BARCELONA, Spain – DBN Lighting travelled from their Manchester, U.K. home base to Barcelona's Palau Nacional, which houses the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC) and its ornate Salle Oval, the site of a recent gala dinner and awards ceremony hosted by a major pharmaceutical company. Working for live events specialist WRG Creative Communication, DBN's Stephen Page designed lighting for the two staged elements of the event.
The Gala Dinner/Awards, attended by about 1,000 delegates, was held in the Salle Oval (Oval Room), which features a large organ and a dramatic set of perimeter pillars.
The stage was built traversing the room with a set designed by Robin Thompson, which was lit with a combination of ChromaQ DB4 MkII LED battens, some positioned on the floor up-lighting and others ensconced into the ends of the set.
In the roof, the DBN crew of eight installed four 30-meter mini-beam trusses that were used to hang lighting fixtures so they could be used to properly illuminate the tables, the floor, the room and the stage.
"The challenge was in producing a spectacle for the show that would include highlighting the amazing architecture in a subtle and tasteful way as well as facilitate the functional needs of the Awards presentation and live entertainment that followed," said Page, adding that the primary objective was to "produce a funky and special ambience that all the guests could enjoy throughout the evening."
A myriad of Source Four PAR bars were used to wash the entire space in red, which was then overlaid with various color and gobo looks from 56 moving lights. These included a mix of fixtures from the Clay Paky Alpha range, including 1200, 575 and 300 HPEs, 575 TH Washes and Alpha Beam 300s – all chosen to add flexibility and panache to the visual options.
The 300 series fixtures were used to light the stage from above, while the rest were concentrated on making up general floor and room looks. Also on the stage were two Studio Due CS4 bars, hung on the back truss of a four-legged trapezoidal ground support system which was also supplied and built by DBN. The ground support measured 6 meters high and had a 6 meter wide back truss and two 6 meter side wings.
Twenty-eight i-Pix BB4 LED wash lights were used to up-light the pillars surrounding the room, which stretch from balcony level to the ceiling, in a variety of colors.
Page programmed and controlled all the lights on a Jands Vista T2 console.
The week-long Conference part of the event took place across town at the Barcelona International Convention Centre (CCIB), a 67,000-square meter building designed by Josep Lluís Mateo. This venue featured an in-the-round stage with a central catwalk, also designed by Robin Thompson. DBN's brief was to provide a simple and utilitarian white wash and "house" lighting with a little touch of extra special pizzazz.
With the latter in mind, to add color and texture to the walls of the venue, custom gobos were created for 10 Clay Paky Alpha Wash 1200 fixtures. The white lighting states were produced by a series of Source Four Profiles and PARs together with ARRI 2K fresnels, all driven from a Jands Vista console, programmed and operated by DBN's Pete Robinson.
"We enjoy a fabulous working relationship with WRG, and on site we all make it happen as one integrated team," said Page. "It was also great to work with project manager Cliff Zenker and producer Charlotte Oldwood on the Gala Dinner and production manager Ruth Lock on the Conference to ensure that all delegates went away with a memorable experience."
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