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World's First Alpha Beam Clock Counts in New Year at London Eye
The New Year's Eve fireworks and light display at the London Eye produced by Jack Morton Worldwide on behalf of the Mayor of London always involves new innovations and the display to bring in 2010 was no different.
Instead of projections onto the Shell building as in previous years, lighting designer Durham Marenghi stepped up to the challenge and used 14 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700s programmed by Paul Cook to form two digital numerics 50 feet high on the Shell building façade. A clever stack of cues run from a GPS signal to midi converter, some accurate indexing of the oblong slot gobos and all was well once more! Not only that, this technology helped to produce cost savings for the event - a bonus in these recession hit times.
Stage Electrics supplied the equipment for the event this year with the Eye being illuminated by Alpha Beam 300s and 700s alongside some VL5 Arcs. The pods held MAC 2k washes as per tradition and the Big Lights on the pontoon created some fabulous aerial looks.
Marenghi says: "It was very satisfying to bring a clock to the party and the reliability, brightness and accuracy of the Clay Paky Alpha Beams was fundamental to the success."
A spokesperson for Jack Morton Worldwide's client at the GLA said: "Having seen the BBC coverage on the iplayer on New Year's Day, I think one of the biggest successes of the night was Durham's countdown clock. Its clarity was outstanding and looked like it had been digitally added by TV production and it was realised at a cost significantly cheaper than the traditional analogue projections system we have used in the past to create this effect."
6th January 2010
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