dbn Lighting from Manchester collaborated in another exciting, innovative and off-
the-wall production with producers Walk The Plank to celebrate the 10th
anniversary of the landmark Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay, Wales. dbn’s Stephen
Page was asked to design lighting for the spectacle, staged outside along the main
concourse approach to the Centre.

Staged on Saturday September 12, the show, “Ar Waith Ar Daith’ was a year in the
planning and making and with over 600 participants, the largest outdoor theatre
production in Wales to date. The show attracted crowds exceeding 12,000 who were
enrapt as the age old tale of Welsh history, myth, allegory and magic unfolded via a
series of promenade choreography, large format projections onto the side of the
building, gravity-defying aerial stunts, lantern processions, choral singing, dance
numbers and a truly exhilarating pyrotechnic finale.

The show was directed by Walk The Plank’s Liz Pugh, with fellow co-founder John
Wasell as creative producer. The work featured a specially-composed soundtrack
by BAFTA award winner composer John Rea.

Ar Waith Ar Daith was designed to celebrate the rich cultural heritage of Wales and
in doing so placed the Wales Millennium Centre as a focal point for a broad
spectrum of creative inspiration.

Eleven custom combined lighting / sound towers were built and distributed around
the site rigged with assorted fixtures, supported by a massive quantity of lights
spread out along the floor.

A row of SGM P5 LED floods – one of Page’s favourite fixtures for this type of
outdoor application – were used as “foot lights’ running the length of the site.

The towers were loaded with a selection of fixtures including 21 x Clay Paky
Mythos, 16 x Sharpy Washes, 16 x Alpha Beam 700s and 12 x Sharpies, more P5s
and Studio Due City Colors – dbn has just invested in the latest 2.5K RGBW versions
of these. There were also four Alpha Beam 300s on each of the towers and around
40 x PAR cans distributed between them.

The columns positioned all the way down the performance space restricted the
placement and focusing of equipment which had to be factored in at every juncture.

From a lighting perspective, having to light for television as well as the live
audience required special attention to detail. A lot of the more subtle “live’
techniques had to be adapted to also work on TV, whist not losing any of their
dramatic resonance … and as always Page and the dbn team rose to the occasion,
producing some beautiful, vivid and theatrical results with resourceful lighting.

Working alongside Page from dbn were Nick Buckley who co-ordinated a lot of the
prep work on site and operated lights for the show, plus Moss Everhard and Pete
Isherwood. They were very ably assisted by Becky Heslop and Josh Kroon, students
from the Royal Welsh College of Speech & Drama.