Digital Festoon System is now finding a home in concert lighting. On the recent Fun Lovin' Criminals tour, lighting designer Rob Coleman used a 480-lamp DFS system compromised of four 120 lamp matrix screens to create a pseudo light curtain. The DFS was also used by set designers Creator to replicate the music video backdrop that accompanied the release of Mariah Carey's new album, The Emancipation of Mimi, when she recently appeared on the television shows CD-UK and Top of the Pops.
The Digital Festoon System is now available for sale or hire from White Light; the system can be programmed using a PC running the DFS control software, or controlled from a standard DMX lighting console. Each DFS power supply can run up to 200 lamps per 100 metre cable length; the DFS power supplies can be linked together to give direct control of up to 100,000 lamps, offering the possibility for quite spectacular effects.
White Light will demonstrate the Digital Festoon System at this year's ETS-LDI show in Orlando Florida on booth 821.
(Lee Baldock)
