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Spinnaker Tower Lighting

Ever wondered why the Spinnaker Tower is illuminated in different colours or how we manage to do that? Then look no further!

The Spinnaker Tower has 3 types of lighting:

Obstruction (more commonly known as aircraft) warning lights
Feature lighting
Show lighting

Obstruction (aircraft) Warning Lights

There are 7 obstruction warning lights situated on the Tower, from 80m upwards, 1 at the top of the spire (170m), 1 on the northern side of the Tower at 117m, 2 at 115m on the eastern and western sides of the Tower and 3 at 80m on the eastern, western and northern sides of the Tower.

These are the red lights that can be seen from all around the area and above - these lights never change colour! The lights are LED's, last approximately 15 years and automatically turn on and off.

Feature Lighting

The feature lighting illuminates the base of the Tower, including the back, bottom of the bows and either side and bottom of the legs. These lights are white. This system is used alongside the show lighting system every day.

Show Lighting

The show lighting are the lights we can control to change the colour the Tower is illuminated. These are the lights we are referring to when we say 'illuminating the Tower'. They cannot be seen from as far away due to the nature of the lamps/light fittings used.

We have used this system since July 2005 (before the Tower opened to the public), where it played a part in the Trafalgar 200 celebrations.

We use this system every evening from 15 minutes before sunset to midnight (the lights located on the View Decks come on when we close) to illuminate the Tower. If we have no particular reason to light the Tower in a specific colour, it will usually be illuminated in blue.

The show lighting system is produced by a combination of 50 Martin 200 and 600 lights;

24 at the bottom of the Tower that illuminate the cruciform (the bit where the bows cross) and upwards
16 on the ribs (1 at each end of the 8 main ribs)
6 internal lights (2 on each of the View Decks)
4 above the Crow's Nest

The lamps inside the light fittings are metal halide, these are changed approximately every 18 months, and it takes roughly 2 - 4 weeks to change them all. The internal lights are easier to change than the external lights which involves abseilers and engineers raising and lowering lamps to/from our roof terrace.

The system we use to change the colour of the lights is called Expression 3. Using filters in the 3 primary colours, magenta, cyan and yellow, in front of the lamps we can programme the lights to create any colour possible. We tend not to programme dark colours as at night these cannot be seen.

The 50 lights can be programmed individually, grouped to top, middle and bottom or all programmed the same colour. We can also programme the lights to change alongside different factors such as tide, wind and time.

To see when the Tower will be illuminated and why, see our full lighting schedule