IMTS is North America's largest tool show, featuring 1400 companies and attracting over 85,000 visitors. While most exhibitors relied on standard overhead fluorescent lighting and basic displays, Sandvik employed Gyromedia and Spectra Stage & Event Technologies to create a dramatic theatrical lighting scheme.
Sandvik had 22 tons of ice flown in from Sweden's famed Ice Hotel for the booth, the first time the special ice has ever been brought into the US. A 6-ton ice bar was the main attraction, and 7-foot tall ice sculptures featuring the Sandvik logo flanked the outer perimeter of the booth.
For low-heat fill colour throughout the booth, the team used 17 City Theatrical ColorBlast units and 19 Colour Kinetics ColorBlaze LED strips, supplied by PRG Chicago. While the LEDs satisfied the low heat requirements, project manager and lighting designer Rickard Gabrielsson of Gyromedia specified Wybron Nexera CDM fixtures - 18 Profile and 12 Wash - to deliver "Northern Light" colour, without the heat of traditional tungsten source lighting fixtures. To reach the desired 4200 colour temperature, Wybron suggested using Phillips CDM 942 lamps for the fixtures.
Gabrielsson explained, "The Nexeras deliver such a beautiful punch of colour, and I love how quiet they are. Plus they're easy to use -- which saves us all time. Not to mention, the lamps have a 14,000 hour life. Not having to call the union guys in the middle of a show is a huge bonus."
Additional features of the booth included a 10' x 20' (6m x 3m) LED wall built with 78 Barco I-Lite 6 tiles (also supplied by PRG Chicago), used to play a short corporate movie. In keeping with the theme, parts of the movie were actually filmed inside the Ice Hotel. The entire lighting scheme for the booth was programmed via timecode on a HES Wholehog II to be synched with the movie.
(Jim Evans)
