Paramount Comedy Festival 2002

The beautiful structure of the West Pier in Brighton was to be the backdrop for an audacious lighting spectacle, the vision on Laser Grafix's customer Amber Media working on behalf of Paramount.

Paramount wanted to highlight the fact that the Comedy Festival had rolled into town, and what better way to get yourselves noticed then by lighting the town's most famous landmark.

The famous structure had to be approached with much caution and careful planning, and working closely with the West Pier Trusts own structural engineer a plan was devised how to install sufficient lighting equipment onto the partially deteriorating structure.

Once the equipment had been specified for the job it was installed over two days coinciding with low tides enabling access to the pier with an amphibious lifting platform. All of the electrical distribution and lighting fixtures were all controlled by a wireless DMX radio link situated 100m from the pier in the beachfront kiosk. This was ideal as it cut the amount of trips required to the pier structure in bad weather and allowed the illumination to continue safely for the crew.

The effect was stunning, with local residents voicing their opinions over the two-week illumination of how fantastic it looked. Unfortunately this was to be the West Piers final show, its Swan Song, as at the end of December 2002 part of the magnificent Ballroom structure succumbed to the elements and duly collapsed into the sea. It shall be missed.

Project Manager: Paul Green
Technicians: Arran Hopkins, Toby Macknight
Client: Promo Concepts UK Ltd.