SGM lights up Lyon Festival of Lights
Four nights of utter enchantment was planned in December for Lyon’s most famous festival to date, broadcasting the heritage of the city. However, due to the recent tragic events in Paris, the Festival of Lights was cut short to a one-day tribute to the victims on December 8th, inviting people to stand united and light candles while the city became illuminated for that one evening at La Colline de Fourvière.
Rental company GL events Audiovisual was tasked as supplier of lighting, while also being an official partner of the light festival. “We were very surprised and honoured to be the only company selected for this year’s edition. Both the project and the site has worked wonders in our favour”, said project manager Frédéric Fuentes.
Together with lighting designer Daniel Knipper, the two men used solely SGM LED lighting equipment for the show. A mix of 40 x Q-7 combination flood/strobe/blinder and 12 x G-Profile LED framing moving heads, both fixtures being IP65-rated, thus worked in a beautiful interaction with PIGI video projectors.
Lighting designer Knipper explained: “We installed 10 PIGI video projectors for the Palais de Justice. I worked out the lighting concept for chevet de la Cathédrale St Jean, du Jardin de Rosaire and du chevet de la Basilique de Fourvière. These installations allow me to link light and images, controlling and dimming so the light interacts with the projected images. That is how I have been working with the two products from SGM; the Q-7 and the G-Profile.”
Knipper’s light show called ‘Regards’ was the only piece to be maintained as all other activities were postponed to the upcoming 2016 edition.
This was Knipper’s first time to work with the SGM fixtures. With previous observations of a P-5 installation in Dubai, he knew that SGM products would provide him with the reliability needed to adapt to the very tough requirements of architectural lighting.
“The idea was to work with a solid colour palette together with the raw materials of the building structures. The Q-7 was a very appropriate fixture thanks to the richness of its colours, allowing me to pick up any adequate colour with precision having the products do exactly what I ask of them. That combined with a great spread angle makes it possible to achieve a beautiful coverage of the area,” said Knipper.
Working on this heritage site proved challenging at times. The complexity of the building surfaces demanded additional attention in order to achieve uniform and powerful renderings. Also, the IP-rating was essential along with the zoom range. “The G-Profile completely matched these requirements,” concluded Frédéric Fuentes pleased with its powerful output and high quality of both framing and gobos.
The two lighting professionals were well-satisfied with the results achieve by deploying SGM LED luminaires. “The gain was much more effective compared to previous installations on these buildings,” summed up Fuentes underlining the great team effort behind this tribute event. “Only team work will allow us to transform an artistic concept into a quality event in an urban environment; each person played an important role in the setup of this event for this very particular happening for this years’ edition.”
