The Palace of Westminster
UK - In celebration of the coronation of King Charles III last month, the Palace of Westminster in London was illuminated in the colours of the Union flag - red, white, and blue. To illuminate the Gothic-style exterior facade in the national colours, lighting designer David Bishop chose a total of 74 units of Cameo Zenit W600 LED Wash Lights, supplied by Version 2 Lights.
The IP65-rated Zenit W600 fixtures were placed at the base of the building's facade over a width of more than 250m by David Bishop and gaffer Matthew Zelmanowicz, focused to uplight the historic building with a beam angle of 18°. When choosing the colours, the lighting team didn't have to think twice: blue, white and red - alternating across the entire width of Palace of Westminster.
“The Zenit W600 was the obvious choice”, says David Bishop. “Its power, reliability and IP rating combine to produce stunning colours on any chosen canvas. In particular, the punch of the white chip in the W600 suited this application as we needed to ensure the naturally warm stone of the Palace translated into pure white to make the traditional red, white, and blue associated with the UK. The colour consistency across individual units is great too - even when white was mixed with some blue, each unit in this setting was absolutely identical.”
Version2 Lights knows its way around royal events. The rental service provider already equipped Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee in 2022 with hundreds of Cameo fixtures, including the Zenit W600, and illuminated both the open-air stage and Buckingham Palace in the background for the party at the Palace.
Simon Perrot, Version 2 account manager, adds: “The Zenit W600 boasts an impressive output and has come into its own on some of our larger outside broadcast productions. We see these fixtures appearing on more and more kit lists from leading television lighting directors, such as David Bishop. The W600 has rapidly become a dependable workhorse fixture for both studio and location work."

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