Elation IP65 Lighting Complements Innovation Theme at Boston's HUBweek

Innovation is the key theme of HUBweek, a unique civic festival held each year in Boston that brings together creative minds who make an impact in technology, science, and art. This year's HUBweek saw entertainment solutions company High Output decorate Boston's City Hall Plaza in color and effects using Elation Professional IP65-rated lighting, a boost of eye-catching appeal for the festival's new, centralized format.

A type of festival of ideas, HUBweek's goal is to support the unique environment of innovation in the Boston area and serve as a platform to spark new ideas that could improve the human condition. With over 200 speakers, 150 events and 130 artists, it also provides innovators access to many of the creative firms and individuals who drive our innovation economy.

Held October 12-15, HUBweek 2017, the third incarnation of the festival, saw a different format than in previous years. Whereas a variety of sites around town have played host to past festivals, this year the festival was centrally located on Boston's City Hall Plaza, dubbed The HUB. Designed in collaboration with design firm CBT, The HUB featured six geodesic domes, which housed talks, performances, and other interactive experiences, while a scattering of shipping containers were used to house events and art.

High Output provided all production support for The Hub including lighting, video, audio, staging, and power distribution, their first year working the festival. "This was the first year where the event has been at this magnitude," says High Output's Graham Edmondson, who served as lighting designer on the project. "Part of the increased focus was to highlight and draw attention to the new, central area. We lit the geodesic domes, entry way, shipping containers, and site lighting using all IP65-rated Elation lights."

All of the lighting on the geodesic domes was done using Elation Paladin hybrid lights and SixPar 200 IP LED Par lights. Jim Hirsch at High Output was shown the Paladin by Elation sales rep Gary Fallon and was impressed enough to purchase the strobe/blinder/wash lights. "The Paladin is super bright and has a great zoom range," Edmondson says of the versatile hybrid LED luminaire, which can be used as a high-output wash light. "It was key to getting color on the domes from all sides as the domes were visible from 360°."

The Paladin's power comes from twenty-four 40W RGBW LEDs and the IP65-rated fixture also includes a motorized zoom for greater beam control. The fixtures worked from three central truss structures with others mounted atop shipping containers, a convenient place to light from according to Edmondson. Mounted in similar positions, fully weatherproof SixPar 200 IP Par lights with twelve 6-color LED multi-chips worked with the Paladins to light the domes in a variety of shades, color matching well with the Paladins, Edmondson says.

Over an entry way arch made of stacks of shipping containers and on central trusses were six Proteus Hybrid and three Proteus Beam fixtures, Elation's award-winning IP65-rated moving heads that Gary Fallon also introduced to High Output. Edmondson says they were especially "thrilled" to have the Proteus Hybrids on the project. "They were brighter than anyone expected and have a good zoom and nice gobo selection," he says of the multi-functional arc source fixture.

The Proteus Beams, powerful 2° beam lights with a 14R 280W lamp, were used for an attraction-getting skytracker type effect that could be seen from across the city. Area lighting within the site was done using thirty SixBar 1000 IPs, one-meter long color-changing battens with 6-color LED multi-chips. Mounted on pipe goal posts on the shipping containers, the SixBar 1000 IP's were used for walkway and site lighting.

High Output worked with Elation rep firm Healy Sales on the project and was happy with the result. "Everything was IP and held up well," Edmondson says. "It rained for two days during load in and then the fixtures were outside for an additional five days after that but we had no problems."

Founded in 2014, HUBweek is a joint collaboration between The Boston Globe, Harvard University, MIT, and Massachusetts General Hospital, who work with a community of inventive organizations from a wide range of industries to make HUBweek a reality.