The event was held at Cologne's LANXESS arena, one of Europe's largest all-purpose venues and host to concerts by an impressive range of international music stars.
Production management for the event was by Placet Die Veranstaltungsgesellschaft. Stage lighting, audio and video supply was by PRG Cologne, with set design by John Stillwell. For the third year running, Marcus Krömer and Marcus Bossdorf provided the lighting and video content design for the all-day event, which featured a conference in the morning, an awards show in the afternoon and a concert in the evening. Splitting into two teams, programming was 24/7 for a whole week in the arena.
Krömer needed a fixture that was bright enough to uplight a curved wall onstage reaching up to 5m high at its centre, whilst being compact enough to fit inside and follow the curvature of the 32m span. It also needed to feature built-in dimming, provide smooth colour changing effects and look good on camera as the whole event was being filmed in high definition.
Krömer used 330 Color Block 2 units mounted at the top and bottom inside the wall to light a bounce at the back of it. In addition to providing ample light output for the 5m height and smooth dimming, the fixture's soft, asymmetrical beam optics produced an immediate colour blend for uplighting the surface. Also, the unit's RGBA single colour diffused optics provided camera-friendly output and a wider colour palette for achieving the set lighting's broad range of bold and subtle colour changes.
The wall was used in two different configurations - with an entrance opening for the daytime conference and awards, then fully closed off for the evening concert. Krömer used soft colour static looks for the daytime events and then bold colour looks synchronised with the surrounding video panels and other effects lighting for the concert, which featured well known German bands Die Höhner, Drum Café and Pur.
Krömer concludes, "The Color Block 2 looked great in the show and was still bright enough to compete with all the movers on stage. The range of colours suited the conference part as well as for the awards and the concert. I also really liked its flexibility of configuration and ease of installation, so will definitely be using it again."
Other production credits include video content creation by Bernhard Settele, LX programming by Michael Baganz, Sascha Matthes, Dirk Kornberger, Peter Tacke and video programming by Markus Kalwinsky and Christine Bernhard.
(Jim Evans)
