London welcomed in 2021 with a spectacular city-wide display, sending a message of thanks and hope to the nation and the world. Jack Morton, the global brand experience agency, helped to develop the original concept and worked in partnership with the Mayor of London’s office and a dedicated team of experts to create the extraordinary experience. The 10-minute show, designed for home-viewing and created in collaboration with the BBC, was broadcast live on BBC1 and watched by a global viewing audience of millions.
Lighting for the event was designed by Durham with Paul Cook as Associate LD and programmer and the spectacular array of 168 Claypaky Mythos 2 and 168 Elation Proteus Hybrids on London Bridge was supplied by Lights Control Rigging and managed by Rob Watson. Durham called on the expertise of ER lasers, the Signify team, Atelier Ten and the Illuminated River project, Armadillo and Tower Bridge, Stadium FX at Wembley and the Woodroffe Bassett team at the Shard to integrate the city-wide effects into a memorable light show.
Durham explains the origin of the concept “it was announced that the historic NYE London Eye fireworks display, which we had been creating with Jack Morton Worldwide since 2004, was to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic and discussion began between the JMW creative team and the GLA and Mayor’s office as to
what could be done, if anything, in it’s stead.The animation of the light show found it’s way to the client’s desk and the seed of an idea was sown. The idea developed to encompass fireworks, drones, lasers and light and to move away from the traditional site to limit attracting crowds in these days of social distancing. The event became a totally secret deployment across several sites and every contractor did their bit to keep the secret safe with more NDA’s than this designer has ever signed!
As mentioned earlier this was not a singular lighting design effort, at a very early stage JMW contacted the Shard management team to seek their involvement and I sat down (on Teams of course) with Woodroffe Basset Design to see how we could not only incorporate their Christmas period Shard light show but perhaps add to it; especially with a countdown clock.
We approached the Illuminate River project as I knew from my contacts at Signify that their installations in the area of our show from Westminster Bridge to London Bridge were approaching completion. All bridges were illuminated in NHS blue for the show period programmed by Atelier Ten and London Bridge had it’s own specific time coded sequences to match the light array above them on the bridge pavement.
The lighting sources had originally been spread across the Central London area bridges and as the design developed and became subject to some ‘value engineering’ the eventual system saw all our fixtures mounted in an impressive line across London Bridge.A total of 168 Claypaky Mythos 2 in weather domes and 168 Elation Proteus Hybris fixtures were rigged by LCR on top of steel deck across the bridge in a line one hundred and sixty metres long and controlled by Paul Cook on his Chamsys HQ80 console. The array was installed from 20:00 on the night of the 29th of December under the direction of Rob Watson and the installation was hidden from view from the road with HERAAS fencing and black scrim. Apparently some members of the public did shout to the crew asking what they were doing, “Just an advert for Marmite!” was the favoured response.
Other lighting elements included Tower Bridge with some time coded show cues programmed by Armadillo and a rainbow on the Wembley stadium and arch programmed by Stadium FX. There was a complication sending broadcast from Wembley and the O2 that involved a one second and three frame offset due to the satellite link delay and Delta did an amazing job keeping everything connected.
CREDITS
Producer: Jack Morton Worldwide (Jim Donald, Production Director)
Associate Lighting Designer / Lighting Programmer: Paul Cook
WYSIWYG Modelling: Pedro Marcé Socias
For the Shard: Woodroffe Bassett Design
Lighting For Illuminated River bridges: Illuminated River, Signify, Atelier10
Lighting for Tower Bridge: Armadillo
Lighting for Wembley Stadium: Stadium FX
Drones: SKYMAGIC
Fireworks & Pyro: Titanium Fireworks
Lasers: ER Productions
Project Manager: Mark Payne
At the Shard: Andrew Turner (lead programmer)
At Tower Bridge: Ben Couch, Ollie Jenni (operators)
At London Bridge: Corey Newton (operator/tech)
Lighting, London Bridge: Lights Control Rigging (LCR)
Planning and Production: Rob Watson, Steve Bliss, Olly Suckling, Ryan Hopkins
Communications: Delta Live
All images courtesy of Jack Morton Worldwide
