HIGH LIGHTS FESTIVAL

A BRAND NEW OPEN-AIR EXPERIENCE IN EAST LONDON
STAGE & SHOW DESIGN

HIGH LIGHTS

'INSTALLATION' - Main Stage - 60m x 18m x 8m

'MONUMENT' - Stage 2 - 18m x 3m

A small, brand new festival with huge production value, nestled within the trees of Barking Park, London.

Lucid Creates were enlisted by Hight Lights to work with them as creative partners in order to produce an architecturally informed stage design / installation. A 60m long overhead structure, coined the ‘Installation’ Stage acted as the main stage and arena for the first edition of the design conscious electronic music festival. This ambitious creative vision comes from London based promoters Percolate. High Lights saw music, design and architecture merge seamlessly in a truly impressive blend of artforms entranced party-goers across the 3 day event that took place in East London’s Barking Park.

The stage design was approached as an artistic intervention. Creating a large-scale art installation rather than a traditional, festival stage design, the key considerations were the overall form of the structure and it had to have an architectural narrative. Playing with the linearity of the structure, owing to the site and the treeline, as well as experimenting with the negative space, these elements come together to produce a graphic and unusual form, whilst ensuring visual continuity runs throughout the design and the dancefloor.

The ‘Installation’ Stage is a vast overhead installation with a brutalist, concrete facade. Distinctive, geometric shapes span into thoughtfully considered proportions, shapes and dimensions which provide a sense of weight, permanence and surrealism as the ‘concrete blocks’ float, weightlessly in mid-air above the audience. During the day, shafts of sunlight beam down through the overhead installation into the crowd, working their way through the canopy of trees above, adding a poetic gesture, almost cathedral-like, to the imposing, brutalist structure. At night, sunlight gave way for an arsenal of lighting, video and LED as darkness falls and a ground-breaking, 360 visual display comes into its own. Using light, depth, form and shadow to create a visual playground placed above the 7,000 revellers. Its scale and brutality in stark contrast to the low tree line it is tightly squeezed within, this 60m long floating concrete object defies spatial perception, manipulating scale which in turn emphasises its form and (omni)presence.

HighLights_InstallationStage_StageDesign_LucidCreates

Polished vertical lines intersect with horizontal cross-sections - overlapping yet positioned in a way that allows both light and darkness to bounce through the set within the space between them. The concrete effect panels act as a canvas for both light and shadow, dappled by the leaves casting shade from the trees in the day, in the evening the concrete is manipulated using LED lighting and video - creating endlessly shifting shapes and forms that stun the audience below. Lucid led on all things design and build, and were also responsible for the show design, visuals and lighting design.

High Lights is the culmination of almost 2 years of research and development in pursuit of a single minded vision; to marry London’s industrial, warehouse music culture with an open air, natural setting. Experimenting and collaborating with boundary pushing creatives in pursuit of an elevation of the dance floor experience in a way that has never been attempted before, presenting a truly unique space, married with cutting edge musical talent.

In addition to 'Installation' Lucid also designed stage 2, named ‘Monument’ - a minimal, pared-back, low profile stage with an 18m wing span, made up of individual jet-black panels interspersed with LED lighting and light from behind so that light travelled through the gaps in the panels out into the audience. Its formality and simplicity created a utilitarian, darker edge. ‘Monument’s darkness & minimalism contrasts with the brightness and complexity of the main stage - creating two very distinct identities, atmospheres and areas - yet still complimenting the overarching architectural storyline.

Friday saw heavy hitters such as Rival Consoles, Actress, Calibre, Logic1000, Ross From Friends take to the stage with Max Cooper closing the ‘Installation’ stage with an unforgettable set. Electronic music legend Carl Cox headlined on the Saturday and Enzo Siragusa's Fuse Open Air party took over the entire festival on the Sunday with high-energy sets from Chris Stussy, Dr Banana, Laidlaw and many many more.

‘Our vision to merge architecture with cutting edge audio visual design has been fully realised and we are overjoyed with the result.’ - Fred Letts, Percolate