And the winner is…

BANDIT

AKA Guy Thompson, 44 years old and from Brighton, Bandit claims the 2011 UK Air Guitar Champion title. With influences as wide-ranging as Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt, Jo Satriani and Jeff Beck he asserts his winning style is based on ‘making it look real’.

Awesome.

Drive produce UK Air Guitar Championships 2011

YES it’s that time of year again!

Here are some of our favourites from past championships. Can’t wait to see more this year. Tweet us @wedrive and let us know if you can make it this Saturday at The Garage in Islington London.

“Best alternative night out in London” – Time Out

Drive Presents Ralph Lauren 4D Show in KaDeWe, Berlin

Ralph Lauren 4D Projection Mapping Show, Berlin

We’ve had some fantastic European press coverage for our 4D installation for Polo Ralph Lauren. Here’s just some of the people who’ve been writing about the show >>>

Check out the new Drive 4D installation for Polo Ralph Lauren!

Launched today and running for the entire month of August in the KaDeWe in Berlin, we’ve created a digital arts installation that brings 4D architectural projection mapping into a fashion store for the very first time.

Polo Ralph Lauren commissioned the installation to launch their new ‘Design Your Own Polo Shirt’ Collection.

KaDeWe is Berlin’s most famous trademark department store – and with 60,000sqm of retail paradise welcoming 40,000 visitors a day it’s also the largest on the continent.

Every month KaDaWe offers the atrium space to high profile retailer to create an interior installation. It includes all window space too. The area is 22m x 22m and 8m high. We had to advise on this whole area being rebuilt and mapped.

The cathedral-style proportions of the Atrium space, now the backdrop to our gorgeous visuals, is equivalent in size to six double decker buses. The store itself is as big as 9 football fields.

The Drive motion graphics team is using ground-breaking architectural projection mapping technology to take the audience on a visual journey, creating the illusion that images of models, products and even polo ponies are literally appearing beyond the walls and floating out into space and towards the audience.

The atrium’s big, open, brightly lit space turns into a cinematic presentation area and back again in a matter of minutes, via the use of a combination of motorized blinds, projection screens and opulent velvet drapes. Barco FLM HD20 projectors have been employed to create a 22m x 7m projection covering an entire wall of the atrium – an area equivalent in size to six double decker buses. This is the largest roller blind blackout projection screen ever manufactured in Europe.

This latest activity for Polo Ralph Lauren follows the success of our recent 4D projection mapping events in New York and London for the brand in 2010. Taking place at Polo Ralph Lauren’s flagship stores on Madison Avenue and New Bond Street, the events, open to the public and attended by over 1,500 people, were held to mark the launch of the new PRL UK e-commerce website and ’10 Years of Digital Innovation’.

*All images courtesy of James Medcraft/Polo Ralph Lauren

Drive Productions in Berlin

If you have to stay city-side this summer, what better place to be than the capital of Europe, Berlin.

August has finally arrived and Drive’s European production team are busy preparing for the launch of our main event, showcased live Tuesday 2nd August to run daily for the whole of the month.

So if you’re interested in 4D projection-mapping and would like a behind-the-scenes tour tweet us @wedrive and we’ll let you know where we are.

More details of our latest show will be revealed shortly but until then we’ve picked out our Berlin Drive 5 so read on and find out what’s hot in Berlin this summer:

- Late Night at the Museums (Lange Nacht der Museen): late August, over 90 museums stay open until midnight (or later), with many concerts, lectures and parties.

- the ISTAF Track and Field Meet: from mid to late August this historic event attracts many top athletes and is held at the Friedrich-Jahn-Sportpark

- Tanz im August: from mid to late August, a provocative and tremendously successful international dance festival with various events taking place at the Hebbel Theater, Stresemannstrasse 29, Berlin-Kreuzberg and other venues in the city. More info here: http://www.tanzimaugust.de/index4.html

- Heimatklänge-Festival: throughout August, this world-music festival takes place at Tempodrom, Askanischer Platz 4, Kreuzberg

- The 15th International Berlin Beer Festival: from August, held at Strasberger Platz, with 200 different breweries representing over 75 countries and more than 1,500 different types of beer, this list wouldn’t be complete without a beer festival now would it?