Blenheim Palace Christmas Lights

Last year I built a lighting system for one of the exhibits for the Christmas at Kew Gardens event, this worked really well but it was also designed as a more generic controller for generating a lighting effect based on music.

That lighting control system was then used to great effect for the Christmas lighting at Blenheim Palace. Unlike the holly bushes where the lights were wrapped around the outside these lights were wrapped around the trunk of the tree, this produced an amazing effect as the trees seemed to glow and ripple from the inside.

Each controller has a specific colour and the incoming audio signal triggers a wave that ripples along the tree, the volume of the audio signal then controls the colour intensity of the ripple. This can be seen in the video where the coloured light pushes into white depending on the volume of the music.

The install which was setup by Ithaca consisted of two trees playing the same audio tracks as last year but remixed for two trees, the end result was a fantastic experience that greeted visitors as they walked up the hill.