NEWS
BIGGER PICTURE
What : Mayor of London ’ s New Year ’ s Eve Celebrations Where : River Thames When : 31 December Image : Ben Broomfield
In its third year as the creative agency behind the Mayor of London ’ s New Year ’ s Eve Celebrations , Identity delivered a hugely ambitious show involving a world-first with the use of Hologauze animations .
Taking place in front of 100,000 tickets holders , with millions more watching the broadcast , the display included more than 12,000 fireworks , 420 choreographed lights , and holographic illusions projected onto Hologauze that brough iconic British moments and symbols to life . The animations celebrated significant events from 2024 , including the success of Team GB at the Paris Olympics and the 80th anniversary of D-Day .
The work of Identity , in close collaboration with its client the GLA , the 12-minute New Year ’ s Eve show was the largest annual firework display in Europe , and involved a crew of 32 firework , sound , and lighting specialists . The fireworks were delivered by Titanium to Identity ’ s creative brief , with the agency working with Pixel Solutions and Holotronica to deliver the Hologauze technology . Responsible for lighting direction and design was Tim Routledge , and among the nearly 50 live event suppliers involved were Entertee , Sunbelt , Qdos , Power Logistics and PRG , with Showsec one of seven security providers .
Identity project director Hannah Clark was among a team that started operations and production planning back in May , followed by soundtrack curation and pyrotechnic design and lighting programming . The event build commenced 10 days before Christmas , and after a short festive break Identity ’ s team was back working on it 24 / 7 from the 27 December with 3,500 people on the ground .
Among the key challenges the team faced was working within the limited space available , building in weather resilience , and facilitating complex security requirements .
Previously overseen by Jack Morton , Identity won the account in 2022 and has since worked to elevate the event beyond being a huge firework extravaganza .
“ A key objective for the Mayor of London and the GLA is to showcase London as a really diverse global city , so it has been a matter of evolving the event while making sure it is really exciting for a broadcast audience , the online audience via YouTube and socials , while also delivering a really amazing human experience on the ground for ticket holders ,” says Clark .
“ We looked at lots of different creative solutions to elevate the experience by showing poignant moments from across the year ,” she says . “ We had used drones for the last couple of years , they are an amazing solution , but we have such a tiny footprint to work within , and we ' ve got the complexities of the landscape , with sensitive buildings and a crowd right on the river . Our playground for the show is the river and there ' s only so much you can do within that space . Using Hologauze to create holographic illusions , with live digital projections onto the London Eye , alongside all the pyro , was a fantastic and playful way to tell stories , and it meant we had much more control in terms of what we were able to do within timeframes and the setting up of the event . It also made it easier to meet the challenges around weather resilience , with it being winter and stormy .”
Unpredictable crowd behaviour post-Covid has been a huge issue across the industry , and Clark says that there have been many learnings over the past two years staging the Mayor of London ’ s New Year ’ s Eve Celebrations : “ Actioning them this year successfully was a big win for the event . We spent a huge amount of time in the early planning phase looking at different strategies to create a safe footprint while ensuring we still provided a great experience for ticket holders . A key aspect was deterring people who didn ’ t have tickets from coming . That was really successful , partly through new infrastructure and new ways of ticketing , but also pre-show public comms – working really closely with stakeholders to ensure that we had a joined-up plan with consistent and unified messaging . That was a massive step forward for the event , and we ' re just really delighted with how it all went .”
06 accessaa . co . uk