More than 20,000 revellers travelled to Mill Hill Field in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire to experience the atmosphere and hear headliners including Public Service Broadcasting, Roots Manuva and Kate Tempest.
London-based Colour Sound Experiment supplied a 22-strong team of LDs and operators to man numerous Avolites Sapphire Touch, Quartz, Tiger Touch II with Wing and Expert Pro consoles. Jonathan Ricketts was head of lighting for the festival, working directly with festival producer, The Dark Horses.
On the Great Stage, Frankie McDade and Chris Brown manned an Avolites Sapphire Touch, with a Quartz running as backup. An ART2000 touring rack and Power Cube powered the rig, which included Robe MMX Spots and 600 LED Wash fixtures, Clay Paky Sharpys and Source Four Profiles, also supplied by CSE.
In addition, an Ai EX8 server drove an upstage LED video screen made up of three separate screens from 50sq.m of Colour Sound's BT-6 6 mm high definition product. The content and cameras were all supplied by Immersive, running through the Avolites Ai server and controlled by a Sapphire Media.
"Ai's new 'Prime Shot' feature enabled me to to cut between 8 live cameras via touch screen over the 3 separate LED screens using the Sapphire media," says Ralph Lambert, director of Immersive. "This touch and multi-screen operation feature within Ai's 'Prime Shot' enabled fast, easy, intuitive operation of what would otherwise have been a very complicated and confusing form of operation when only using faders and buttons."
Further Avolites consoles were found across the 220-acre festival site. On the Where the Wild Things Are stage, a Tiger Touch II with Play Back Wing and Power Cube was used by Haydn Williams and Sarah Payne, with a Quartz also being used by a visiting LD. The rig here included Robe Pointes, LEDWash 300s, SGM XC-5 LED strobes, a bunch of Moles and Chauvet COLORBand PiX LED battens.
The Lost Disco and The Rum Bar areas both featured a Tiger Touch II, operated by Jordan Talbot and John Richardson, respectively. Ed Blackwell and Ben Everett manned an Expert Pro over at the Little Horrors stage. Quartz consoles were operated by Jonathan Ricketts in the Spectacle and Stu Bar in the Collo-Silly-Um areas.
Andy Barak-Smith from It's All Done With Mirrors also used an Expert Pro on the Pagoda area at the festival. The rig on this DJ-based stage included 6x LEDJ 136 Tri IP LED PAR, 6x Showtec Suntrips, four Martin Wizards, two Fogets and to uplight the front of the Pagoda 8x LEDJ 24T3 IP Battens.
"I used my own Expert Pro - it's always my main show desk and is what I'm most comfortable with for a busking show," says Andy. "It's so easy to use and quick to program that I could enjoy the hardcore crowd turning up to dance in the rain!"
All of the consoles were running Titan V9.
"I've always loved Avolites and have worked with their consoles and dimmers for the last 15 years," says Jonathan Ricketts. "Whenever I'm writing the specs for a gig, Avo racks and control is my first choice."
(Jim Evans)
