This was just the second year of the show at Earls Court, and already it's growing; PMI and Simon Aldridge appear to have brought a new and burgeoning marriage of live and static presentation into the exhibition world, a marriage that will surely have others looking frantically for an eligible partner.
Steve Sinclair has been part of the presentation team for the past two events and describes the differences between this and conventional car expo: "Some content elements appear familiar, there's a gallery of 90 or so vehicles, sponsored by HR Owens, but these aren't ordinary cars; we're talking testosterone motoring Ferraris and Maseratis, Bentley Turbos and TVRs. The big difference is the visitors can get inside them; it's very touchy-feely." But what of the live element?
There's a driving area, but it's more a show floor and everything presented there is very theatrical. One of the big attractions of this year's show was a straight copy of the TV show, where an old car is fired through the air and crashes onto a caravan, crushing it."
Sinclair revealed that the cannon used to blast the car skywards uses a combination of old and new technology. "It's propelled by 80% compressed nitrogen, firing the car approximately 10m into the air. When the H&SE inspector came in he asked the operator 'have you calculated the trajectory?' 'Oh yes', he replied, 'I paced it out yesterday'. That might not sound too precise, but he fired it three times a day for four days and it landed on the money every time."
Theatre is the prevailing character of the show; the three TV stars call in celebrities each day, amongst them Simon Cowell, Neil Morrissey, Jody Kidd, Pink Floyd's Nick Mason and Mike Rutherford from Genesis. "It's down to me to apply the necessary rock and roll element," said Sinclair. "Set in front of a horseshoe of 4,500 seats is a large set-piece which dominates the performance zone: 32m wide, 22m deep and approximately 4m tall, it's essentially two cages made from general purpose trussing with some ramps for Moto-Cross stunt riding set between them. Acre Jean provided drapes to clad the structures, PRG supplied all the trussing - I also used them for all the lighting, over the performance zone and for the static car show" The drape-clad truss cages, of course, conceal the muscle cars that are the stars of the show.
Sinclair designed the lighting himself - five-and-a-half trucks full - but brought in LD Pete Barnes to programme and add the necessary rock idiom. "It's a big system," said Sinclair, "loads of MAC 2000s, LSD Icons, Panoramas, Studio Colors, and bunch of Pixel Par 90s to light the trusses. The idea was circus-based: Simon [Aldridge] brought in aerial dancers for the opening sequence. Two circular trusses start at floor level covered in Trevira [lightweight polyester drapes supplied by Acre Jean], as they raise up they reveal the dancers. As they perform their routine cars emerge and spin round beneath them." Sinclair took the circus theme to its logical conclusion: "I had three circular trusses in all, with a straight leg of truss running almost vertically off the two outer ones in a faux representation of King Poles; that's what the PixelPars were for, to reinforce that image. The advantage of the three circles was movement, this had to look very different from any normal car show. I was able to get real lighting muscle power re-focussed from one area of presentation to another, as the cars moved around."
What about other elements of production? "Well we did have video screens provided by XL Video, and a PA from Cloud Nine, but being a TV show made Live, this was very much a visual presentation; the PA and video were important, but specifically f
