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Star Trek the Tour

Queen Mary Dome, Long Beach, California, USA

In January 2008, Star Trek the Tour hit the Queen Mary Dome in Long Beach, California on its first stop on a multiple-city tour across the United States. The 50,000-square-foot (15.24 km) exhibit features the world’s largest collection of authentic Star Trek memorabilia and also captivates visitors with an out of this world lighting design, enabled by Philips intelligent LED lighting.

Lighting designer Kim Killingsworth of Design Partners, Inc, worked closely with production designer, Herman Zimmerman to create a lighting scheme that would generate excitement as well as travel easily from venue to venue. “The set lighting is intended to be plug-and-play once the set is assembled,” says Killingsworth. “Everything is big on this tour, but lit very practically.”

Kim used hundreds of Philips iColor Cove® MX Powercore fixtures to illuminate areas called the Rotunda and Grand Archway with subtle color changing effects. The Grand Arch is 180 feet (55 m) long and uses two rows of iColor Cove MX Powercore to illuminate the edge of the fascia, which spills over its sides to illuminate the bottom, covering the archway with rich saturated colors. The fixtures housed within the two arches receive data via Philips Data Enabler, in a DMX configuration, and are controlled by a third-party DMX controller and console.

The Grand Archway winds throughout the exhibit and ties all the scenes together. From the entrance it leads to the main walkway areas, where single domed hexagon cases display various Star Trek memorabilia. To properly light the display cases, Killingsworth chose Philips iW™ Profile g2, a low-profile linear fixture that provides variable color temperature (from 3000 – 6500 Kelvin) and brightness control. Six fixtures are mounted underneath the edge of each case, one on each of the six sides. Each case is controlled individually via Philips iW Scene Controller, allowing for each display to be programmed separately for color rendition of its contents.

The tour also features a simulator experience where computer-generated sequences take riders on a thrilling flight through the solar system. Each 15 passenger Doron simulator uses 12 Philips ColorCast® 14 fixtures to provide light shows that work in conjunction with the ride. In addition, 10 ColorCast 14 fixtures are lined on the floor of the two passenger MaxFlight simulator. These LED fixtures are permanently installed within the trailer simulators. Chosen because of their long source life, the LED-based systems can withstand the rigors of touring due to their inherent durability and rugged physical nature.