Colour Sound's team led by crew chief Jon Rickets worked closely with creative and technical production specialists LarMac LIVE on the event, the UK's highest profile EDM festival. This year's line-up included open air stage headliners Avicii and The Prodigy (Saturday) plus David Guetta and Tiesto on the Sunday.
The North and South Stages were similar in size, supplied by Star Events, with the South stage PA / video wings being slightly wider. Colour Sound's production lighting design for both areas was created with reference to all the requirements of the headliners and their LDs - Andy Hurst (Prodigy), Simon Barrington (Avicii), Leggy and lighting director Alex 'Junior' Cerio (David Guetta) and Koen De Puysseleir for Tiësto. This required major overnight changeovers on both stages.
Foe the South Stage Jon Rickets oversaw all the lighting elements and action which, for Avicii, included nine flown trusses and six onstage trussing towers for lighting positions.
Fixtures were 48 MAC 101 LED washes, 72 Clay Paky Sharpys, 20 Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1500s, 28 Martin Pro Atomic strobes with colour changers, 58 Chauvet COLORband Pix LED battens, 32 SGM XL5 LED strobes, 20 Showtec Active Sunstrips and four 8-lite Moles. The control console was a Chamsys MQ300.
For the Saturday/Sunday changeover, five trusses were stripped out and one was re-hung with different fixtures, most of the other lights were repositioned around the rig and five Kinesys trusses were installed.
The Alpha Spot 1500 count was boosted to 40, and 20 2-lites and 14 Robe Robin 1200 LEDWashes were also added. The COLORband Pix count was increased to 92, and these were used to make up the DJ booth surround. They were run in full 36-channel mode and pixel mapped to great effect.
The North Stage was co-ordinated for Colour Sound by Chris Steel and Dave Kyle.
The Prodigy's rig was based around three flown circular trusses for which CSE supplied 24 CP Alpha Spot 1500s, six CP Sharpies, nine Atomic Colors, 48 x Robe LEDBeam 100s, six 4-lite Moles and 20 x punchy 8 Watt LED PARs for the stage, together with 72 x Robe LEDWash 300s placed on the floor and at the base of the stage wings.
The Prodigy - making their only UK appearance of the summer - also brought in their own substantial 'specials' package, supplied by HSL. For David Guetta on the Sunday, the circular trusses were removed and straight trusses installed, including six flown on Kinesys motors.
Added to the Colour Sound 'house' rig were six 8-lite Moles, 23 Atomic Colours, 26 Sharpies, another 30 Robe LEDWash 600s, 12 4-lites and 12 high-powered 8W LED PARs. The console here was grandMA2.
Colour Sound supplied all the necessary rigging kit to hang their lighting for both stages, a task carried out by the event's rigging contractors, UK Rigging. In both arenas, Colour Sound supplied four custom built Litec QX30S trussing towers - a new investment. The towers sit on special bases, can be extended to up to 7.5m high using a manual winch / steel system and are quick and easy to erect.
(Jim Evans)
