With so much at stake, brands like Ford, Bentley and Jaguar Land Rover understand that an audience-engaging show booth is worthless without camera-ready, visually stunning displays of their new vehicles. That's why they tap design firms like Imagination and lighting suppliers like Static Light Company, which are staffed by experts who understand the challenges of illuminating a car's sleek curves and metallic sheen in an indoor convention hall. To meet those challenges, they rely on Martin Professional's lighting fixtures.
"Our MAC series of premium moving heads and our creative video solutions are regularly put to the test at worldwide auto shows," said Morten Gjoetz, sales director of strategic accounts, Martin Professional. "Their versatility is what makes them so prevalent, as they're used for both functional and experiential purposes, often at the same booth."
At The North American International Auto Show 2015 in Detroit, Ford's redesigned F-150 took home the 2015 North American Truck of the Year award. The massive vehicle was part of a sprawling and interactive booth that Imagination spent nearly a full year designing to emphasize the Ford brand's leadership in innovation and performance. The pavilion featured a terrarium full of pine trees and plants to symbolize Ford's sustainability practices and pedestals populated with cars and trucks highlighted by Martin fixtures.
"The sun provides the best lighting for an automobile, so being indoors is the first compromise," said Jonny Milmer, head of lighting design, Imagination. "Our top priority is having consistent simulated sunlight."
Imagination deployed high-power MSR lights for a brilliant shine throughout the booth. Some fixtures were tuned to an iconic deep blue to match the Ford logo, used to light the impressive blue-branded architecture. The MSR lights were bolstered by modified Martin Exterior 400 architectural lighting fixtures, selected specifically for their ability to accurately render the exact hue.
"We were able to achieve precisely the same blue with the 400s as we were getting with the MSR sources," said Milmer. "The architecture's consistent blue color was absolutely necessary for primary branding, driving home that blue's sentiments and emotional resonance."
More than 682,000 visitors descended on Geneva last March for the 85th annual Geneva Motor Show.
Jaguar Land Rover's booth was characterized by its solid stone surfaces and striking wood walls, providing a specialized, intimate atmosphere that would dovetail with the luxurious-yet-rugged vehicles.
"Warmer lighting tones help the Jaguar Land Rover brand to enhance its luxurious materials and architecture while also complementing the warmer pallet of material colors used in the stand design," said Milmer. "The MAC Aura is color calibrated at manufacture so it allows us to precisely and consistently light for camera, where we can easily adapt the lighting to suit different presenters' skin tones. We're able to use an array of Martin MAC Auras to simulate a soft studio light knowing that the colours will be exactly the same from fitting to fitting."
When it was time to unveil new vehicles, however, the MAC Viper Performance was the ideal solution for both Jaguar Land Rover and Ford.
"The Viper Performance's 6,000° K white colour temperature complements and works with the daylight colour we use for vehicle lighting and allows us to use this fitting without further colour correction," said Milmer. "The colours are vivid and the lens edge is both soft and well-defined which helps to reduce the unwanted spill and enables us to cre
