City of Light is a long-term plan to architecturally light several important landmarks in Liverpool, and is scheduled to unfold over the next five to seven years. St John’s Beacon lies at the heart of Liverpool: its elegant form is one of the most distinctive shapes on the skyline.
Lee Forde, the lighting designer for the project, chose 10 Studio Due City Beam luminaires - supplied to Slough-based Stagetec by Studio Due’s UK distributor Coe-tech. Stagetec also designed and installed the lights and a custom-designed interactive control system, based on radio DMX links and operation via a telephone handset, for the St John’s Beacon illuminations.
The City Beam fixtures themselves are surrounded by vandal-proof cages and situated discreetly on various buildings around the foot of the tower, including St John’s Market and G. H. Lee’s store, the latter being custom-coloured to match the building. Forde chose MSD 1200W light sources for the fixtures - one of three bulb options. The City Beam’s focus facilities also came in handy, with six fixtures shooting up from the base area of the tower and a smaller circle of four located further up. The latter had a tighter focus, dovetailing into the tower as it narrows before reaching its summit.
Since data cabling was totally impractical, Stagetec supplied an Interactive Technologies radio DMX system to link the fixtures, with power sourced locally and fed to each individual unit. The programmed lighting up time (8pm to midnight during the week, with a 2am extension at the weekends), begins with a slow cross-fading effect, incorporating 15 different colours. However, Stagetec’s control system also offers heaps of additional versatility. It’s been designed to work via a security-code-protected telephone handset, so DJs playing out at Radio City can change colours for special occasions. It’s also intended to use the Beacon lighting for running promotions and charity events where the public and local businesses can call in and sponsor colour changes, etc.
In time, the controller will also be accessible from outside the building via web-enabled mobiles, as well as linked to other feature lighting projects happening around the City, allowing them all to work interactively together if desired. Stagetec worked closely with Lee Forde to produce the very precise control requirements. The controller itself is located in the Radio City offices and is a Compulite SP-4D Replay unit - effectively the electronic section of the full Spark 4D console - packaged as a 19” rack-mounting unit. This is connected to CompuCall, a new product developed by Compulite’s Dutch distributor Beo, which converts telephone DTMF tones into DMX - also contained neatly in a 1U rack-mounting box.
For programming - undertaken by Forde and Matt Miles, Stagetec’s project manager for the job - Stagetec also supplied Liverpool Vision with a Compulite SparkTOP console. The system combines all the functions of the well-established Spark 4D console into a laptop-style case with integral LCD TFT colour screen. This proved a challenging aspect of the project as the fixture’s colour-changing programmes are run off macros, activated by button pushes on the phone handset. For obvious reasons, it was essential that no matter what sequence the buttons were pressed in, the macros had to always work! Compulite has used this opportunity to build a new ‘Scheduler’ feature into their consoles, enabling the ‘scheduling’ of ‘events’ at any time. This, together with the standard architectural software already available, makes the desks pretty flexible.
The opening night launch party featured a spectacular laser show. This shot beams around and projected graphics onto the Beacon via
