Monday 14 April 2008

Ready Steady Light 2008



























The Society of Light and Lighting’s annual Ready Steady Light competition took place at Rose Bruford College on March 19th.

A record number of entries had been received and a total of nineteen teams took part. Each team was allocated a site within the college grounds, a selection of lighting equipment and three hours to create a masterpiece.

Following on from last year’s success, the event was un-themed and the teams challenged to best interpret their site using only lighting effects.

Rose Bruford College provide the Society with tremendous support, having adopted Ready Steady Light as part of their own Lighting Design course. A team of students led by Charlotte Jobson and Chris Hirst coordinated all of the power distribution to the sites and provided key liaison with the College.

However, an event of this magnitude simply could not take place without the support of our sponsors, through both financial and logistical support by donating equipment to the event. Our heartfelt thanks go to Concord:marlin, Crescent, Holophane, iGuzzini, Lightform, Martin Architectural, Philips, Sill, Thorn, Urbis and Zumtobel.

Three hours later and the transformations were complete. There are three prizes available to the teams: Technical Merit, Artistic Impression and the Peer Prize.



The Technical Merit prize was judged by Tony Ownsworth, SLL President, Patrick Baldrey, SLL President Elect, Alan Tulla, SLL Newsletter Editor and Kevin Mansfield and Peter Raynham from the Bartlett. Judging the teams on the technical implementation of the installation, energy use and control of light pollution, they gave Highly Commended to ‘The New Courtyard’ (NDY Light), ‘Lakeside’ (Urbis) and ‘Ramps Ahead’ (Parsons Brinkerhoff). However, Tony Ownsworth explained that the unanimous winner “for its elegant nightscape, excellent control of light spillage and the great textural appearance of the subject” was ‘The Cabin’, an installation from the iGuzzini team.

The prize for Artistic Impression was sponsored by PLDA and IALD and judged by Kevin Theobald from PLDA alongside some of the great and the good from the theatre lighting world, including Paule Constable, Alex Murphy, Roger Hennigan and Tony Simpson. They gave Highly Commended to ‘Lakeside’ (Urbis) and ‘Wasteland’ (The Lighting Designers Sewing Circle). However, first prize was awarded to ‘The Old Stables’, an installation from the team from Rose Bruford College. Presenting the award, Kevin Theobald commented “Year on year the imagination of the teams and the quality of the projects continue to improve”

Finally, the Peer Prize. This prize is judged by the teams themselves and they have to judge each other’s efforts (without voting for themselves!). This prize went to the Speirs and Major team for ‘The Barn.’

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