NeonBlack provides the magic for Wales Investment Summit
Award-winning live design and creative production studio, NeonBlack, chose a rig of Ayrton Rivale Profiles as the workhorse lighting fixtures to light the recent Wales Investment Summit 2025 which, presided over by First Minister for Wales, Eluned Morgan MS, took place on 30 November at the International Conference Centre of Wales in Newport (ICCW).
Nearly 350 delegates from 29 countries attended this key event, hosted by the Welsh government with the express aim of encouraging high-value international investment into Wales.
Looking to create a different, more exciting experience from the traditional conference dinner, the Welsh Government approached NeonBlack directly, requesting them to conjure up a little magic that would make the evening truly memorable. NeonBlack’s answer was to create an immersive experience for the dinner with a significant wow factor that combined creative video work and lighting.
“The ICCW is a giant of a conference room which essentially gave us a huge blank canvas to work with,” says Dom Smith, founder and creative director at NeonBlack. “To do something truly immersive you need to surround people with an environment, so we designed and put together a 360° immersive dining space with projection on all four sides of the room.”
NeonBlack was commissioned to make a 7-minute video promoting Wales as an investment opportunity for these projection surfaces, which Paul Johnson (PJ), NeonBlack’s Design Director, story-boarded and worked on with Cardiff-based videographer Paul Nicholls of Bait Studio using a variety of software including Unreal and After Effects. “My idea was to take people on a visual tour of every corner of Wales and give them a taste of the potential that exists in this wonderful country,” says PJ.
NeonBlack’s remit also included giving each section of the dinner a different, dynamic location: “When the delegates entered the room, they essentially felt like they were on the top of Mount Snowdon,” says PJ. “We built this environment by mapping 3D photography onto the video projection. To the rear of the mountain we layered in the sky, added shooting stars, introduced the aurora borealis etc, so the whole room was slowly drifting and changing around the gathered delegates. This backdrop then gave way to the 7-minute video, introduced by the event’s compere, Alex Jones, after which Eluned Morgan made her entrance through a projected image of the Tardis (this is Wales after all!) which had been circling the room!
“After Eluned’s presentation, the evening moved on to the dinner, at which point we used images of the newly refurbished dining hall at Caerphilly Castle as the basis for a new environment: the whole room transformed into this backdrop, which was illuminated by wall sconces ‘lit’ by animated characters. ‘Dai the Dragon’ then flew past the ‘windows’ of the room before entering and igniting the fire in the fireplace. He continued to make appearances as part of the room environment throughout the dinner. He was very popular! After dinner, the room setting returned to the aurora borealis on top of the mountain as cabaret singers, Welsh in the West End, entertained the audience.”
NeonBlack’s rich lighting design sat over the top of the projected environment, illuminating the dinner and adding the immersive element to the video.
“It’s not enough to simply have video projection, you need to go a lot deeper to make something truly immersive,” says Smith. “Layering lighting cues over the top of the video adds a sense of drama as well as creating an ambience for the dinner. We were looking for lighting products to help us do that and the natural choice was Ayrton’s Rivale Profile. We used 64 in the rig for the main event, plus another 16 in the themed foyer and dining room approach, and also for aerial beamwork outside the front entrance to set the mood as delegates entered the building. The IP65 rating was essential for these fixtures to withstand the typical Welsh weather!
“Rivale was the only choice for a production of this nature as it is such a multi-functional fixture and so easy to use. It transitions seamlessly between key and effects lighting, has a great output and flat field, lovely colours and is great on skin tones. It’s also nice and compact which is a great advantage in that environment. It was a total no-brainer!”
NeonBlack has enjoyed a good working relationship with the Welsh Government for some time. “We’ve had the honour of working with the Welsh Government before and they brought us on board for the Summit because they were looking for something a little out of the ordinary, which I think we have delivered,” says Smith.
According to the Welsh Government website, “In the twelve months prior to the Summit, Wales attracted a staggering £4.6bn in inward investment…This was surpassed by announcements on the day which promised a total of £16bn towards job creation and capital investment projects in coming years.”
“Privately, they’ve commented to us that part of the success of the investment was because the dinner was so unusual that it is still being talked about,” concludes Smith. “So, I guess we did our job!”
Read the full story in the March 2026 issue of LSi here
Credits:
Event Producer: Welsh Government
Creative Direction: NeonBlack – Dom Smith & Paul Johnson
Production & Lighting Design: NeonBlack – Dom Smith & Paul Johnson
Associate Lighting Designer: Elanor Higgins
Project Co-ordination: The Allotment – Gavin Johnson
Video Content: Bait Studio – Paul Nicholls
Lighting Programmers: Ben Butler & David Wolstenholme
Video Programmers: Iain Harvey & Dan Beaton-Hawryluk
Lighting Vendor: SR Productions
Video & Audio Vendor: Stage Sound Services
Drapes & Projection Surfaces: Alligator Dynamic Drapes
Production Support: ICCW
Credits:
Text: Julie Harper
Photos: © Craig Goodwin
