Elation lights The Warehouse Project
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The Warehouse Project, which runs from September through New Year’s Eve, features acclaimed DJs and musicians as well as less established artists, and is continually rated as one of the best dance/DJ club venues in Europe. dbnAudile handles audio, lighting, video and rigging for the project’s run, which has been held in the refurbished Mayfield Depot in Manchester since 2019.
Pete Robinson project manages the operation for dbnAudile and has served as lighting designer since The Warehouse Project’s inception. He explains that the 10,000-capacity former railway station is a significantly bigger venue than the previous location and therefore required upscaled production.
“Each year we try to find an upgrade or change in design to keep the look fresh and interesting and this year we were looking for something more interesting than the LED bars we’ve been using the past few years,” he commented, acknowledging head of lighting Dale Wilson and main room desk operator Colm Whaley as important collaborators on the project.
“The Rayzor Blades jumped out at us not only because they are brighter and punchier than the previous LED bars we were using, but with the strobe effect and sparkle feature we felt they were a more versatile fixture.”
Because the project runs during the damp months of autumn and winter, it was another feature of the Proteus Rayzor Blade that was key to their choice. Pete explains: “The first box we had to tick was the IP rating,” he said, explaining that the Mayfield Depot is an old railway freight storage warehouse with platforms above the ceiling that are very leaky.
“At best it’s moist inside, at worst it feels like it rains in certain spots of the venue and we can’t always predict where that water will come through. It’s important for us to move to more IP-rated fixtures as they give us fewer problems through the season,” he added, noting that the leaky roof had already initiated an upgrade to IP-rated strobes, moving lights, and other equipment.
dbnAudile’s first foray into Elation’s Proteus line, the Rayzor Blades are an important element in Pete’s 2023 lighting design. “We get lots of incoming LDs using the rig and lots of floor packages coming in,” he says, “so the design is based around it being versatile as a receiving house but it’s also a design that stands on its own and we feel this season that the Rayzors have pushed that further.”
Fifty-six Rayzor Blades are positioned in the room above the dancefloor with 16 additional units above the stage. LED bars have previously been positioned vertically on pillars that run down the venue either side of the stage, Pete explains, as well as horizontally above the dancefloor and stage areas. This year they’ve placed a Rayzor Blade S (half meter) on the inside top of each pillar and a Rayzor Blade L (one meter) on the outside top of each pillar.
“We wanted to get more out of them by putting them at a 45-degree angle so we get coverage right down the dancefloor, and we’ve mimicked that on stage by hanging them at similar angles underneath our stage trusses.”
dbnAudile’s Rayzor Blades will be adorning The Warehouse Project through the end of the year, after which they will be employed on other projects. “We do a lot of festivals and I think they will feature heavily on those,” Pete concludes. “Especially now that we have something that can go on the front truss or as a footlight on front of stage, which is not something we’ve been able to do with similar fixtures.”
