Martin & Mojo Create Britt UK Winter Conference with MAC 700s

Britt Worldwide UK is one of the largest and most successful support and training organizations for independent business owners in the world. Each event is a truly international affair with delegates and top motivational speakers attending from across the globe. Britt UK wished to start their winter conference with a powerful and emotive introduction that would invoke enthusiasm for the weekend’s speakers and presentations.

Dave Prior, Director of Mojo Audio Visual Ltd and the conference’s Event Coordinator, came up with the theme; "The start of a new day" and came up with dance, visuals, lighting and sound to create a dusk to dawn effect on the stage that would bring the audience to their feet. In order to achieve this, Dave requested Martin lighting for the rig. “I really love the flexibility and the creative edge that Martin equipment consistently delivers,” he says. “With an event like this you only get one chance to get it right and that’s why we use Martin.”

Panda Hire Ltd provided and installed the lighting for this event in Nottingham Ice Arena. The aim was to design a flexible lighting rig that could be used for great lighting effects during the introduction and musical play-ons and static lighting for the rest of the weekend. With this and time restrictions in mind, an all intelligent rig was put together comprising of Martin MAC 700 Profile and MAC 700 Wash units on the front truss and MAC 250 Entour and MAC 250 Wash units to the back truss and stage. Two Jem Glaciators were used stage left and right to create a heavy fog effect for the introduction and Jem Stage Hazer's and a Magnum 2000 smoke machine to enhance the lighting.
Paul White from Panda, lighting designer for the event, explained the role of the MAC 700s, “The MAC 700 Wash units allowed a flexible stage wash with control over position and complete CMY mixing. The MAC 700 Profiles were used to spot the lectern position and for break-up gobos onto the black and white backdrop, plus specials during the opening sequence.”

Project Manager Chris Vernon-Smith from Panda commented that, “The CMY color mixing featured in the MAC 700 profile provided seamless transitions between color states which are often messy when used with profiles containing only a color wheel.” He also commented that the improved optics on the MAC 250s achieved great effects in a very large area.

Chris concluded that, “The reliability and high performance of Martin fixtures led to a very successful, powerful and trouble free event.”

Panda Hire Ltd has provided rental and production services since 1998. They started with limited rental and production provided primarily for band events. Since then, the variety and scale of productions has grown significantly and they now provide lighting for a growing number of events and activities including the architectural lighting at Hampton Court Palace for their annual Christmas ice rink installation. Most recently they provided full production for the Gary Numan Telekon Mini Tour in December 06. They provided PA, lighting, structure, set and logistics as a complete tour package. The lighting rig for this comprised of primarily Martin MAC 500 and MAC 600 fixtures. In addition to this Panda Hire have provided lighting rigs for many well known bands over the last year including The Dirty Pretty Things, The Sugar Babes, G4, GLC, The Zutons, Embrace, Bjorn Again, plus DJ's Trevor Nelson, Dave Pearce, The Cut up Boys and Killa Kela.