LAGOS, Nigeria — Nick Gray from U.K.-based Renegade Lighting designed lighting for the first Arise Magazine Fashion Week, which featured 50 runway shows, live performances by Tinie Tempah, Estelle, d’banj, Keri Hilson and local DJs, and an awards show.
“My brief was to produce a slick, sophisticated, fashion-savvy lightshow that worked for all cameras and utilized the locally available equipment,” said Gray, who was asked onboard by show producers Bacchus.
Two purpose-built temporary structures were erected in the hotel grounds for the event. Gray completed the design and specification, and a small quantity of lighting fixtures – primarily ETC Source Fours – were brought in specially from the U.K.
Gray’s creative challenges included having to light the spaces largely with the tungsten lightsources available and to accommodate all the live performances and awards ceremony as well as the runway shows. The essence of the design was a clean, contemporary elegance, with wiring and other technical infrastructure concealed as much as possible.
The main space featured a long, central T-shaped catwalk with a stage at one end and a reception area at the other. Running down both sides of the tent was a series of bars-of 6-PARs, which were clamped to the metal substructure of the tent with half couplers after the inside of the tent had been lined with fabric for a super-neat finish.
An LED wall built in to the end of a T-shaped catwalk was an integral part of the set design, which the models walked up to and around.
The front lighting arrays at both ends of the catwalk comprised 24 Source Four profiles, and these were rigged on ground support systems. The same positions – and some of the lighting fixtures — were used to light the stage and the reception areas at their respective ends of the tent.
Additional lighting cover was provided with a selection of Martin Professional MAC 2K wash and profile moving lights and, for Tinie Tempah, Gray added some strobes and blinders.
The smaller space was lit by 24 PAR cans rigged on six upright sections of 12 inch truss. Gray also brought over two Chamsys MagicQ PC based consoles and fader wings to program and run the two lighting rigs, together with two of his own crew — Paulus van Heijkant, who ran the desk for the main space, and Chris Fyfe, who was crew chief and console operator for the smaller space.
For more information, please visit www.renegadedesign.co.uk.
