PRG were contracted by Imagination, the global creative agency, to provide lighting and rigging services for the Ford Mustang Experience at the 2014 UEFA Champions League Final in Lisbon. Held in a custom built dome in the Portuguese capital’s Praça do Comercio, the launch introduced guests to the new Ford Mustang, ahead of its official European debut in 2015.
PRG were approached by Imagination lighting designer Lucy Record and production manager Robert Wiggs back in February 2014 to bring an interactive wall to life. The wall is a 4 metre high and 9 metre wide curved structure featuring 36 x Martin by Harman AF-2 Fans, with each fan backed by an LED fixture.
Account director Loz Wilcox says that the original designs featured a stunning bespoke aluminium framework to house the fans and lighting fixtures. “Wiggs was concerned that the costs to create this custom structure would not be best value for the project, so tasked PRG with engineering a more cost effective solution.’
PRG’s AutoCAD draughtsman Paul Elkin worked alongside project manager Mat Ilott to study PRG’s extensive truss stock, and suggested a 25′ open-faced boom truss might work. “Using the 3D CAD enables us to drop millimeter-perfect representations of different lighting fixtures into the drawing, to ensure that we could work within the space constraints of the truss.’ Due to its no-base design, the GLP X4 LED Wash was the perfect fixture to squeeze into the space behind the fan.
An accurate 3D model was drawn and submitted to Imagination for preliminary approval. Once the equipment specification for the back wall was finalised, Record set to work on the rest of the lighting rig, using 52 x GLP X4 LED Wash units alongside Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330, Alpha Spot 700 HPE and Alpha Profile 1 200 luminaires.
“While Imagination focused on the design, PRG pulled together the more technical elements, thus we collaborated, from the early concept idea of the fan-wall, through to the on-site fit-up of the rig. There was a bubbly team spirit throughout the event and I always felt we were in safe hands with the PRG team,’ says Record.
Lighting the dome itself, and chosen for their IP65 rating and superior output, was a rig of SGM P5 LED Floodlights, elevated on four PRG SmarTmasts.
PRG’s lighting and rigging crew, led by John Nowell, installed in four days. Ben Cash did the programming by running a grandMA2 Light system set up to contend with multiple control inputs from MIDI and SMPTE sources. “The programming was complex; to time code the lighting cues to sync with the music, we switched some of the effect cues, (fans, car headlights) to MIDI keystroke triggering, via game-show style flashing buttons. The idea behind this was to give the audience a more interactive experience within the show,’ explains Record.
