Grimbergen Experience Days for beer connoisseurs from around the world
Belgium - A new chapter was added to the rich and widely heralded tradition of Belgian beer making recently thanks to the discovery of a medieval manuscript. Hidden away by monks of the Grimbergen Abbey in 1798 to avoid advancing French revolutionary troops, the recipe, written in Latin and Old Dutch, was unearthed about four years ago in the monastery’s archives.
This May, after much painstaking research, the monks were ready to release their resurrected brew to the world. Rolling out such a beverage after a 220-year hiatus, calls for a special celebration, which is exactly what the Grimbergen Abby monks created, putting on Grimbergen Experience Days, a debut event for their business partners and beer connoisseurs from around the world.
Adding an appropriate level of visual excitement to the proceedings was a lighting design by Thomas Boets of LDP who was retained by Fast Forward. Boets’ rig featured a collection of Chauvet Professional LED fixtures and video panels that included 60 Rogue R1 Wash, and 16 COLORdash Batten-Quad fixtures as well as F4IP tiles supplied by Steven Lagaisse of SVL Rent.
Stefan Uyterhoeven of Mojuice was the content and show director for the event, which was completely wrapped with textile projections, and took place at Pheonixcourt (Fenikshof), the future site of the micro-brewery that will produce the beer.
Through his employment of 60 Rogue R1 Wash fixtures positioned from a number of different trussing positions, Boets was able to highlight the contours of the architectural space through subtle use of the fixture’s saturated wash effects. Furthermore, through use of the lights’ vivid red color output, he evoked a sense of fire and flames, a poignant and immersive tool to embellish the image of the Grimbergen Abbey.
To accentuate the contours of the actual stage area, Boets utilised 16 COLORDash Batten-Quad 12 fixtures, which he positioned above and to the sides of the stage. To ensure a harmonious look with the rest of the venue, the fixtures’ linear LEDs were employed to create a saturated glow around the stage as well as key light during presentations. Thanks to the relatively compact footprint of both fixtures, they were able to blend into the surroundings, ensuring distraction was kept to a minimum, even when subject to the relatively tight confines of the low ceiling.
(Jim Evans)

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