White Light and E\T\C helped launch the British Tourist Authority’s (BTA) new UKOK initiative in spectacular style by illuminating and projecting onto the Tower Of London for a VIP press conference.
The international marketing campaign is aimed at encouraging tourists and holidaymakers back to Britain in 2002.
The Tower has seen a succession of celebrity inmates throughout its chequered history, but this time the VIPs attending the breakfast press conference were free to leave! They included the Rt Hon. Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, David Quarmby, Chairman of the British Tourist Authority, Dr Kim Howells MP, Minister for Tourism, Lord Marshall, Chairman of BA and many others.
Obviously, it was imperative that the location looked impressive …. So the BTA came to White Light.
White Light’s Mike Crossman handled the event. The BTA came up with the idea of architecturally lighting the Tower in a show-lighting style, and wanted their logo projected LARGE and clear onto London’s most famous historical monument. Naturally Crossman jumped at the challenge!
In turn, he approached lighting designer Leigh Porter one of several lighting designers based at their Wimbledon premises to create the lighting scheme and E\T\C’s Paul Highfield to make the projection happen.
Leigh’s brief was to light the South face of the tower and the two towers either side of the East face – in a combination of red, white and blue. The middle of the East face was the surface used for the logo projection.
Leigh wanted a colour changing luminaire for the job and decided on using Martin MAC 600 moving heads. Once a site visit and lighting tests proved that the units were right for the job, the 17 fixtures were prepped and pre-programmed in White Light’s warehouse. On site, the 14 MACs lighting the South face were rigged on scaffolding frames, re-focused and protected with waterproof coverings. The 3 illuminating the East face towers were enclosed in weatherised domes. The weather-proofing was essential, and the UK weather performed as predictably as ever, liberally tipping it down on the morning of the press conference!
The MACs were hooked into a Strand 520 console operated by Jon Coventry, located at the Raven Gate, and the Tower electrical department provided a three-phase 63 amp supply, run via White Light distros to each of the scaff towers and dome positions.
E\T\C supplied a 6K Zenon PIGI projector which easily covered the surface area of the Tower’s East face with the UKOK logo. The projector was located inside one of E\T\C’s vans, with power again supplied locally. E\T\C also carried out a full-scale on-site test using various versions of the new logo, this enabled the BTA to select the most suitable image for the launch.
The event was a massive success, BTA’s Jenny Nathan commented on the illuminations, “We’re all really thrilled with the results”.
UKOK is a multi-million pound international marketing campaign by the BTA aimed at stimulating overseas visitors to travel to Britain this year and to act as a catalyst to lead the British tourist trade into recovery. | Click on the pictures for the large version |
