The five day event has been running for the past 23 years, and Bruce Kirk has been working on it for 22 of those. The event began as a promenade concert inside the beautiful Temperate House, once the largest plant house in the world and now the world's largest surviving Victorian glassstructure. Kirk was lighting designer for the second concert and soon became overall production manager. He is now Kew's consultant production manager for this and other major events at the gardens.
"When I first started working on the event, it was for a few hundred people inside the Temperate House," explains Kirk. "Now we have 5,500 in the audience every evening and it's a major logistical operation."
But it's not just the festival which is getting bigger - the rig is too and, with lighting supplied by PRG Europe, it looks more impressive than ever before. Normally, before the sun goes down, the lighting on the stage does not add much to the ambient light. However, with the addition of six of the new VL3500 luminaires from Vari-Lite, the beams could clearly be seen even when the sun was shining brightly.
"The new VL3500s are great," says Kirk, adding: "They have the facility for a spot beam in the centre with a variable wash around it, so it can pick out the performers while still creating light on the stage. It's a greateffect and really helps create a contrast against the strength of the sun setting behind the temperate house."
.In the week before Summer Swing, Kirk acted as production coordinator for Kew working on the BBC's massive live outside broadcast for Saving PlanetEarth. This required very careful management of the BBC's OB requirements and 200 strong crew and staff. Sixteen Portakabins were craned in for dressing rooms and Kirk's role was to ensure that the BBC production team could complete their job while working within the site restrictions of this world heritage site.
In addition to stage lighting, Kirk also lit the Temperate House itself, both from the outside and the inside with a mixture of Vari-Lite luminaires, PAR cans and 400w MBI discharge sources. He used the same high powered lamps in blue, white and green once it got dark to highlight some of the cedar pines near the lighting control tower.
Crew chief for PRG Europe was Jerry Hodgson; stage lighting designer was Simon Anderson; and projectmanager was Peter Marshall.
(Jim Evans)
