From 27 October to 1 November 2017, Ecumenical Bridge of Light was cast between the German city of Worms’ St. Peter’s Cathedral and the Luther Church, using Elation Professional Proteus Hybrid moving heads.
Lighting Designer Thomas Gerdon commented: “Even though they are separate religions, they are still connected by the Christian faith. The bridge of light was meant to visualize this connection as a symbolic meeting of the two great faiths in partnership.
“Besides the near impossibility of getting such large and heavy fixtures up there, there wasn’t much room to work in, and power distribution would have been an issue as well. That made it quite complicated.” Strong light output was a must however so Gerdon looked further, testing several large discharge lights. “But they didn’t have enough power, not enough punch. So, our first idea was too cumbersome and our second idea was not bright enough,” Gerdon explained.
Gerdon received a phonecall from Marc Librecht, Sales Director at Elation Professional Europe. “He told me that the Proteus Hybrid was ready and asked me if I wanted to take a look, which naturally I did. Besides being 40% more powerful than some other lights we were looking at, it has all the benefits of IP65 so I took a fixture outside and pointed it up to the sky. It was amazing! It had just as much punch as a 2K searchlight but at 10% of the power draw and a fraction of the weight! It solved all the problems I had.”
A series of joint events were held in each church during the 6 days until the finale showcase on 1 November The light bridge illumination ran for 40 minutes with a light show of ballyhoo effects and color changes running for 20 minutes each hour. The light fixtures were on from 6:00pm until midnight each evening. “We switched them on that first day and turned them off on the last day and had no issues. They were exposed to weather – wind, rain, cold nights – and came through just fine,” Gerdon added.
The Elation Professional Proteus fixtures were supplied for the project through the company’s German distribution partner, LMP. The LD concluded: “Marc Petzold and his team at LMP are always very helpful and supportive, everyone at Elation was hands on and also very helpful.”
Gerdon worked with local event and media technology company Dawnconcepts on the project. The light bridge project was well received by the citizens of Worms, not only as a connection between the denominations but also as a beautiful composition of light and sky in the urban environment.