The 14 November opening event for London & Continental Railways’ (LCR’s) new super-fast train High Speed 1 at London St Pancras International station was one of the UK’s biggest corporate events of the year, and saw a suppliers and organisers working seamlessly together to produce a stunning event.

The event was produced by Flux Events for LCR under the technical direction of John Farquhar-Smith, with lighting design by Durham Marenghi.

Durham initially began work in January, having been brought in by John Teeman, executive producer for LCR, who had been impressed with his work on The Queen's Golden Jubilee and the recent Winter Olympics in Turin.

“My brief,” said Durham, "was for a theatrical reveal of the station. The main challenge was that it's been beautifully restored and, architecturally, is already very well lit. Having decided that an orchestral and AV presentation would underscore the event, we were led to the need for a big infrastructure installation – that is, lots of trusses.

"Flux Events took care of all the logistical planning and PRG Europe and Unusual Rigging did a terrific job in what was a very difficult working environment. Because drivers were being trained and overhead power cables were live, no steps or ladders were allowed on site, ever."

An indication of the scale of the project can be seen by the fact that PRG Europe supplied seven 45ft truck-loads of lighting equipment, including searchlights, smoke machines and over 250 moving lights.

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