The Liverpool Culture Company brought its spectacular “City of Light” multimedia water screen son et lumière back to the lake in Sefton Park in a newly updated show created by film & TV director Martin Wallace. The event was staged over three memorable evenings last weekend. 

 The three-shows-a-night attracted over 30,000 people to the Park who enjoyed the 25 minute lighting, laser and projection extravaganza. It featured a light-hearted review of Liverpool’s colourful history and hugely successful present as its centrepiece.

LCC instigated several technical production upgrades this year explains event manager Kirstie Blakeman, who worked closely with operations manager Nicola O’Boyle and the regular Culture Company production team including production manager Stu Stalker from EDL.

LCC also brought onboard a completely new set of production suppliers for the 2005 show. This included world class players like XL Video – the UK’s leading live event video production suppliers; large format projection specialists E\T\C UK and LCI, who supplied both lasers and the waterscreen. Sound and lighting were supplied by Manchester based Audile, fireworks by Fantastic Fireworks and power was by LCC regular, Buffalo. The show was designed by Lee Forde, who integrated the various technical elements into a fluid, fast-moving montage of images, movement and music.

The 15 minute historical piece was topped and tailed by popular tunes from Shirley Bassey and Yello, Moby, The Teardrop Explodes and The Beatles. The final outro was a dramatic scrolling photographic tribute to John Lennon, one of the City’s most famous musical heroes, to commemorate the 25^th anniversary of his assassination. It also included a section detailing the City’s many achievements since winning the bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2008 – including the awarding of World Heritage Status. 

Water Screen

The water screen provided a 17 metre high by 35 metre wide surface onto which the various elements of the show were projected. It was powered by two 75Kw pumps with manual pump-starts, fed through a single nozzle that was rigged just below the water line in a flotation frame. Two sets of 3-phase power were fed out to the pumps via double-sheathed Camlok cables.

The show’s video content was stored on a Doremi hard drive and output by Stuart Heaney using a Panasonic MX70 mixer to feed two Barco R18 projectors, overlapped to double the image intensity. Some of the video projection was done ‘vignette’ style, fitted into masked areas in the PIGI projection which acted like a visual border. Timecode generated from the video was sent to sound, laser and PIGI projection control

PIGI Projection

Leading exponents of the genre of large format and monumental projection E\T\C UK supplied a single PIGI 7Kw projector with double rotating scroller. This was run from a PIGI OnlyCue control triggered by the timecode. The system was programmed and operated by Karen Monid.

Lasers

Lasers were programmed and operated by LCI’s Martin Kapp using a Pangolin system. The units were two 9 Watt YAGs, sited 8 metres apart to give a twin-scan effect, telescoped to reduce the beam divergence and electronically blanked to produce the graphics. Kapp created a series of bold and intricate animations to fit specific sections of the storyboard, using a combination of images culled from the Pangolin’s onboard library and new material specially created for City of Light.

Audio 

Audile supplied 12 stacks of Funktion One Resolution 5 audio – which worked exceptionally well in the environment, despite being more often found in clubs and for heavy dance applications. This was complimented with 10 stacks of F218 subs on the shoreside, all powered by QSC amps. Control and EQ was a combination of XTA SiDDs, XTA 224 processors and an XTA GQ600 graphic. To aid the EQ’ing process from around the lake, they also used XTA’s wireless “Walkabout” system.

Lighting

This was designed, programmed and operated by Audile’s Rob Leach to a brief from Lee Forde. It consisted of 12 Martin MAC 2Ks and 10 High End Systems PC Beams, primarily rigged onto the main production platform for beaming onto the screen and into the audience areas. Four of the 2Ks were in domes along the shore, used for searchlight effects.

The foliage either side of the ‘stage’ area was illuminated with 6 City Colors – three per side. These were used, together with 28 Pulsar Chromaspheres to create a house lighting state for the start and end of the show. Six Diversitronic strobes were also woven into the show. All lighting was controlled by an Avolites Pearl 2004 console.

Staging

This time around, the production platform was actually a stage, built into the slope of the lake bank and supplied by Leicester-based Upstaging. The projection and laser booth was built onto the lower deck, and lighting and sound control platform on the upper deck, together with most of their equipment. Ramp access for both levels was to the rear.

Another great success

Minimising noise spillage was a major challenge, but aside from that the production and programming schedule ran like clockwork, and even the weather performed on the show days, with the wind dropping and the rain holding off, producing some classic, crisp moonlit autumn nights to add to the overall magic and ambience.