BLACKPOOL, U.K. – Robe moving lights are playing a key role in the installed artwork, "Brilliance." The £3.5 million artwork consist of six aluminum-clad arches traversing Birley Street in the downtown area and lit by fixtures arranged along surrounding streets. The light show takes place every 10 minutes. The design concept was developed by Manchester-based BDP and the lighting was conceived and programmed by Greg McLenahan of World Wide Lighting Design working with Blackpool's Illuminations department. The installation was overseen and co-ordinated by principal building contractors, J. McCann & Co (Nottingham) Ltd.
McLenahan and the Illuminations department chose Robe's ColorSpot 2500E ATs for the installation. McLenahan has used Robe for a number of other projects including a giant mirror ball work along the Promenade right on the sea front in 2005 which was one of the original inspirations for this much larger project.
The 36 Robe ColorSpot 2500E ATs were supplied by Robe UK and chosen in part for their reliability, according to McLenahan. He added that the service and support from Robe UK is also "excellent".
Along Birley Street, there are three ColorSpot 2500E ATs per arch encased in weather domes. These are used for the majority of the effects, throwing gobo patterns along the street, on the pavement and up the buildings, highlighting the glistening curvature of the other arches and beaming up into the night sky.
Also on the undersides of the arches are LED floods, 200 nodes of CK i-Color Flex and four Bose speakers.
All the street lights have been replaced by 45 lengths of white LED strip made by DW Windsors, which built the arches. All the arches are linked with power and data running down the street via three cateneries.
Along Church, Corporation and Clifton Streets, a further 18 Robe ColorSpot 2500E ATs are encased in the same domes that are built into the top of custom columns. These are located along the street, casting their beams downward, onto buildings and into the air.
Church Street is pedestrianized, so the Robes are set on slow color, gobo and movement chases, with seasonal gobos such as snowflakes and sun graphics swapped in as needed. The fixtures in Corporation and Clifton Streets are used for higher-level beam work.
Lighting control for all four streets is from a central office half way up Birley Street, using three ShowCAD Artists systems – one dedicated to Birley street, the second for the other three streets and the third as a fully redundant backup.
Church, Corporation and Clifton Streets are all run via a W-DMX wireless system, and 16 lines of DMX are run through a PathPort DMX manager for Ethernet to DMX conversion. The sound track is stored on a KL3 music server which also plays between-show music.
A Scada intelligent power management system is incorporated into the control set up which allows power to be cut to any fitting on the site, and also controls the conventional street light dimming via photo cell & dali conversion.
"Brilliance" was commissioned by Blackpool Council and received funding from the Northwest Development Agency, the European Regional Development Fund and Blackpool Council. It is designed to encourage people to visit and stay into the evening and take advantage of the many restaurants, bars, cafes, clubs and entertainment venues in the area.
For more information, please visit www.robe.cz.
