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PRG Europe lights up Henley Festival
Cast your mind back to the recent long summer evenings, then think of how delightfully warm it was, and how you enjoyed sitting outside a pub or bar, drinking a cold beer or glass of white wine. Now transplant yourself to the banks of the Thames in Oxfordshire – Henley-on-Thames, to be precise – and add 3.5 acres of lawn, a selection of beautifully lit sculptures, live music and fine dining. If you are thinking the same as us, you’ll be thinking of the Henley Festival, which has been running the past 23 years following the Royal Regatta.
“It’s been described as a cross between Glyndebourne and Glastonbury,” said festival director Stewart Collins. “And each year the site looks better and better, because of the way the site is lit after dark by PRG Europe. This year, it looked fantastic. Dusk was at 10.15pm, at which point the entire site was illuminated – as opposed to floodlit – using cutting edge lighting to stunning effect.”
PRG Europe has been working with the festival for the past five years, says project manager Peter Marshall, lighting the whole site, providing all the crew and organising the lighting for the main performance venues. The lighting for the entire site was designed and theatrically lit by lighting designer Theo Cox to create different moods and themes throughout each evening. Every year the festival offers a wide range of performances, from classical through to dance to rock and roll and comedy and jazz.
“I created a constantly evolving environment,” said Theo, “based on gentle rotation of spirals rolling between ambers and pinks. An occasional rip down the site – in, say, a hard white and blue flicker – would wake people up a bit and keep the interest level up. I like to make a feature of trees – hanging mirror balls in them is always a winner – but this year a cluster of 12 Chromaspheres inspired most interest and comment. Site lighting was a compromise between functional and aesthetic. Using rakes of moving lights on five 9m tall Summit Steel smart masts around the site allowed me to conjure up both effect and coverage.”
Equipment used included over 150 Vari*Lites and several hundred conventional fixtures, controlled by three Wholehog IIs – one with an expansion wing – and four Avolites Pearl 2000s.
Loading in for the five-day festival – consisting of five truck loads of equipment, including about 5km of cable – was done on 4th July for the first show, which was on Wednesday 6th. PRG Europe supplied some 15-20 people just for lighting. “We provided a complete package,” continued Peter. “As well as bringing in Theo to do the lighting design, we also liaised with the production management and worked on health and safety compliance.”
“Our relationship with PRG is now quite a long one, and they really do make the site look absolutely beautiful once the sun goes down,” concluded Stewart. “The great thing is that it’s beautiful by day, and looks absolutely stunning by night. What we’ve achieved with PRG is to create this magical after dark kingdom.”
24th August 2005
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