Simon Garret from Auckland based Oceania Productions designed lighting and
visuals for the main showspace for New Zealand Fashion Week 2016, which was
staged at The ANZ Viaduct Events Centre, a funky venue at the heart of Wynard
Quarter, New Zealand’s largest urban regeneration project, right on the Auckland
waterfront.
Garret, known for his own style in lighting, has been involved with the NZFW event
as it’s been known since 2004, since the start. This year he again transformed the
showspace with bold and dramatic looks and scenes with the help of 24 x Robe
BMFL Blades and 12 x BMFL Spots.
Garret worked closely with event producer, founder and organiser Pieter Stewart
and production manager Pak Peacocke who designed an adaptable runway scheme
with five standard configuration options.
After an initial demo of the BMFL Blade from Robe’s Australian and New Zealand
distributor The ULA Group, he felt confident that “with these 24 fixtures I could
provide sufficient and appropriate back light at around 300 foot-candles from about
7 metres distance for all five runway options’.
So he went ahead and specified the BMFL Blades with the intention of using them as
his primary back-light sources, with Oceania making its latest investment in Robe.
At the Viaduct, five lighting trusses were installed in the roof running the length of
the catwalk – the centre one aligned with the middle of the single runway option
and trusses 2 & 4 with the wider (outside) catwalks.
Eighteen of the BMFL Blades were rigged on trusses 2 & 4 and used as the three-
quarter back-light for models walking below when in the single runway mode or
square back-light for the dual and triple catwalk mode, with another six BMFL
Blades upstage delivering the same colour control on the varying backgrounds of
the entranceway.
The 12 x standard BMFL Spots were rigged on the centre truss, where they proved
ideal for effects, fill, and adding drama and excitement as and when needed.
Garret deployed 144 x PAR 64s gelled in CT 202 for his side lighting, complementing
the slightly cooler hues from the back, keeping the front at 3200K tungsten.
With all these options the back flats (entranceway) became very mobile show to
show. These were lit using tungsten ETC Revolutions which balanced beautifully with
the front light mainly from nine pole-operated 5K fresnels. Together this added
warmth and depth that is sometimes missed in lighting fashion shows too clinically.
The 5Ks, with adjustment covered all of the three linear catwalks and the crossover
options.
Lighting was controlled via a GrandMA2 console programmed by Chad O’Grady and
Garret also designed lights and creative for a second smaller room in The Viaduct,
which was operated by Stefaan Garret s using a Hog. Also key on his crew was LD
assistant AJ Henningsen.
After all those years in the hot seat … Garret’s clearly doing something right and
still relishing the challenges and achievements.