The event was a g kaleidoscope of lights, video, sound and lasers delighting approximately 17,000 visitors. The multimedia-based event told the story of the development of the automobile and provided a glimpse into its future.
The celebration featured 80 automobiles with an accompanying orchestra, choir and the Söhne Mannheims pop group. The young singers, amongst them Xavier Naidoo, opened the evening with their own songs and accompanied the SWR Baden-Baden and Freiburg Symphony Orchestra and the SWR vocal ensemble throughout the symphony.
The automobiles, representing a variety of eras, were played like instruments by the youngsters, who 'played' the orchestra of cars, with noises from the squeak of windshield wipers to the slam of trunks. The Pop Academy Baden-Wuerttemberg spent a year preparing the young car-playing musicians for the event.
Loop Light GmbH was asked by m:con Mannheim to take responsibility of the video programming and playback at the show. Loop Light works in a variety of areas including live concerts, corporate events and television and maintains offices in Germany, Switzerland, UK and USA.
Matt Finke, general manager for Loop Light explained, "We provided all COOLUX Pandoras Box servers for video-playback for all LED and projection surfaces. We have a long experience in pre-visualisation, so we were also given the responsibility for pre-programming in the wysiwyg suites. This was the first show after Alicia Keys that we used the lighting & video pre-visualisation, it just worked out great."
(Jim Evans)
