In late 2022 I joined the experimental marketing company Avantgarde as Head of Technical in charge of architectural and theatrical lighting, audio, video and IT for Liwa Village– a first time event created held in Liwa, south of Abu Dhabi, UAE.
The festival was conceived as cultural event and community gathering point for the nearby seasonal off road competition held at Moreeb Dune and featured live performances, an immersive dinner experience and F&B retail kiosks featuring the finest of local vendors.
The festival opened on 16 Dec 2022 and due to popular demand was extended till Sunday, 8th January 2023.
Since August 2019, I have been consulting with the fine people at Global Village Dubai to create a new night-time lighting experience for the Carnaval Rides and Attractions area, in preparation for their 25th Anniversary Season and the millions of expected new visitors visiting the UAE next year for the upcoming Worlds Expo 2020.
The project scope included the networking of 120 dmx connections to 40 artnet devices placed in ticket booths and power rooms situated throughout the Carnaval area, in order to provide synchronized control of over 200 moving light and led fixtures.
Design elements also included an original pole canopy design to support a new skytracker position and protect the moving lights from rainfall and direct sunlight, the hardware specification and software programming for centralized lighting effect playback for a number of ride triggers, and the networking and programming of nearly a 1km of digital RGBW festoon strings.
Themed lighting programming was also created for major holidays, the weekly firework shows, and for scheduled daily park operations.
Many thanks go out to Sreetheran Karunanithy, Rishwan Sathik, Neil Dwyer and the other excellent people at Global Village, and to Moshin and the team at White Horizon for being such hard workers and great company on those long overnight shifts.
DAN REED LIGHTING DESIGN 