FRANKFURT, GERMANY — As the 62nd International Car Show (IAA) recently opened its doors in Frankfurt, a nine-month preparation and a two month setup ended for the planners of the DaimlerChrysler AG booth. The company furnished Frankfurt’s festival hall with LED technology as well as more than 500 moving lights and scores of PARs that illuminated 68 cars. Besides the Mercedes-Benz booth, there were also the booths of Smart and Maybach.
For lighting control, the planners of TLD Planungsgruppe GmbH relied on an MA Lighting system consisting of 5 x grandMA full-size, 3 x grandMA light, 7 x MA NSPs, 24 x MA 2Port Nodes as well as 11 x HP ProCurve Switch 2626. The installed fiber optic network had a length of 1.4 kilometres and connected seven equipment rooms. Thirty-five DMX universes were used for the show. MA NSPs, located in one room, provided the necessary processing power and distributed their signal to the MA 2Port Nodes,which were located throughout the festival hall. They provided DMX to control the entire lighting rig in real time. A fully automated show was run during the fair. Lighting, video/LEDs, sound and two turntables were synchronised via Timecode.
Among others, a Spanning Tree Algorithm was used for the network.The system structure was build up in a way that even the failure of multiple NSPs would not have affected the show. Also, the main console, controlled via Timecode and MIDI, was backed up by another MA console. All these precautions were undertaken due to the fact that a failure would have caused every light in the booth to go out.
During the setup, it was possible to focus the cars and architecture and to view the lighting from every location in the hall because the connection of the consoles via the fiber optic network. Replacements weren’t necessary because the grandMAs were mobile integrated into the system at the primary positions.
For the fair, 120 tons of equipment were installed into the hall roof. Among others, there were Vari*Lites VL3500 spot, VL3000 spot, VL5 arc and VL5 tungsten as well as scores of ETC CE Source Four PAR. Nearly 1,600 meters of truss and 6,000 meters of steel and aluminium pipes formed an extensive rig. The strictly structured trusses served as suspension for a half transparent metal ceiling. All spots were symmetrically placed in openings in that ceiling and by this nearly invisible.
The “car-walk,“ a 50-meter-long and twelve-meters-wide street consisting of Barco Mistrips, was an eye-catcher for attendees. At the front end, it ran into an Elementlabs Stealth curtain, which had a Hibino Cromatec HD LED-wall installed above. Furthermore, there was a stage implemented into the booth design for the world premiere of the concept car F700.
TLD Planungsgruppe GmbH was responsible for the planning of the Mercedes-Benz and Maybach booth. Alexander Orkisch was project manager. Construction management light was done by Sebastian Ströher and Christoph Rupieper. Claudia Furrer was responsible for the mounted and emergency lighting. Dietmar Rauh and Lars Wulff were programmer and operator. Richard Profe developed the concept and the lighting design. Udo Kraemer was technical manager and S+L Leonberg delivered the lighting equipment.
The planning of the press show in the run-up of the fair was done by RGB. Showtec delivered the lighting equipment for it. Klaus Bolte and Marcus Krömer worked as operator for this show. Trussco GmbH planned the Smart booth, which Light company realized. Construction management was done by Tom Landrige and planned out by Jörg Verbeck. Atelier Markgraph GmbH was responsible for communication and production.
ACTION ITEM:
For information, please visit www.malighting.com.
