Tower lights up to mark special anniversary

To mark the 60th anniversary of astronaut John Glenn naming Perth the ‘City of Light’, the iconic Control Tower at Perth Airport will become a giant movie screen on Saturday night, featuring a space-themed animation.

This will be the first time an Australian airport control tower has featured such a large projection.

Kevin Brown, Perth Airport’s CEO said that his Team had worked closely with Airservices Australia and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to ensure that there was no impact to airport operations and safety.

“It’s great to be involved in the 60th anniversary, and to mark the occasion by lighting up the control tower is something pretty unique.

“Of course, we’ve made sure that there is no impact to our air traffic controllers or to arriving or departing aircraft and we are really grateful to Airservices Australia to allow us to pull this all together” he continued.

Perth Airport has worked with local artists VJZoo to create the projection.

“We’ve used our creative license a little and the projection will feature a spacecraft blasting off into space and an astronaut ‘space walking’ up the Tower. We know that John Glenn didn’t get out of Friendship 7 or the Discovery spacecraft, but we thought it would add some fun into the display.”

The projection includes a two-minute animation on a continual loop. It starts at 8.00pm and will run until 11.30pm and covers almost 40 metres of the 80-metre Tower.

“We’re hopeful that this will be the start of some really creative projections on the Control Tower over time as it’s such a great blank canvas for us to use”, said Mr Brown.

For those wanting to view the Tower projection on Saturday night, Perth Airport will be providing 30 minutes’ free parking in the T1 International Short Term car park for cars entering between 7.30pm and 11.00pm.

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