Green Hippo

New Zealands Telecom Tree

New Zealands Telecom Tree

Lighting designer David Eversfield and his company optishock were approached by New Zealand Sponsoring Agency, to create a Christmas gift from New Zealand’s major telecommunications company, Telecom.

The Telecom Tree is a seven-storey high light structure made up of more than 37,000 magical lights. Children can ring the North Pole direct from dedicated ‘Santa Line’ phone boxes at the base of the tree. Once they’ve made their wish, their voices magically activate the lights running from their phone box to the star at the top of the tree.

As well as admiring the tree from the outside, visitors can also go inside the tree, a space that holds 200 people, and gaze up at the spectacular lights above – a first of its kind in the world.

The Telecom Tree, will shine in Auckland’s Western Park and due to its popularity, a second tree will also shine some 750km away in Wellington's Frank Kitts Park. It will be open to the public all day and night from 2nd to 26th December, with lightshows from dusk till dawn.

David said

“its amazing to see the Telecom Tree become an interactive, dynamic, light sculpture, where people hang out, lounge on the bean bags provided, talk and chat, while gazing up at the tree”

The 2 trees are networked together by fibre optic cable which has made the challenge of programming the lightshows much more achievable. Level 2 Systems, helped with the networking for the project which includes seven separate VLANs between the two cities. Instead of having to jump on a plane between Auckland and Wellington, David can just upload his media onto the Hippotizer unit in Auckland which is then synchronized to the Hippotizer in Wellington and the 2 trees will then display the same light show.

Apart from being a lightshow, people can also interact with the Telecom Tree.  ‘Design your own Tree’ was made possible with a little help from Light Factory – a lighting control software by Martin Searancke because it speaks the online mySQL website database and Grand MA.

“I asked Martin to ‘tweak’ the software for me so that people can log onto the website and design their lightshow via the Flash page and php. This is then interfaced with the mySQL database, into the GrandMA console, via Art-Net to Hippotizer, which then uses KiNET to display the design onto the Colour Kinetics LEDs”

The response has been amazing and people of all ages spend time enjoying the tree. To design your own tree, you need to log onto : www.telecomtree.co.nz. Once you’ve had some fun creating your own light show, you will be sent a ‘show time’ so that you can then go and view your lightshow on the actual telecom tree. You will also be sent a photo of the lightshow, once it has happened.

“People from all over the world have been designing light shows for their friends and family in Auckland and Wellington and telling them to go and view the display at the booked time.”

To create your own tree, visit www.telecomtree.co.nz  and to find out more go to: www.optishock.net.

The making of the Telecom Tree (Auckland) :

The set up of the tree in Wellington:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQw77orEYQU

 The view from underneath / inside the tree:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia3q3lofrII&feature=related

The Telecom Tree Lights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQz-kNGxh2E&feature=related

Further facts about the Telecom Tree:
• The Telecom Tree’s height is equivalent to a seven storey building.
• The lights have over 16 million colour combinations.
• The Telecom Tree lights are linked with 156 wires and 20,000 cable ties.
• The anchors at the base of the tree weigh two tonne each.
• The Telecom Tree took seven days to build and required two 80 metre cranes and a team of 15 people.
• The Telecom Tree was conceived by Joe Bleakley, an Art Director from King Kong and Lord of the Rings.