The recently renamed Tipstar Dome Chiba, formerly Chiba JPF Dome, hosted Japan’s first track cycling tournament in October where an array of Claypaky lighting fixtures played key roles.
The PIST6 Championship was the first cycling competition in Japan to pursue both speed and entertainment in cycling. The new type of sporting event combined art, food and fashion while pitting top athletes from Japan and abroad against each other in a high-level competition to determine the world’s fastest cyclists.
Tipstar Dome Chiba is an indoor velodrome located in Chiba City, Japan. It boasts a total area of more than 14,000 square meters, an international-standard 250-metre wooden racetrack and seating for about 2,000 spectators. The venue hosts not only cycling competitions but also e-Sports, drone events and live music shows.
Lighting Designer Yuji Yokoi deployed 30 Claypaky Xtylos, 26 Midi-B and 12 Shar-Bar fixtures, provided by Claypaky distributor Technical Supply Japan, as the main lighting fixtures for PIST6.
“For this project, the production team at JET tasked us with utilising front-line products and technology we had never seen before,” he noted. “When I suggested Xtylos, which I had seen at exhibitions, the director liked its leading-edge features, and we started planning the rig around Claypaky products.”
Yokoi explains that Xtylos, the first beam effect moving head with a laser light source, “satisfied everything that we were looking for in this project – especially Xtylos’s red beam, which was the image colour in our design. The red beam was bright and solid, unmatched by any other product.”
At the project director’s request, Yokoi used custom-made mirrors, and the project director was pleased to see that the reflected beams did not lose output. Additionally, since PIST6 was a bicycle race, speed was an important element, and Xtylos “provided the speed we were looking for,” he reported
Claypaky’s Midi-B LED-based moving head also suited Yokoi’s design very well. “It was incredibly bright despite its small size and had outstanding projection uniformity,” he says. “Midi-B exceeded our expectations. It can also produce a very tight beam which broadened the scope of our design.”
The lighting designer also used Claypaky Shar-Bars, advanced moving LED bars with features that transform them into multi-beam effects lights, at the director’s request. The flexible Shar-Bar is “the only bar on the market that has individual pan capabilities on each LED module,” Yokoi explained.
Yokoi was very pleased with the performance of the Xtylos, Midi-B and Shar-Bar fixtures during the unique cycling competition and entertainment event. “In the future, we would like to discuss with the project director how to make good use of the advanced features Claypaky products provide in order to create enjoyable spaces for customers and performers,” he said. “I look forward to seeing what’s new next time!”
The Project Director was Junichiro Takanashi and the Lighting Designer was Yuji Yokoi. Lighting Programming was by Katsutoshi Yokota and System Design by Rena Nishikawara.
Alfonso Zarate Takano is Claypaky’s Regional Sales Manager, APAC.
