Liverpool welcomed 2006 with a spectacular 20 minute multimedia son et lumière event organised by The Liverpool Culture Company, designed to appeal to a mass audience. The show was staged on the steps of St Georges Hall, right in the centre of town in front of Lime Street Station, utilising the iconic building’s impressive neoclassical architecture as a backdrop. It featured dancing water fountains, a water screen, lighting, sound, lasers, giant flame effects and fireworks. It was enjoyed free by over 8,000 people.

The show was devised by Kirstie Blakeman (also the event manager) from Liverpool Culture Company and Steve Boothman from Fantastic Fireworks. They created a special soundtrack encompassing a massive array of music styles – from rave to classical, psychedelic, musical theatre and everything in between, kicking off with Leftfield’s “Phat Planet” and ending on the Can-Can. “The music element – and the various media used to articulate it – were all combined to make a fast-moving, lively, quirky and fun show” explains Blakeman, adding that they wanted a departure from the traditional New Year fireworks show this year.

They also wanted to focus attention on the building rather than the sky, and integrate the City’s 2005’s Year of the Sea theme with its 2006 one - Year of Performance. With this in mind, all the technology was largely kept within the dimensions of the building, including a series of low level pyro and firework effects woven into the show. LCC tuned to some new and some of its regular production industry suppliers for the technology. Sound and lighting gear came from Manchester-based Audile.

Lighting was designed, programmed and run by Rob Leach using an Avolites Pearl console. The front of St George’s Hall was architecturally lit with 10 Studio Due City Color fixtures providing the colour wash, and 8 Clay Paky Alpha Spots in between every other pillar. Two Martin MAC 500s scanned various LCC sponsor logos across the building. Molefeys, Martin Atomic strobes and additional lighting supplied by French-based Atlantid were used as lighting effects on the fountains and 15m x 10m water screen.

For sound, Audile specified a Function One Resolution 5 system – 2 stacks of 12 a side (left and right). They have used this system for other events at the same location and it’s proved very successful for getting an even sound coverage all across the viewing area. The entire show, apart from the lighting, ran from a time-coded audio track triggering the various DMX controlled devices. The FOH Midas Venice 240 audio console was run by Rob Ashworth.

The first part of the event highlighted 2005’s ‘Sea Liverpool’ theme with the second emphasizing 2006’s ‘Year of Performance’.  Each element of the show was designed with this in mind.  The water fountains and screen also came from Atlantid, supplied via their Hertfordshire-based sister company, Aquabatics. The fountains were housed in two 15 metre long by 3 metre wide troughs and reached up to 10 metres high. It’s the first time that LCC has worked with the company, but they have used similar effects for other events.

LM Productions did the lasers, comprising of two 5w YAGs, a full colour Ion Whitelight Chroma 10 and a DPSS 3.5w Whitelight laser.  The YAGs were placed either side of the steps. The Chroma 10 was in the middle, used for creating effects and scanning the audience, while the DPSS Whitelight projected text on to the building. The operator was Lawrence Ryan.

MTFX supplied a 12 way DMX controlled flame jet system operated by Mark Turner. The pyro was designed and provided by Steve Boothman and Ian Woodroof of Fantastic Fireworks. Power for all elements was supplied and distributed by locally based Pyramid, crowd barriers came from Event Solutions and John Sutch Cranes provided the 50 metre reach crane that lifted all the fireworks onto the roof of St George’s Hall. LCC’s site and production manager was Bill Howard.

Once again, the show took place at 5 p.m., with crowd management issues in mind, to encourage families, and to offer people the chance to enjoy the show and still party on with their New Year Festivities. Time wise, this has proved a winning formula for Liverpool’s New Year events for the last 4 years. Blakeman comments “With Liverpool having had a long tradition of staging incredible firework displays highlighting some of the cities landmarks, we wanted to try something a little different.  The building features a number of architecturally strong elements, so we decided to make the most of every inch of it. The soundtrack was the key that tied the various show components together, bringing the themes alive. “All our suppliers put enormous effort in to the show, and the audience’s appreciation came with a huge, prolonged roar of applause, whistles, shouting and much foot stomping feet the end!”