Colour Sound decorates Reading Festival with IMS

UK - This year's Reading Festival in the UK had some additional colour, courtesy of Colour Sound Experiment of London. Two weeks prior to the event the organizers decided to add lighting decoration to the general audience area. They called on Colour Sound whose design solution added 1500 metres and 1,500 lamps of TMB's IMS colour-changing festoon strings. The IMS (Intelligent Marquee Systems) rig was strung from an array of 6m high poles, suspended over the audience between the rear entrance and the main stage, arranged like spokes of a cartwheel. The individually DMX-controlled RGB IMS lamps were reminiscent of normal light bulbs hanging over the audience, but with each lamp acting as a low-resolution colour-changing 'pixel' for a dazzling display of video and graphics content. The system's 12 IMS Universe Drives were controlled with ArtNet using a Chamsys console.

"We chose IMS because of its unique, retro look, and its brightness," says Colour Sound's senior accounts manager, known to everyone as Fletch. "Outdoor gigs require more lumen output and IMS LED bulbs were the brightest we could find. Everything happened pretty quickly and TMB's 24/7 tech support was a huge help."

"The brightness and overall performance of IMS was better than we could have hoped for," says Colour Sound's managing director, Haydn Cruickshank. "We knew about the IMS system and when the opportunity arose we went for it. We plan to use the rig at Reading for the next two years and beyond. Meanwhile, we want to specify IMS on TV referrals."

(Jim Evans)

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