Panasonic projectors illuminate the Island of Light art festival

Panasonic’s PT-RQ25 3-Chip DLP projectors provide stunning 4K visuals, immersing visitors in a perfect blend of art and nature.

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"The impressive light output, vivid colours and seamless edge blending capabilities afforded by Panasonic’s projectors exceeded our expectations as in many projects before. With crowds of people standing watching the projection, and the colours reflecting off the calm sea in complete darkness, Panasonic projectors delivered uniquely eerie and immersive experiences at the Island of Light festival."

Client: Island of Light Festival

Location: Smögen, Sweden

Product(s) supplied: PT-RQ25K PT-RQ22K

Challenge

To bring international artists’ work to life at the unique Island of Light Festival in Sweden, where cutting-edge projection technology meets the ice-age hardened granite rockfaces in an immersive and visually stunning environment.

Solution

The festival primarily utilised Panasonic’s PT-RQ25K Series of 3-Chip DLP™ 4K projectors for high-end projections – the world’s smallest and lightest projector, delivering 20,000lm of brightness. Its compact size and vivid, high-brightness 4K visuals enable high-quality and flexible projection at the Island of Light festival, delivering a breathtaking and memorable experience for visitors who have made the journey.

The Island of Light festival, located in Smögen on Sweden’s western coast, is one of the world's leading light art festivals. Running since 2018, it merges the natural environment with a wide variety of art exhibits from leading global light artists projected onto the pink-hued, jagged granite rockfaces as the canvas.

Held in the late summer evenings every year in September, the festival initially started as a small light festival project from a local technical college. The relationship between the performing arts school and the Island of Light festival is overseen by Dulce Ahlström, Art Curator, and Emma-Kara Nilsson, Technical Director, whose students conceptualized the project, allowing them to hone the audio-visual skills and techniques required for a career in event technology & light design.

The four-day festival has blossomed ever since, with global audio-visual specialists, Creative Technology, approached to provide the AV infrastructure at the event. Once on site, independent audio-visual expert, Misse Andersson, managed the entire project alongside Emma-Kara, from set-up to delivering all Panasonic-powered projections.

The Island of Light festival now attracts approximately 8,000 visitors every year to experience multiple installations spread across the island of Smögen – including 12 immersive experiences on the Night Light Walk. In 2024, Creative Technology solely provided Panasonic projector technology, with a wide variety of projectors used, as part of its 25-year relationship with Panasonic.

Brilliant brightness and 4K visuals across long distances

Nowhere is the class-leading brightness and vivid colours delivered by Panasonic’s RQ25 more evident than in the Animalia exhibition, as part of the festival’s Night Light Walk. Latin for Animal Kingdom and produced by a group of artists from Lviv, in Ukraine with the KurbasPro creative production studio, the Animalia installation sees artwork projected across the sea and onto a 750m²granite rockface – from a distance of 80 metres.

With three RQ25 projectors stacked next to each other to ensure an accurate projection throw, Panasonic’s groundbreaking Quad Pixel Drive 2-axis pixel-shifting technology has been used to seamlessly project stunning blended 4K images onto the façade of Smögen’s granite rocks – with the vivid colours from the RQ25 brilliantly illuminating the night sky.

This enables visitors standing directly underneath the projection, or on boats in the ocean, to view the artwork in incredible detail – even across such a large surface area. Notwithstanding the large projection distance, Creative Technology utilised Panasonic’s sophisticated edge-blending technology within the RQ25 to ensure the topography of the jagged cliffs wasn’t lost amidst one single image being projected from multiple projectors.

To ensure they were in the right position, Creative Technology used a barge to transport the RQ25 projectors to the rock faces, and then used an oversized crane to lower them into position on the rugged terrain. The projectors were housed within customised casing to ensure they were secure and protected from the elements.

Panasonic’s Dynamic Contrast technology enhances the RQ25’s visuals, delivering a high-quality contrast ratio, and expression. Regardless of the images projected onto the contours of the granite rockface, Dynamic Contrast digitally adjusts the projector’s light output, according to the contrast requirements of each projection – even when projecting in complete darkness.

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Ease-of-use in a challenging location

The relatively remote location of Smögen means that the ease – and cost – of transporting projectors to and around the island, has to be considered when choosing projection technology. The small form factor of Panasonic’s RQ25 4K projector – which is 40% smaller and 35% lighter than previous models – provides the desired manoeuvrability, without compromising image quality and brightness.

“Panasonic projectors are relatively light, and very easy to use for the entire Creative Technology team when on-site,” added Emma-Kara Nilsson. “For example, when using projectors from other manufacturers, it was previously difficult to navigate through menus and set them up– including correctly focusing the image across long distances. This is not an issue using Panasonic projectors.”

Sustainability and Maintenance

Many of the installations at the Island of Light festival actively explore the relationship between man and the natural world through immersive projection and light shows. Whether it’s highlighting ocean waste or re-using discarded fishing nets from the seabed, sustainability is a key thread running through every installation at the Island of Light.

As a result, this was at the forefront of Creative Technology’s decision-making process when deciding on projection technology. Throughout the festival, projectors are housed on remote rockfaces, where power is supplied via cable across very long distances.

“When looking at the specifications of the RQ25 projector, I was surprised to see just how little power it used when compared to other manufacturers. This is a real advantage for us given the distance from the power source to the point of projection; the RQ25’s Low Power Mode was absolutely essential in running the projectors for long periods every day, whilst delivering 4K visuals at high brightness,” added Misse Andersson.

Reliability is the RQ25’s forte. Delivering 20,000 hours of maintenance-free projection, it features unique Multi Laser Drive Engine failover circuitry. In the unlikely event that a single diode fails, power is still supplied to the functional diodes in the series. This minimises brightness loss and delivers a consistently vivid and crisp projection – even when operating for long hours outside.

Niclas Ljung, CTO of Creative Technology, summarised why Panasonic projectors provided the best all-round solution for the Island of Light festival: “This is a special, one-of-its-kind project for Creative Technology. As a result, we were looking for a high-brightness projector that was easy to use and cost-effective for our team – whilst meeting the school and artist requirements. The impressive light output, vivid colours and seamless edge blending capabilities afforded by Panasonic’s projectors exceeded our expectations as in many projects before. With crowds of people standing watching the projection, and the colours reflecting off the calm sea in complete darkness, Panasonic projectors delivered uniquely eerie and immersive experiences at the Island of Light festival.”