The event was conceived by Bob Geldof, a co-founder of Ten Alps Events, and was designed to introduce some magic and a sense of visual anticipation to the capital throughout December. 'Brightening Up London' was a project that Geldof had been keen to produce since 1999 and finally found the perfect sponsor in Orange, who grasped the potential synergy that this style of media campaign could bring to its own brand.
Ten Alps Events had been in touch with the owners of over 30 buildings over the past two years and when the project received the green light the first challenge was to create the shortlist of buildings that would be included. Those chosen included Tate Britain, The National Gallery, the Queen's House in Greenwich, St Mary le Strand (see cover), The Imperial War Museum, the National Theatre, 10 Trinity Square and the Royal Exchange. The project was launched by Geldof on 2 December at Wellington Arch, with switch-ons taking place throughout the month.
The pièce de résistance, however, was the illumination of Buckingham Palace. "We were delighted that the Palace agreed to take part," enthused Geldof, "it provided us with the perfect culmination to the illuminations." The Palace was lit up on Christmas Eve, and remained on through Christmas Day and Boxing Day, whilst all the other sites were dark. The other sites then resumed on 27 December and saw in the New Year.
E/T/C UK supplied a total of 15 6kW PIGI projectors, all with double rotating scrollers, spread across the 10 sites. The design and creation of the artwork for the buildings was a mammoth task, considering the number of parties involved who had a stake in the sign-off procedure - from sponsors and building owners to local authorities and transport providers! All of this was co-ordinated by Emma Williamson of Workshop Creative, who has worked closely with the Ten Alps Events team on a number of projects. Williamson collaborated closely with Paul Chatfield, brought in by Ross Ashton at E/T/C: Ashton himself produced the images as slide and film media for the PIGI scrollers.
Celebrities including Bob Geldof, Damien Hurst, David Bailey, Kate Moss, Nigella Lawson, Stella McCartney, Paul Simenon and Naomi Campbell all submitted images for projection, and many of the building owners also contributed: Tate Britain, for example, appointed a curator for the project and made over 120 images available for potential artwork, while The National Gallery provided images of some of the works it houses, and The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich supplied images of historic sailing ships and other nautical subjects.
All locations featured different artwork, although there were some common themes interlinking them - including the cartoon 'outlines' of each building created by Geldof. All of them also had specific artwork for certain days like Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, which was loaded into the scrolls and pre-programmed before each projector was fixed into place. New Year's Eve's falling snow effect also meant each machine needed vertical scrolling capabilities.
Some of the most stunning images appeared on the Queen's House in Greenwich, which featured photos of freshly-baked mince pies by Nigella Lawson in addition to fish graphics and the aforementioned nautical images. This was the first time that Williamson had worked on producing projection artwork, a task she found very exciting, especially the opportunity "to see your work on a huge canvas."
A project staged in so many public spaces brings its own unique set of challenges and it was essential to involve all the local authorities and statutory bodies at a very early stage. Anton Jeffery, who managed the project for Ten Alps Events, conducted a series of site su
