In each of six cities, residents were asked to vote for their favourite colour via a survey in a local paper. The winning colour was then used to light the buildings, orchestrated by a White Light team and led by production manager Simon Jones.
The buildings chosen were Bristol Cathedral, St Martin's Church in Birmingham, Cardiff Town Hall, the Urbis in Manchester, the Theatre Royal Newcastle and Glasgow University. Each landmark was lit for six hours after sunset. The touring lighting rig included twenty StudioDue CityColor colour-changing floodlights and seven Mac2000 moving spotlights as well as sixty Source Four Pars, and four Philips ArenaVisions. The rig also included over 3.5km of mains and control cable as well as 30m of cable ramp and 50m of safety fencing.
The week-long project which was months in planning, involved Simon Jones and a team of lighting electricians (Ben Cash, Steve Sherriff, Duncan Holmes, Richard Gorr and Mark Newel), and two generator technicians from Powerline, plus back-up crew.
Rozina Ali, communications manager at Crown Paints observed, "We needed the lighting to be spectacular and have real impact for both passers-by and the local media. The fact that the six buildings had to be lit one after another added another significant challenge. White Light did a great job."
(Jim Evans)
