LONDON – Entec Sound & Light helped LD Simon Tutchener turn the concourse of Platform 4 in the former Eurostar Terminal at Waterloo Station into a brightly-lit, yet still neo-industrial, venue for London Fashion Week. Among the key challenges: working with the changing light levels during the day outside the glass-roofed building, and installing lighting gear into very limited spaces. Some of the fixtures were rigged over the old train tracks, which contain the live DC volt rails that are part of still-active Waterloo's signalling network.
Several shows were staged in this space, including Top Shop's "Unique," an amalgam of funky clothes, big hair and other trendy concepts for the 2010/11 winter collection.
Entec's crew, chiefed by Simon Honnor, also had to contend with sharing a power supply with the theatrical production of The Railway Children, which was being staged at the far end of the disused platforms in a specially-constructed black box arena.
Another difficulty was the push to get the equipment from the load-in door to the performance area 1/3 of a mile away, with no vehicular access. The crew also dealt with strict health & safety regulations that govern working in a railway station – even those parts that are no longer in active service.
Another Waterloo challenge was the Entec crew could not work on rigging Top Shop while there was a Railway Children performance happening. This entailed some complex logistics, juggling and shift scheduling by account manager Adam Stevenson to allow enough time for the build and programming.
It was the first time Tutchener had lit a show in a railway station, and while he's worked in many other idiosyncratic venues, this one was particularly special. Again, the main challenge was that the lighting had to work for both daytime and dusk shows.
The only practical way to get positions from which to light along the 44-meter runway area was with ground supports, so Tutchener asked Steeldeck – which was also involved in The Railway Children – to install 10 8-foot-by-8-foot platforms over the tracks on Platforms 3 and 4.
Onto these, Entec rigged 10 Superlifts, five per side, which were cranked up to their maximum trim height and rigged with a total of 30 Vari*Lite 2000 wash fixtures, carefully focused to cover the catwalk and blend with the shifting daylight.
The color temperature issues were intensified by the variability of the natural light filtering or blasting though the curved glass roof. Tutchener lit it to 5600°K daylight, but when the sun came out, this rose to about 10,000°, so a series of color temperature checks were required to ensure that light levels were balanced for the cameras.
This was also the first London Fashion Week show were Tutchener relied exclusively upon moving lights with no MSR sources.
Entec supplied another 20 Martin Professional MAC 300s, which were rigged on stands and used to light the cafe and hospitality area straddling the next two platforms over, moving away from the glass roof.
For the shows, these fixtures were focused on the "escape route" running down the back of the seating stands and behind the main runway.
For front light, Tutchener used a Strong 2kW Super-trooper and two Pani 1200W followspots rigged on top of a purpose-built truss platform just forward of the control area. Each followspot was locked off in a static position and balanced to interact with the fill light provided by the Vari*Lites and the daylight coming in through the roof.
The crew also set up five Jem Glaciators and several hazers for atmospheric enhancement on selected shows.
Richard Lambert operated the lights using a grandMA full size console, while Tutchener alternated between the three other "off-site" shows he had designed for this Fashion Week, all with more gear and crew supplied by Entec.
Those shows included Mulberry at the Claridges Hotel, Paul Smith at the Paul Smith headquarters in Covent Garden and Ozwald Boateng at the Odeon Cinema Leicester Square.
"As always, the service, equipment and crew from Entec were fantastic, and it was a real pleasure to work with them on this and all the other shows," Tutchener said.
For more information, please visit www.entec-soundandlight.com.
