JAPAN – The recently renamed Tipstar Dome Chiba, formerly Chiba JPF Dome, hosted Japan’s first track cycling tournament in October where an array of Claypaky lighting fixtures played key roles. Lighting Designer Yuji Yokoi deployed 30 Claypaky Xtylos, 26 Midi-B and 12 Shar-Bar fixtures, provided by Claypaky distributor Technical Supply Japan, as the main lighting fixtures for PIST6.
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The PIST6 Championship was among the first cycling competitions in Japan to pursue both speed and entertainment in cycling. The new type of sporting event combined art, food and fashion while pitting top athletes from Japan and abroad against each other in a high-level competition to determine the world’s fastest cyclists. Tipstar Dome Chiba is an indoor velodrome located in Chiba City, Japan.
“For this project, the production team at JET tasked us with utilizing front-line products and technology we had never seen before,” he notes. “When I suggested Xtylos, which I had seen at exhibitions, the director liked its leading-edge features, and we started planning the rig around Claypaky products. Yokoi explains that Xtylos, a beam effect moving head with a laser light source, “satisfied everything that we were looking for in this project – especially Xtylos’s red beam, which was the image color in our design. The red beam was bright and solid, unmatched by any other product.”
At the director’s request, Yokoi used custom-made mirrors, and the director was pleased to see that the reflected beams did not lose output. Additionally, since PIST6 was a bicycle race, speed was an important element, and Xtylos “provided the speed we were looking for,” he reports.
Claypaky’s Midi-B LED-based moving head also suited Yokoi’s design well. “It was incredibly bright despite its small size and had outstanding projection uniformity,” he says. “Midi-B exceeded our expectations. It can also produce a very tight beam which broadened the scope of our design.” The lighting designer also used Claypaky Shar-Bars, advanced moving LED bars with features that transform them into multi-beam effects lights, at the director’s request. The flexible Shar-Bar has individual pan capabilities on each LED module. Yokoi was pleased with the performance of the Xtylos, Midi-B and Shar-Bar fixtures during the unique cycling competition and entertainment event. “In the future, we would like to discuss with the project director how to make good use of the advanced features Claypaky products provide in order to create enjoyable spaces for customers and performers,” he says. “I look forward to seeing what’s new next time!”
Others on the team included Project Director Junichiro Takanashi, Lighting Programmer Katsutoshi Yokota and System Designer Rena Nishikawara.
