SHENZHEN Light Show made its debut during the National Day holiday and attracted 1.12 million viewers in the nine days up to Oct. 6, sources from Shenzhen Urban Administration said.

Every night, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the Shenzhen Civic Square and atop Lianhua Hill to watch the show that illustrated Shenzhen’s development over the past decades with changing patterns made by 1.18 million sets of lights installed on 43 buildings in the Futian CBD.

On the night of Oct. 1, a record number of viewers were present to view the show with 218,000 in attendance.

To ensure safety and maintain order, Futian police mobilized more than 1,000 officers every night. To ensure the power supply, the urban administration dispatched 622 employees to inspect lighting facilities on 100 road sections.

The total cost for the light show and a related urban lighting landscape project in the CBD area was budgeted at 238 million yuan (US$34.49 million). The bidding price for the project was 189 million yuan. According to Chen Haiyan, the project manager, this investment is low compared to light-show projects in other cities in China. In terms of electricity use, the cost for each round of the show is 839 yuan.

Over 90 percent of the lights were provided by local enterprises. In particular, the Ping An International Financial Center is utilizing the most powerful laser for civilian use, which was independently developed by China. It is also the largest laser in the world.

“The contents of the light show were decided following a series of discussions over two months, during which designers brainstormed with government, and media and cultural figures,” said Chen.

Chen said each part of the show has a specific color scheme and the color saturation will be controlled to match, as close as possible, the color of a computer monitor.

Shenzhen Kaiming Lighting Co., which has installed lighting projects including the one at the Civic Center, is in charge of the show’s lighting installation.

Chen Zhiwen, chief engineer with the company, said the highlight of the show is when two kinds of light are combined to form a picture, marking the first time in the country that such a show has been presented.

Chen said the show’s technical innovation lies in the direction of the luminescence. The lights may seem bright from a distance, but they are not dazzling at close range due to a special light controlling technology.

The light shows are scheduled for every day until Dec. 31. There are three performances on Fridays, Saturdays and national holidays at 7:30 p.m., 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., and two performances each day at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. from Sunday to Thursday.

New schedules for next year will be released after soliciting public opinions.(Han Ximin, Zhang Yu)