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Groupe Novelty delivers video mapping show for Lyon’s “Festival of Lights”

With 32 sites and 2.3 million visitors, the 2023 “Festival of Lights” (“Fête des Lumières”) in Lyon, France, once again lived up to its global reputation as one of the most sought-after canvases for international lighting designers and artists. Groupe Novelty, provider of technical solutions for the live events industry, transformed the festival’s most iconic site like never before during the latest “Festival of Lights” last December.

Drawing on its vast stock of AV equipment - the largest inventory in Europe - and more than fifty years of event production experience (including over a decade for the “Festival of Lights”), Groupe Novelty provided the technical backbone for the festival’s top location, using the City Hall and 17th-century Museum of Fine Arts that surround the Place des Terreaux as the canvas for a projection-mapped audiovisual spectacular, paying tribute to Lyon’s cinematic heritage.

Created by digital artist Bruno Ribeiro, with a soundtrack by French electronic music producer Rone, Cellulo/d (pronounced “Celluloid”) celebrated the works of the inventors of cinema, the Lumière brothers. Ribeiro used modern AI technology to reimagine and reinterpret some of the brothers’ earliest motion pictures, such as giving a Wild Western and cartoon makeover to 1895’s “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat”.

A “Festival of Lights” regular since 2009, local Groupe Novelty’s subsidiary Novelty Aura has forged a reputation in the city of lights over the years, producing several milestone projects, including the illumination of the Fourvière hill and its Basilica, which overlooks Lyon. Its relationship with Ribeiro, however, is considerably younger, the two parties having first met at “Aura Invalides”, a projection-mapping show in Paris last September, explains Arnaud Douchet, director of Novelty Aura.

“We decided to apply together for the Place des Terreaux, one of the most coveted sites in the whole festival”, recalls Douchet. “This was exciting for both of us, as Bruno had never created any work for the ‘Festival of Lights’ and we (Novelty) had never worked on this iconic site.”

Celebrated around the 8th of December each year, the Lyon “Festival of Lights” commemorates the inauguration of the golden statue of the Virgin Mary in 1852. On that day, after a violent storm cancelled the festivities, the people of Lyon spontaneously lit candles on their window sills at nightfall to thank the Virgin - a tradition that lives on 170 years later in the form of the modern four-day Fête des Lumières, which transforms the city’s buildings, squares, bridges and rivers into a riot of lights and colours.

Novelty Aura started by creating a 3D scan of the square and its buildings, to map the area with precision and ensure maximum impact for the projection. The company’s mission, explains Douchet, was to translate Ribeiro’s artistic requirements into a technical reality. “The mapping needed to be impactful, immersive and have even coverage”, he says. “Bruno knew that he could leave the technical aspect to us to focus on creating the content - he would only have to bring his USB stick and plug it in during rehearsals and everything would magically work.”

To make Ribeiro’s vision a reality, Douchet and his team worked closely with sister company Alabama Média (also based in Lyon), which supplied the projection equipment and media servers. To create a 48 metres long by 26.5 metres wide video mapping on the City Hall, Alabama specified six Panasonic PT-RZ21K projectors in dual mode. Six Barco UDX-4K32s, also in dual mode and complemented by a pair of PT-RZ21Ks for the pediment, covered the entire length of the Museum of Fine Arts facade (102 x 29 metres). Three Modulo Kinetic servers and two Lightware matrix routers completed the video set-up.

Another member company of Groupe Novelty, Novelty Toulouse, created custom-made, air-conditioned housings for the projectors, AV equipment and staff. Featuring an inconspicuous, timber-clad structure, the containers were designed to blend in with their environment and not draw attention away from the show. All logistics were overseen by onsite manager Elvis Dagier.

The deployment of the video equipment was arguably the biggest challenge and one where the lightweight wooden containers came into their own. “The main issue was the load: with a car park underneath, the square can ‘only’ accommodate 1T/sqm”, explains Douchet, “so we had to make lots of precise calculations to ensure the projectors didn’t end up in the car park”.

Away from the Place des Terreaux, Novelty Aura also brought its technical know-how to bear on another city landmark, the Fresque des Lyonnais, with a complete audiovisual video mapping by artist collective Les Allumeurs de Rêves (“The Dream Lighters”). The installation brought the 800 sqm painted mural, which depicts some of the most famous people from Lyon, to life, illuminating and animating the already lifelike illustrations of the Lumière brothers, the chef of the century, Paul Bocuse, prime minister Edouard Herriot, Roman emperor Claudius, and other famous Lyonnaises and Lyonnais.

(Photos: Muriel Chaulet/Brice Robert Photographe/Groupe Novelty)

www.novelty-group.com

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