Uplighting a room for a wedding or special event is one thing. Uplighting an 85 foot high, multistage Delta Space Rocket is another!

That’s exactly what The Alzheimer’s Association Of Orange County had in mind for Alzheimer’s Week. To increase awareness, they contracted me to light the rocket at The Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, CA. Since their logo is purple, they wanted the color of this landmark to match.

Purple is one of the most difficult colors because it is not very vivid- it’s next to BLACK on the color scale. I was concerned about the lights having long enough “throw” and being bright enough to light the entire rocket. The other challenge was that there was NO power available at the location. A power generator was out of the question as there was no way to secure it for the week. It would have been exposed to the elements and a target for potential vandalism and theft.

Thinking outside the box, I came up with a solution that just might work. I decided to run the lights off car batteries. After some experimentation, I used two batteries and two power inverters to light four powerful LED uplights. These batteries had enough juice to last through the night but needed to be replaced or recharged each day. This meant logging a few miles on the freeway every day to retrieve and recharge my power sources but in the end, it worked!

The rocket glowed with a cool purple hue that couldn’t be missed and thousands of commuters that passed by each night took notice.

Now when people ask me if I think I can handle uplighting for their party, I just kind of smile.