ILC Lights The Morton Arboretum

The Morton Arboretum presents "Illumination: Tree Lights at The Morton Arboretum." Intelligent Lighting Creations (ILC) partnered with lighting and visual design firm Lightswitch, to help the Arboretum create the first-ever wintertime interactive light event in the Chicago region. This interactive light event spans over approximately 50 acres of the Arboretum's 1,700 acre grounds.

ILC was brought in during the early stages of the project, providing mockups and proof of concept testing. "ILC excels in both large scale productions and permanent installations, so this was a natural fit for us. We provided integrations services, equipment, labor and coordination of the project," says Matt Pearlman, senior account executive at ILC.

Several months were spent coordinating with The Morton Arboretum staff and the Lightswitch design team doing pure research on the interactive elements and the best equipment to use for this cutting-edge light technology show. Since the outdoor event is held for six weeks in the winter season, all equipment had to be industrial and weather-rated.

The 8,000 sq. ft. production prep space at ILC served as the home base leading up to the installation. ILC utilized this space to create the custom interactives and controls as well as prepping all equipment before the load-in. Several hundred LED sources, thousands of LED nodes, and 42 moving lights with custom built outdoor enclosures were provided, not to mention several miles of cable. Clay Paky Sharpys, Vari*Lite 440s, Color Kinetics Flex MX, and Elation Level Par Q7 IP make up the bulk of the equipment list.

Along the mile long trail, guests will encounter many different forms of interactive elements. Some of these elements include lights that respond to the sound of their voice, a 30' high display of snowflakes and falling leaves made by hand motions over sensors, and huggable trees that shift light over the entire grove.

Illumination will be open from November 22 through January 4. The event opens each night at 4:30pm with the last entry at 8:30pm. It will be closed on November 28 and December 2, 9, 16, 24, and 25.