Photo gallery
Columns, balcony, programmable colour.
De Montfort Hall — MaxiPUNCH 102 DMX RGBW highlighting the grand stone columns of a 1913 Edwardian venue. Two-core MaxiLINK, zero new fixing points on the heritage facade.
Since its construction in 1913, De Montfort Hall has acted as the cultural hub of Leicester for over 100 years. The 2,000-capacity auditorium has hosted The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Chuck Berry, Amy Winehouse, Adele and many others. Leicester City Council owns and operates the venue, and the brief was to upgrade the exterior lighting to a modern, flexible scheme befitting the importance of the building.
MaxiPUNCH 102 DMX RGBW was specified by MaxiLED Lighting to meet the design brief — the fixtures aimed at the exterior pillars to wash the grand stone columns and the balcony in a stunning, accentuating glow. One of the key benefits of MaxiPUNCH is the simplicity of the install: fixtures are surface-mounted to existing housing, which means zero new fixing points on a Grade II listed building — a non-negotiable for heritage architectural lighting.
The system runs over MaxiLINK two-core cable carrying both 48 V power and DMX512 data on a single conductor — a clean single-cable install with no separate data harness. The luminaires are controlled remotely via a Pharos LPC1 with a Philips iPlayer 3, allowing the council to program dynamic light shows and colour-changing displays for awareness days, civic events and annual celebrations.
The MaxiPUNCH 102 fixtures are surface-mounted to the existing housing of the De Montfort Hall facade — wide-beam DMX RGBW projectors washing the grand stone columns and the balcony in a continuous gradient of programmable colour. Each fixture is individually addressable over DMX512, so the lighting designer can run the whole facade as one register or drive each column independently for chase effects, breathing programmes and event-driven colour changes.
The MaxiLINK protocol is the technical key on a heritage site: power and DMX data share the same two-core conductor running between fixtures. No separate signal harness, no additional terminations on listed masonry, no extra cabling visible against a Grade II façade. The Pharos LPC1 controller in the equipment room drives the full chromatic programme — calibrated warm tones for ordinary evenings, full DMX RGBW for civic events, awareness days and seasonal celebrations.
By day, the building reads as it always has — an Edwardian concert hall with grand stone columns and balcony in classic English heritage stonework. The MaxiPUNCH 102 fixtures are surface-mounted discreetly to the existing housings, with no visible cabling on the façade and no additional fixing scars on a Grade II listed structure.
By night, the columns become a luminous instrument. The wash accentuates the impressive architecture and acts as a welcoming point of illumination for the 2,000 guests arriving for each event — creating an awe-inspiring atmosphere ahead of the show. Programmable chase, breathing and saturated colour states handle awareness days, civic celebrations and the venue's own seasonal calendar.
"The challenge with a Grade II listed venue is that nothing new can be drilled into the façade. MaxiPUNCH 102 mounted to the existing housings without adding a single fixing point, and the two-core MaxiLINK architecture removed the need for separate DMX cabling. The architecture stayed intact. The light became programmable."
De Montfort Hall is a turnkey reference for heritage architectural integration: MaxiPUNCH 102 on the lighting side, Pharos LPC1 on the programming side, MaxiLINK on the conductor side. The same approach scales from a single Grade II facade to multi-fixture civic landmarks. Talk to a specialist about photometric data and project-specific pricing.