Colour Sound keeps the secret
- Details
West London based lighting and visual rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment has been involved with the event for the last decade and this year supplied stage lighting to six main live performance areas and video to one. Additionally, they delivered lighting and special effects to over 40 other venues, bars, lounges and clubs dotted around the beautiful site, all helping revellers enjoy their final chance to catch that special SGP ambience.
Colour Sound’s crew of 22, led by Alex McCoy, arrived on site on Monday morning and had to be ready for a Friday event kick-off.
The six live stages included the Dance Off stage, where Sam Akinwale created a bespoke ‘TLG’ lighting feature on a scaffolding structure above the FOH platform as a moving tribute to the late Toby Lovegrove.
A mirror ball was suspended at the top of a large TLG sign, decorated with festoon lights and rigged on a scaffolding arch above the FOH area.
It was a large open air stage with a striking set piece at one end complete with integrated DJ booth which was lit with assorted LEDs.
Around the arena they positioned scaffolding towers rigged with Colour Sound’s new LightSky AquaBeam waterproof moving lights. In the middle of the space the traditional dance-off boxing ring was constructed, complete with hay-bale seating,
Ten Chauvet Colorband PiX LED battens were used for dressing the stage and set with light, together with ProLights AIR6PIX moving LED battens and waterproof LED PARs, with 2-lite Moles scattered around to highlight the audience. Lighting was operated by Sam using an Avolites Arena console.
The Main Stage lighting was designed by Jon Rickets, another Colour Sound regular who has also worked directly with SGP for over 10 years. The moving lights here were all Robe – a mix of 12 x BMFL Spots, six MMX Spots and 12 x Pointes, joined by 12 x Martin Atomic strobes and some 4-lites.
One hundred and nine panels of Colour Sound’s proprietary BT-6 LED screen was supplied and rigged upstage and the three headlining artists - Crystal Fighters, Metronomy and Toots and the Maytals - all brought their own lighting designer / operators, who worked with the Colour Sound crew.
The Where the Wild Things Are stage is a semi-permanent structure with a tin roof decorated with bark, tree branches and other foliage, manipulated shrubbery and natural materials collected from the grounds and woodland of the Georgian farmland on which the site is located. It was a little bit like a tree house DJ booth which blended perfectly with the natural surroundings.
Lighting was organically operated by John Richardson and comprised Chauvet R2 Spots and Wash moving lights.
Tucked away on one of the woods was the Lost Rave, a favourite late-night party hot spot. Fixtures included 16 x IP rated Colorband PiX, six AquaBeams, UV canons and festoon, all run by Jenn Webber and Stu Barr from an Avolites Tiger Touch II console.
Kitch Inn lighting was operated by Nick Hamblyn using an Avolites Arena with six Chauvet Rogue R2 Spigots, six Claypaky a.leda K10s with B-Eye lenses for the washes and a selection of 2 light Moles and LED PARs.
(Jim Evans)
