ELP gear up for Motor Show
ELP supplied lighting, rigging and technical services for the Peugeot stand at this year's Sunday Times Motor Show.
Working under the direction of client company Silver Knight Exhibitions and LD Dave Evans, ELP helped to create one of the biggest and most entertaining stands at NEC event.
The centre piece of the 76m x 35m Peugeot exhibition consisted of a show area where six live presentations were delivered each day as part of the new Peugeot 407 launch.
Each show lasted exactly 407 seconds and took the form of a live, glitzy, high impact advertisement choreographed to music. A presenter, performing in front of a 7m x 4m video screen, guided the audience through the benefits of the new 407 while two female dancers demonstrated the cars special new features.
Peugeot showed 50 vehicles across the NEC floor space in what has been described as their biggest ever exhibition in the UK. A twelve man ELP crew, headed up by gaffer Darren Fletcher, hung over 420m of truss from 56 motors including 2 x 20m truss circles above the live show area.
Board operator Matt Smith controlled 85 moving lights with a Whole Hog 2 desk. The range included Mac 600's Mac 2000's and assorted High End Studio Colours and Studio Beams. Collectively these provided colour change options on Peugeot's corporate branding and provided the live show area with appropriate glamour. The lighting display helped set mood and tone. It contributed to building the excitement for onlookers and matched the momentum of the music and video visuals.
16 Arri 1.2 msr's lit the central exhibition area and Chromabanks were used to augment the video wall. But as LD Dave Evans explains, it was the 36 Arena Visions, bought especially for this job by ELP which made a huge contribution to the overall effect. "Ideal for this type of corporate job the Arena Vision lamp's footprint is almost the same shape as a car. Therefore you don't just get an illuminated 'hot spot' but the beam fringes out to an angle of about 70 degrees. This means that the floor area surrounding each vehicle was equally vibrant."
ELP project manager John Singer also praised the Arena Visions. "They are great for trade shows and exhibitions. The lamps are specially designed to provide intense flood lighting for long periods of time and are very easy to maintain. Any exhibition demonstrating sizable products like boats, machinery and light structures would benefit from using these new additions to our equipment list"
The ELP team also built a 17m x 6m steel decked stage for the clients who were impressed by the speed of the build. "The stage was up in an hour and a half" Comments LD Dave Evans. "If we had set builders in to create something similar it would have taken a couple of days at least. The whole rig had to be installed in two days so we couldn't waste time building a stage. It was great to have ELP's structural expertise on hand"
The LD further explained how the event lighting had to meet the different objectives of the various departments within Peugeot. Sales, marketing and manufacturing each had their own ideas and priorities for the event. "My brief for the live show stated that the lighting must not distract from the video and the corporate messages but at the same time had to be used to punctuate and emphasise certain key points...whereas the brief for the remaining floor space was to accentuate the vehicles as brightly as possible."
He concludes "the range of kit and expertise provided by ELP meant that I could accommodate every request and just use the one supplier for all the lighting, rigging, power distro and structures. ELP are uniquely placed to provide a one stop shop for events like this"