The beautiful landscaped gardens at Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire were given a nocturnal facelift with a dramatic lighting design created by the team at Pearce Hire for the Winter Lights event.
"We'd like to think we created a little bit of outdoor theatre for the visitors to the gardens in the run up to Christmas," comments Pearce Hire's John Huson, project manager and key lighting designer of this project.
The Visitor Experience team at Anglesey Abbey were first put in contact with Pearce Hire by John Wootten of Eastern Events who has long-standing relationships with both Pearce Hire and Anglesey Abbey but, until now, had never put them together as a project team. As a result of this introduction, the Pearce Hire team worked closely with the team at the Abbey and created an ingenious lighting scheme that provided an atmospheric journey for visitors as they walked through the various different areas of the ornamental gardens.
"There were a myriad of unusual challenges we had to address with this temporary installation," explains Huson. "There was a significant area to cover and we wanted to make sure that each area had a distinct feel to it. As you can imagine, there was a lot of testing in the months leading up to the event to gauge what plants would take the light, and what colours would be most complementary to the surrounding flora and fauna and the natural shapes and shadows of the gardens."
The team had a number of logistical issues to contend with including limited access working around the visiting hours of the Abbey and Gardens, and the challenge of installing some heavy duty lighting and power equipment in an intricate ornamental garden setting. Fixture choice focussed heavily on efficiency and power consumption with the intention of reducing the carbon footprint of the event. These included the i-Pix BB 4 Washlight and 150w and 400w MBI's and even simple 150w tungsten flood lights and outdoor parcans which were fitted with special custom brackets for use on soft ground.
"Power distribution was one of our biggest challenges," continues Huson. "There were three 'super silent' 20Kva generators located around the gardens to power the lighting. We located them within areas of dense woodland to absorb any noise they did make and to ensure they didn't spoil the magic we were creating."
"We were ecstatic with the final results and the overall lighting design that Pearce Hire created for us', comments Laura Booty, visitor experience manager at Anglesey Abbey. "The Winter Lights project was the first time we had worked with Pearce Hire and I can't recommend them highly enough. They were creative, efficient and professional, and our visitor feedback spoke volumes - describing the experience as magical, ethereal and wondrous. I will definitely be working with them again."
(Jim Evans)
