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Elation fixtures illuminate Dollywood’s “Great Pumpkin LumiNights”

Elation fixtures illuminate Dollywood’s “Great Pumpkin LumiNights”
Elation fixtures illuminate Dollywood’s “Great Pumpkin LumiNights”

Each fall, Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, holds a Harvest Festival. In 2017, park leadership also decided on a pumpkin-themed evening concept to support the park’s “Year of the Family” theme. The new experience, “Great Pumpkin LumiNights”, which ran from September 29th until October 28th, was an outdoor installation of thousands of illuminated jack-o-lanterns, artistic sculptures, playful scenes, pumpkin-themed food and entertainment.

 

Elation Professional dealer StudioVibrant of Lexington, Kentucky, was asked to join the “Great Pumpkin LumiNights” design team from the initial conceptual discussions. “Early in the process, I determined that a theatrical approach to illuminating the show sets was important,” states Matt Cooper, principle lighting designer at StudioVibrant, who was key in specifying both Elation and Acclaim lighting on the project.

 

“Most pumpkin events we researched tended toward interior illumination and negative space but focusing on only interior illumination misses the opportunity to highlight the form of a pumpkin,” he continues. “It became clear that sidelight, uplight and washing the exterior of the show sets would be critical.”

 

The project focused on both supporting temporary show-specific sets (a giant pumpkin spider, among others), as well as illuminating several permanent elements, specifically two roller coasters, the park’s 250’ tall Drop Line tower ride and several themed structures. For building wash duties Cooper selected the Elation SixPar 300, an LED Par light with six-color LED chip, including UV.

 

Each jack-o-lantern within the “Great Pumpkin LumiNights” show sets contained individual pixel-mapped RGB diodes and each decorative set vignette received a wash treatment to highlight the scale of the set and communicate the unique form of a pumpkin to guests. “We used a combination of SixPar 100, SixPar 200 and SixBar 1000 IP fixtures for exterior wash,” Cooper says. Additionally, SixPar 200s with custom top hats were used to help wash the tree canopy and uplight specific themed characters.

 

Lighting from Elation’s sister company Acclaim Lighting also played a key role as Acclaim DynaDrum HO fixtures illuminated permanent structures. An array of 16 DynaDrums illuminated the Thunderhead wooden roller coaster while six DynaDrums illuminated the Drop Line structure.

 

To facilitate control of both the fixtures on the temporary show sets and fixtures associated with permanent structures, the StudioVibrant team developed and deployed an extensive control network. Over 40 universes of sACN formed the backbone of the control solution including three discrete universes via Aria wireless transmitters.

 

Transmitters were fed from sACN nodes with antennas placed in inconspicuous locations on existing structures. Product support on the project was provided by Elation manufacturer rep firm Five Lakes Marketing.

 

www.elationlighting.com

 

 

Elation fixtures illuminate Dollywood’s “Great Pumpkin LumiNights”Elation fixtures illuminate Dollywood’s “Great Pumpkin LumiNights”

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