Request: Create Immersive Walking Experience
For Garden Lights at MSV, the entire lighting design would need to involve colorful landscape lighting. Specialized looks, interactive exhibits, and utility lighting was developed for walking path illumination. MSV has several miles of paved walking trails as well as formal gardens, large fields and lawns, and a central water feature. Our design team evaluated various pathway routes and proposed a trail that would give the maximum number of ideal lighting locations and signature viewpoints. Once the path confirmed, we could get into the actual lighting design work. Of course, since the experience lasted for four weeks, all the equipment needed to be weather-resistant. We have an enormous inventory of IP65-rated lighting fixtures and power cabling available to handle the site conditions.
Planning Scope, Specials, Wash
Our design team performed a comprehensive site survey and photographed and mapped the entire path for easy reference. First we designated locations where special lighting moments would be most effective. For example, the Grand Allee provided a central viewpoint for a stunning interactive effect. This interactive lighting installation where visitors press a button to activate beams of light that choreograph vibrant patterns in the night sky was accompanied by synchronized ambient sounds. Once these spots have been identified, we filled in the remaining portions of the grounds with general landscape wash lighting. We look for locations where we can take advantage of the existing terrain to conceal fixtures and equipment, or rig a light fixture up in a tree to illuminate an area without an unsightly support structure.
Garden Lights Power Distribution & Show Control
Distributing power outside over tens of acres of wide open environment is never simple. Fortunately we are very experienced at handling this challenge of outdoor events. At this venue, we did not require generators as there was ample power available from the various buildings. We planned our power cable runs to be out of the way while remaining as short as possible. Everything has to be outdoors for several weeks so all the electrical distribution equipment was required to be weatherproof.
While many stage lighting fixtures are now available with IP65 ratings, most networking equipment is not. Therefore we placed the network switches, wifi access points, and lighting control DMX nodes inside specialized waterproof enclosures.
We located our production office trailer at a central but discreet location. This way we could run data networking to every corner of the event site. This enabled us to have centralized lighting control of all specials as well as WiFi and remote monitoring throughout the jobsite. Our lighting designers certainly appreciated programming from within a climate-controlled space
This enabled us to maintain the experience easily while the event was operating. The onsite technician could observe all areas of the event and dispatch immediately to check on any outages.
Garden Lights Lighting for Guest Experience
At certain areas where the direction is unclear or the ground may be less smooth, we planned for lighting that would effectively illuminate the walking pathway. The path had to cross a large open field and so we specified pathway lighting via bistro lights on stakes that was bright for safety and economical to install.
After everything is set up, we walk the route and often need to relocate a light fixture to keep it out of the scenic view or re-focus it to not be blinding another area of the trail.
Where cables crossing a walking path is unavoidable, we use low-slope ADA-compliant cable ramps so there is no trip hazard or impediment to strollers or mobility aids.
Other locations that also required lighting and courtesy power were ticket-taking and foodservice booths. Our team handled utility lighting and power for these locations so the client could focus on the guest-facing requirements of those locations.
