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TECHNOLOGY
WHITE-KNUCKLE RIDE Washing the enormous wooden structure of Plopsaland De Panne’s new Heidi rollercoaster in a saturated glow, ILUMINARC’s exterior products provided Belgian creative design studio Painting With Light with colour vitality and strong throw.
The name Heidi may conjure up images of a sweet young heroine in a Swiss children’s tale, but for thrill seekers in Benelux it is coming to stand for a rollercoaster ride. Towering above the heart of the Plopsaland De Panne theme park in Belgium, Heidi The Ride is a new 22-metre high wooden rollercoaster. Named after the successful Heidi TV show produced by amusement park owners Studio 100, it can be seen by visitors and passers-by at all times of the day, thanks to an impressive lighting design utilising fixtures from CHAUVET Professional’s ILUMINARC division. Luc Peumans and his team at the Belgian creative design studio Painting With Light were tasked with giving Heidi an exciting nighttime visual aesthetic to match the experience of the ride itself. They chose 74 ILUMINARC fixtures, including the COLORIST Pod 7Qa, COLORIST Panel 8Qa and 36Qa and
COLORIST Line 12Qa and 6Qa to douse the structure in a magnificent saturated glow. “It was an honour to be invited to light this beautiful and intricate structure,” commented Peumans, whose concept involved highlighting the detail of the €6million attraction, which is built from some 56,846-metres of wood. “Its shape immediately evoked a range of different lighting treatments,” added Peumans. After considerable research and testing, Peumans created a lighting scheme involving three layers – internal, external (with a selection of fixtures grazing up the sides of the structure) and some oblique lights to illuminate the drama of the ramps. The ILUMINARC fixtures were positioned on the ground and embedded into or rigged on concrete blocks for ease of service. “The ILUMINARC range is ideal for exterior illumination projects of this kind,”
continued Peumans. “The combination of pods, panels and lines provides fantastic collective output for filling lots of areas and spaces within the structure.” Thanks to the quad colour RGBA LED source of the fixtures, Peumans could cover the entire structure in light. “Given the height, it was vital that the throw of the fixtures be long and strong enough to maintain the vitality of the colours,” he explained. “The ILUMINARC fixtures provide a fantastic quality of light and colour, even from throw distances of over 22-metres.” The fixtures needed to be IP rated for outdoor use, tough and accessible. The new lighting scheme serves as a focal point of the new Heidi Zone, and for the surrounding area, where it can be seen for miles around. www.iluminarc.com