PSI Lighting Gets The Party Started

When Belfast-based lighting rental company Production Services Ireland (PSI) started planning their annual staff Festive Party, they soon realised the potential of evolving it into a unique event to showcase their products, services and passion for the industry, all wrapped up in a convivial social environment.

The event was staged in the Ballycultra Town, part of the Northern Ireland Folk & Transport Museum, an attraction covering a 170 acre site, complete with the reconstituted 19th century town, which has a church, bank, police station, school and living quarters.

PSI's Sean Pagel commented: "Once we'd decided that this was the route we would take, we were determined to go all out to ensure that everyone had a good time, enjoyed our hospitality and also had the chance to see what could be achieved with some well applied lighting and visual ideas."

The experience began with the guests being ushered into a traditional style Irish pub, where they received generous portions of mulled wine and were issued with a party laminate before starting a tour of the town.

This concluded at the church, which looked resplendent with PIGI projection onto its exterior, and two Space Flowers strategically positioned behind to give the building extra drama and wow factor. It was also internally lit, producing a warm inviting ecclesiastical glow of colour.

The cobbled streets leading to and from the pub were lit with window gobos in lightsources concealed in the houses, focussed to project out onto the street which proved highly effective. The school house was illuminated with profiles and breakup gobos to add atmosphere.

The old Northern Bank buildings were architecturally lit, and the Coal Merchant's yard and hay loft had depth and a new dimension added to it with a back wall of high resolution ColorWeb LED cloth, fed with content from a Hippotizer digital media server. The Coal Merchant's scene lent itself ideally for some pure theatre in terms of lighting effects, and the impact was completed with flames created from the animation wheels in 2 Robe ColorSpot 700 moving lights plus copious amounts of smoke.

To make the Old Picture House rock with a real performance, PSI presented local singer/songwriter John Gribbon onstage, complete with atmospheric lighting, a scenario illustrating what could be done cost-effectively for a smaller club/music venue set up.

PSI's Brian Reilly concluded: "We were delighted to host this event in such a prestigious location and it was great to see so many people there. I would also like to thank Donal from Pains Fireworks for such a great display."

The results were so positive, that PSI has now decided to make this an annual event. PSI finishes the year with a flourish of business in the last quarter, and is already looking forward to a busy 2010.

(BMcN/BMcC)