Building on the original visitor experience created 15 years ago, Alien Wars returns to its original home at The Arches in Glasgow with the help of Zero 88 and Scottish distributor blacklight.
Gary Gillies and John Gorman created Alien War in 1992, after watching a double-bill of “Alien” and “Aliens” at a local cinema, and wanting to experience the movie rather than just watch it. At Alien wars visitors get to experience 15 minutes of sheer terror as you are taken in a group, on foot, by a Marine. He is armed and will open fire and try to protect you and the other members of your group as you travel through a maze of smoke filled corridors, intermittent lighting, research facilities and lift systems trying to avoid the indescribable.
Creating the right ambiance and effects for the Alien Wars experience has been key to its success. Having been asked to supply and install the lighting Phil Haldane of blacklight needed equipment that could stand the rigours of daily use and handle the variety of lighting fixtures and effects used throughout the experience. He chose Zero 88.
The whole experience is run on Betapack dimmers and a Leap Frog 48 lighting control console. The show is controlled from 10 Cues Stacks. Effects are programmed onto the Leap Frog’s Submasters, which are all independently fired throughout the experience by Push Switches. The Leap Frog 48 controls everything from fuzz lights, 120 metres of festoon, Atomic Strobes, SGM Flasher Strobes, birdies, SL3 LED moving lights, and some fans for added chill factor.
Phil explains “Due to multiple number of rooms within the experience, programming was quite a challenge. We had to ensure that one section didn’t interrupt another as different groups travel through the set in up to 100 shows per day! And all the bespoke push-switch mechanisms had to fire off both lighting cues and audio samples at the same time. The Leap Frog 48 gave us a stable quick programming surface that allowed us to keep every area independent. All intelligent lighting was easily programmed utilising the Leap Frog’s powerful effects engine giving us the exact results we wanted.
“The desk also allows us to update cues quickly with ease. So far the Leap Frog 48 has been running all day, every day for 129 days without any failures and continually delivering. The off-line editor has also come in extremely handy when small cue updates are required to match small changes in the show. Because the shows run back to back throughout the day there is not much time to make changes. We utilise the off-line editor to make the changes and quickly update the desk in seconds with minimal fuss.”
Between 1992 and 1995 ‘Alien War’ became one of the highest-grossing success stories in the history of public-led live events. The original show was licensed through 20th Century Fox, which allowed the use of characters, costumes and story-lines from the Alien movies. ‘Alien War’ opened at The Arches, Glasgow in 1992, and after a successful 6 month run, moved to AECC Aberdeen and then Bournemouth International Centre. The show finally settled at The Trocadero Centre in London and was opened by Sigourney Weaver and Lance Hendrickson.
In 2007 Gary & John re-visited their original creation and set up Alien Wars Ltd (AWL). With the addition of Kenny Caldwell (video director and multimedia producer) and John Turner (composer, sound designer and events director), the new live reality experience ‘Alien Wars’ opened on 6th December 2008, with The Arches as co-promoter.
Alien Wars has received exceptional reviews since its opening last December and continues to draw over 8000 “victims” every month. By popular demand, the show run has been extended through to the end of August 2009.
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