The high profile event was staged at the Palexpo Centre in Geneva, and BMW’s  special launch concept was originated by Mutabor Design GmbH from Hamburg, Germany.

A steel superstructure was designed in collaboration with architects Puchner & Schum from Munich, together with engineers Structure GmbH from Frankfurt.

This was then clad with fibre glass to create two curved three dimensional latticed set piece walls surrounding the two Gran Coupe vehicles, one of which was on a revolve. There was a circular ceiling above the area with three rings of trussing for lighting positions, and at the back of the presentation space was a circular hi res LED video screen.

For the duration of the show, the car’s promotional video was looped and shown on the screen, accompanied by a stylish and very harmonious lightshow that integrated the cars within the set, so choosing the right luminaire was absolutely crucial to Heilig’s lighting design.

Previous to this event, he had not used Robe products, and before making his decision, he conducted several shootouts. He was looking for a luminaire with a good quality of light, a flat and even beam field, smooth colour mixing and a good zoom range.

After the first couple of shootouts it fast became apparent that the only LED wash fixture meeting all his criteria was the Robe ROBIN 600 LEDWash and the ROBIN 600 PureWhite SW (the smart-white version of the luminaire). “It is the ideal tool” he says, “The colour mixing is perfect and the zoom range (15 – 60 degrees) exceptional”.

The order was placed with Robe by the lighting rental contractors for the BMW stand, Rockservice from Salzgitter, Germany, and the sale delivered through Robe’s German distributor, LMP.

Robe pulled all the stops out to deliver the LEDWashes in a short lead-time, and made a special order for the 42 SmartWhites as Cree normally produces this LED multi-chip only in the US. Ninety-four of the 311 units used for the installation were supplied in white housings.

A hundred and twenty LEDWash 600s were ensconced in the narrow corridors behind the latticed set walls either side of the Gran Coupe arena – both on the floor and in the air, and they very effectively lit a cyc wall behind, as well as the set itself. The rest of the fixtures were rigged on the three circular trusses in the ceiling.

Heilig had to create three different lightshows for the overall event – one for the BMW Group Conference, one for the DTM (racing series) press conference, plus the one for the on-going show presentation.

To meet the schedule, detailed 3D visualised pre-programming was undertaken off-site and then fine-tuned when at Palexpo by programmer / operator Jan Kirchhoff, using a grandMA2 full size console.

Ingo Dombrowski, Robe’s Key Account Manager for Europe comments, “Peter Heilig clearly designed the absolute highlight for showcasing a new product at this year's Geneva Motor Show. There was no other presentation as impressive as this in the entire show! Respect!”