The Live Arena, a veritable paradise for petrolheads, featured 5 action-packed 55 minute shows a day consisting of races and performance car stunts, complete with guest appearances, interviews, screeching engines, burning tyres and much fuel-pumped excitement! Each show was enjoyed by 2000 speed-tastic car enthusiasts!

It's the second year that Wan has designed the Live Arena at the annual exhibition promoted by Haymarket Events. He was working for Network Productions, who supplied all the lighting and sound equipment.

Car shows like this are notoriously difficult to light - no matter how many fixtures you throw at the space - in this case an impressive 130 x 90 metres - it devours light like that proverbial large "black hole"! He knew he needed really bright units, and so didn't hesitate to specify Robe.

"I use Robe on all my major shows," he states, "So there was never any question of using another moving light brand". He likes Robe for its reliability and the diversity of the range and its creative options.

His total light count included 60 Robe ColorWash and ColorSpot 1200E ATs - 30 of each - and 20 of the new ColorBeam 700E ATs, along with over 200 PARs, 40 strobes and a quantity low res LED panels which were used to clad the 12 structural columns running down the NEC's Arena.

The ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200E ATs were arranged across 6 raked trusses which were flown 3 a side in the roof, each at 33 degree angles, adding depth and dimension to the space, and all toned with LED wash lights.

The 20 ColorBeam 700E ATs were positioned at ground level at the opposite end of the arena to the audience. They were utilised for big and spectacular beam looks and effects - at which they excel!

Wan was blown away with them! "They are totally awesome," he comments, "They really brought some cool 'finishing creative lighting touches' to the show, and their beams were so bright they easily reached all 130 metres down the length of the arena!"

The ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200E ATs were the workhorses of the rig, throwing colour washes onto the track and gobo patterns into the arena and onto the fast-paced vehicular action as well as into the audience.

The challenge was to light each differently, giving each section of the show a distinctive ambience and feel, and by the end of programming, he had over 85 cues in his Jands Vista T2 console. Lighting cues had to be tightly dovetailed with the VT play ins between each race which featured commentator Murray Walker as the on-screen presenter.