LD Nick Jevons of production company Electric Fly Productions provided the set lighting design and visuals, with all fixtures supplied by Bandit Lites UK. To reflect the pace of the music event, Nick wanted his lighting design to have the sensory experience of a Waltzer fairground ride. To achieve this visual effect as a lighting rig, Nick used five upright truss pieces to support eight 20ft scaffold tubes hung off the in-house stage box truss and fanning out at an angle towards the audience. 10 Chroma-Q Color Block DB4 colour-mixing LED fixtures were configured from the bottom of each upright truss to the top of each scaffold tube, with a further five units used as truss toners at the bases.
Nick chose the Color Block LED fixture for the rig as their short batten length provided a high degree of flexibility in achieving his design. He commented: "I chose them because I wanted to configure the LEDs in short, evenly spaced positions rather than having a continuous run of them on each scaffold tube. The Color Blocks were ideal for the job as they're a nice short length, so I was able to fit them around my design, rather than the other way round. They're also very bright."
The fixtures were patched together in 60-channel mode to get the most out of the design and programmed using a Martin Maxedia digital media server with the latest pixel mapping software, to display a series of low resolution moving images.
Nick used the sound-check to tailor the images to songs and give each artist's visuals an individual look and feel. Slow songs were accompanied by slow, twinkling images and fast songs were accompanied by fast, strobing images. Jevons also used plenty of colour sweeps from left to right, up and down, and disorientating swirls to draw the audience in.
In addition to the effects lighting, the rig also included 10 Martin Mac 500 profile spots, 10 Martin Mac 600 washlights and seven Atomic strobes mounted at various points on three overhead trusses. Control was provided by a Martin Maxxyz console.
(Lee Baldock)
