BAFTAs Aftershow Lit By Renegade Designs

Lighting and visual design specialists, Renegade, once again created an exceptional lit environment for the star studded 2011 Orange BAFTA (British Academy of Film & TV Arts) Awards gala dinner and aftershow party at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.

The event, which followed the Awards Ceremony at the Royal Opera House, utilized multiple spaces in the venue, including the Great Room, the Ballroom, reception and peripheral areas.

It is the third year that Renegade's Nick Gray has been involved in designing the high profile event attended by the rich and famous, working for production company AD Events. The challenge was to take some of the classic, well-loved and appreciated lighting elements from last year's successful scheme, and integrate them with a totally new look and feel for the Great Room and other spaces.

Chris Fyfe was Renegade’s technical project manager (leading a crew of 5) and overseeing the load-in and rigging of all the production lighting equipment, which was supplied by White Light. Specialist interior fixtures came from Shok London.

The Great Room hosted the dinner for over 1000 guests, for which Gray created a dramatic, interesting, break-up effect around the room, utilizing 20 Source Four profiles, with an additional 20 Source Fours boosting the theme for some tables.
 
Also used were the Grosvenor's house lighting rig consisting of 28 x Vari*Lite 2000 Washes and 8 V*L 2500 spots to help set the scene, augmented with an additional 8 x V*L 3000 Spots from White Light. One hundred and twenty wireless battery powered GDS Lightware LED wireless up-lighters were positioned around the room illuminating the walls and other features. These are extremely quick and easy to deploy in situations like this, needing no cabling, complete with their wireless colour changing abilities. Matthew Rimmer operated an Avolites Pearl 2004 desk for control.

Some of the table centres were between 6 and 8 foot tall and sculpted into themes inspired by the film Inception. These marked a departure from the more classic floral concepts, and required the lighting to be more geometric to reflect the table design. The tables were also lit with complementary colours so shadows and reflections could be created in the mirror elements of the sculptures.

As part of the entertainment, guests enjoyed a live performance by 80’s alternative pop band Squeeze where lighting needed to be flexible and interesting, covering the stage as well as the dancefloor.

The Ballroom stage measured 32ft wide x 24ft deep and was positioned at one end of the room. Onstage, lights were rigged onto 4 sections of upright trussing at the back, 2 at 2.5 metres high and 2 at 3 metres high. On each truss tower was a Martin Professional MAC 700 Profile moving light, an Atomic strobe, 2 x MAC 101 LED washes and 2 x 4-lite blinders.

Onstage were another 2 x MAC 700 Profiles, located left and right of stage, with another two downstage left and right, plus 6 PAR 56 chrome floor cans. Five Source Four Juniors were rigged on one of the house's overhead scaff bars.

Above the dancefloor in front of the stage, the Renegade team took advantage of a square configuration of barrel bars, hanging  a MAC 700 Spot in each corner. At the back of the room, the bar area was highlighted with 2 x Parnels and 10 house PAR cans on another house bar. The whole room was draped and lit using kitsch style stand lamps provided by Soho House.

All lighting was controlled via a Hog iPC console. Squeeze’s LD Daniel Bocking operated lights for their set, and the rest of the time the desk/FOH was run for Renegade by Trent O’Connor.

Shok London supplied 84 LED up-lighters and 18 x stylish Tom Dixon chrome up-lighters for soft lighting in peripheral areas, which included 4 break out rooms each lit with a combination of LED and PAR 56 up-lighters.

The bar outside the Ballroom featured another 12 x Tom Dixon uplighters, with 8 Stem Spots used to accentuate the bar areas, and Source Four Parnels picked out the branding and dashboards.

A corridor linking the Ballroom & Great Room was lit with more LED up-lighters matched to the light blue corporate colours of Grey Goose vodka, one of the main sponsors.

The reception and lobby areas also looked resplendent with Tom Dixon up-lighters set up to create a stylish walk-in lighting feel.

The load in was tight, starting at 9 a.m. Saturday for the Sunday evening party. However having additional cherry pickers on hand this year speeded up the rigging process considerably, and everything was ready and focused before 8 p.m. that day, leaving the floorspace clear for the  tables to be laid out.

Nick Gray comments, “It was brilliant to be involved with such a high profile event again. Our brief was to produce an elegant, eye-catching vibe and ambience for the spaces and the occasion, for which we all built on our previous experiences and added lots of new ideas”.