Shard New Years Eve 2015

The Shard, one of London’s most impressive iconic structures, was the canvas for a New Year’s Eve celebrations.

The top 40 storeys of Western Europe’s tallest building were wired with a series of LED fixtures made by SGM. Supplied by Production Resource Group (PRG), the technology included 64 units of the world’s first IP rated moving head LED lamp – the G-Spot, along with 185 Q-7 RGBW flood/blind/strobe luminaires and 180 P-5 wash lights.

Brought in as technical consultants by Jason Bruges Studio we were hired to create a previsualisation of the installation as well as planning out how each light would be mapped to each dmx channel. This effectively makes the entire structure act like a giant screen so that we can playback content much like the way a lighthouse shines out from all angles.

This then resulted in a content template for Jason’s team to use. On New Year’s Eve the countdown to 2015 was created by a giant pixelated back projection and was synced to work with London’s famous New Year’s Eve Fireworks Display. The NYE celebration lighting was comprised of layers of searchlights, sparkling strobes, a dynamic colour wash and a 2015 numeric super graphic.