PALM Expo 3rd Lighting Design Showcase 2019 Objective was to Engage Maximum Designers Visiting PALM-Provide Designers an Experiential Template. Lighting Design Showcase Team Conceptualized ‘Open Platform’ with Fantastic Results

Lighting design showcase gave nearly a 1000 lighting engineers invaluable experiential opportunity at the expo

Anil Chopra, Founder Director of PALM expo; Ulhas Sahasrabuddhe, Lighting Design Showcase Producer and Smita Rai, Project Head – Features, PALM expo, conceptualizing the lighting design showcase 2019

In 2019, PALM expo upped the ante at the Lighting Design Showcase with a one of its kind remarkable and ingenious Spider lighting rig. The feature was created to provide a platform to lighting designers from across India to showcase their talent.

For the third consecutive year, Ulhas Sahasrabuddhe and his team at SSL Media produced the PALM Lighting Design Showcase with Aloysius Dsouza as the Head Lighting Designer at the helm of the showcase. The design element for the 2019 showcase was programmed around a “Pixel Spider” wherein every single fixture on the rig was treated as an individual pixel to form a big group of pixels. A total 80 moving fixtures were placed in a ceiling grid.

800 Pixel Bars and 86 Kinetic Balls especially imported for the lighting showcase drew visitor’s attention to the Lighting Showcase. Each ball and pixel bar, along with 120 LED COB Pars used for the lighting showcase were also used and treated as single pixels. 

“The PALM Light Design Showcase was very good this year. SSL had created a concept called Pixel Spider wherein we made a Spider design element out of pixels, which we were controlling through software. If there are 80 moving heads, we patched them as one single pixel. Every lighting fixture was treated as a single pixel and choreographed in a timeline,” said Ulhas Sahasrabuddhe.

“To put it in layman’s terms, every pixel can be spoken to and told what to do, when and how in a complete choreography. I can for instance speak to pixel number 50 and tell that particular pixel to turn a particular colour at a particular point in time and the pixel can respond back to the console individually. It is phenomenal!” he adds.

The unique showcase of lighting choreography, which involved creating a Pixel Universe, was accomplished by exploiting the grandMA 2 lighting console and controlled through the Madrix Software. A huge number of aspiring lighting designers got a fantastic opportunity for hands-on training on the grandMA 2 and Madrix. “SSL has eight-licensed Madrix software keys. Though visitors were not aware how to use it to the fullest, the PALM Lighting showcase gave them access to the Madrix keys, which opportunity otherwise would have been difficult to get,” says Sahasrabuddhe.

“We could do the spider because we could individually control the pixel. It could have turned into anything if we had not been able to control it. We put two consoles, one running on one generator and the other running on another generator so that if there is any problem in the incoming power, we have the other console on standby. It was a combination of good fixtures, very good software and putting it together.”

MA Lighting is glad to be involved in the lighting design showcase at PALM Expo. It’s a great idea and it’s an activity that seldom is offered worldwide in such kind of events. The showcase attracted many Lighting designers across India, giving them an opportunity to get hands on experience of MA Lighting console.

This unique showcase, which featured lighting choreography, truly displayed lighting designer’s programming skills, innovative visual imagery and creativity using the fantastic feature of grandMA.

We want to play a part in the Lighting Design Showcase again next year with the new great platform we have launched, the grandMA3; the software V1.0 will be launched very soon and it will be a great chance to play with the MA software which is going to be a game-changer in the panorama of lighting controllers. This activity of Palm Expo deserves all our support and efforts; we will be there,” said Franco Zaghini, Director of Business Development, MA Lighting International GmbH.

Open House PLatform

This year PALM expo and Sahasrabuddhe reinvented the lighting showcase by converting the showcase into an open house platform with an aim to make it more interactive and encourage more visitor engagement. It gave young engineers a fantastic opportunity and the concept was a complete success. Besides being mesmerized by the design element at the showcase, visitors were fabulously engaged as the showcase. The platform gave lighting engineers from across the country an opportunity to be creative with the Madrix software and MA lighting console. Thus, the thematic design of the Spider had meaning, in that, visitors were able to experience the console and software.

There wasn’t a single empty moment during the three days of the lighting showcase, as hundreds of people gathered to experience the console and the software first hand. At any given point in time, there were groups of people waiting for their turn.

The design element for the 2019 showcase was programmed around a “Pixel Spider” wherein every single fixture on the rig was treated as an individual pixel. 800 Pixel Bars and 86 Kinetic Balls were especially imported for the PALM Lighting Design Showcase

“The open house clicked as we were letting young lighting designers programme the lights. We had a great turn out and visitors loved the design element at the Lighting Design showcase. The response was fantastic, especially from tire two and three cities. The Open House concept helped a lot. Many young designers who were not comfortable participating in a competition, made best use of this fantastic opportunity provided to them in the PALM Lighting Design Showcase. It allowed people to act with a lot of freedom. They were making programming mistakes but getting out of their mistakes organically. Although three days is too short for someone to learn something, visitors and lighting designers were able to try their hands on the console and learn the bare basics. It also became a photop or selfie corner and when this happened, we put some warm lights on the truss,” concludes Sahasrabuddhe.