Christmas at Wollaton

Christmas at Wollaton was “a spectacular trail of Christmas themed light installations set within the grounds of Wollaton Hall” – a stunning, Grade I listed, Elizabethan country house standing on a small but prominent hill in the 500 acres of natural parkland of Wollaton Park, Nottingham, England. The installations were designed to fit into the natural landscape of the Hall and Gardens and to delight adults and children alike as they walked around the trail.

Christmas at Wollaton was designed and delivered by dbnAudile – a Manchester based event production company providing professional and bespoke lighting, audio, rigging and video services and the highest level of creative and technical expertise.

I freelanced for dbnAudile for several weeks in the run up to Christmas at Wollaton (and several other Christmas themed light installations they were delivering at other UK venues over the period) under the direction of Head of Special Projects, Nigel Walker.

While I helped string, test and configure a range of DC powered, outdoor, DMX lighting systems for use across the various sites, my main focus was on the finale piece for the Wollaton Hall trail – the Christmas Tree – and specifically the tumbling piles of glowing, coloured ‘baubles’  on either side.

Based in dbnAudile’s Trafford Park unit, I rewired over 50 of these Abraxus Lighting orbitals – 80cm (and a few 60cm) diameter, silver wire-framed and tinselled globes laced with 12V DMX controlled RGB and warm white LED strings – and thoroughly tested them and their power distribution and DMX control systems (I also repaired faulty LED strings for a few). I then helped mock-up how they would be displayed and mounted and spent a couple of days on-site installing them.

While Christmas at Wollaton isn’t a personal piece, it is the first opportunity I’ve had since the start of the COVID19 pandemic to work as a creative technologist on a public-facing project – so I’m including it here.