Exactly 500 hours after the stroke of midnight that saw in the New Year, car manufacturer Fiat introduced its new 500 model at the London Eye. The event, which was produced by innovision, who were brought on board by project co-ordinator Arc Worldwide, saw PRG Europe supplying lighting and services throughout the site, which included the Eye itself and main stage, plus two VIP areas and the roadway leading to the site.

One of the new Fiats was driven into one of the pods and lit by lighting designer Paul Cook using PixelLine and Palco LED lighting, while in every second pod, Mac 2000 wash luminaires provided sparkle for thousands of onlookers and invited guests. On the stage in adjoining Jubilee Gardens, Paul lit performances by Mika and The Feeling, and, along the roadway up through the gardens to the site, he replaced the permanent blue floodlighting with Fiat's corporate colours.

Paul, who worked with innovision's production managers Will Roberts and Matt Darby and site manager Kevin Peacock, explains: "As with New Year, when we work with PRG Europe to light the Eye, we needed a slick operation. The Eye was operational up until 5.30pm, then, under the direction of Jayney Bell - one of the two crew chiefs - crew dashed into each pod to load the luminaire, connected the power and wireless DMX and strapped it all down for safety, then dashed out of the pod again while they still could."

PRG Europe supplied VL3000 luminaires, Mac 2000s, PAR cans and PixelLine battens to light the performances on stage, which were programmed using a Wholehog II by Pryderi Baskerville, while a second Wholehog controlled the lighting on the Eye and pontoon and a reveal of the new car. "I used a red and white look, occasionally dropping in an Italian flag or Union Jack," says Paul, "plus we had the support of the permanent LED lighting on the Eye itself. The overall effect was fantastic. We had to use the Mac and Vari-Lite luminaires as they needed to be bright enough to be seen among the LED screen and PixelLines.

"We did well with the weather - it poured down two hours before the show, but luckily we had no rain during the actual event."

Because of the limited time he had available with the lights in position, Paul used Wysiwyg software supplied by PRG Europe to program the lighting - so all he had to do when the fixtures were in position was focus them.

Crew chiefs for the event were Jayney Bell on the Eye and Martin Scott on the rest of the event; Pryderi Baskerville programmed the main show, while Simon Hicks controlled the LED lighting on the Eye. Project manager for PRG Europe was Peter Marshall.