Staged in the historic Mayfield Depot, a charismatic 'found space' and site of the former Manchester Mayfield railway station, active as a passenger terminal from 1910 to the 1960s after which it became a warehouse and parcels depot. Since the 1980s it's been completely closed and derelict - until resurrection as an entertainment venue for the 2013 MIF.
WHP - whose regular venue is just the other side of the railway tracks in a car park beneath Piccadilly Station - took over the whole ground floor of the Mayfield Depot and asked dbn - their regular lighting providers - to create a production lighting design for two rooms.
dbn's Pete Robinson project managed and commented, "We were really excited to be working in the venue and for the landmark occasion. There were plenty of challenges associated with working in a disused building and turning it into the must-go destination of the weekend - but we set out to compliment the unique location with plenty of visual magic."
A big part of that 'visual magic' was the chance to show off the new i-Pix db1 fixtures, used for the first time in this context as a high-impact special effect".
A stage was set up at one end of the cavernous main space with a four-legged ground support above, cantilevered at the front to provide PA wings - as there was no flying. A number of vertical truss sections were strapped to the pillars down the room and smaller ground supports were erected over the bar areas. The void above a row of old offices and the ceiling was utilized for additional lighting positions.
Five short truss sections were sub-hung from the back of the ground support forming a cross shape, and between these and the front truss, the dbn team deployed 24 of their new Clay Paky Mythos moving lights and 24 x CP a.leda K10s fitted with B-EYE lenses, 20 x active Showtec Sunstrips, 18 x Atomic strobes, 12 x CP Alpha Wash 700 and 24 x 2-lite Moles. These made a highly effective upstage wall of light effect.
The first night was headlined by Four Tet, who brought in his own innovative visual element in the form of a grid of golf-ball LED pixels on strings, suspended over the stage on 24 catenaries - giving 4192 DMX controlled pixels run from a laptop.
dbn supplied the scaff towers and catenaries so digital art specialists Squidsoup could install this immersive environment.
The second night was headlined by Carl Craig and Mike Banks, and for this dbn added the 24 x i-Pix db1s as the wow factor, which were arranged in four pyramid shaped stacks of six units.
These were fed video content from an Avolites AI Infinity server controlled via an Avo Tiger Touch, run by Chris Ewington - the fixtures' inventor. The LED light cells in the db1's were mapped and activated by dbn's Edwin Croft's Avo Pearl expert, with which he was also controlling all the other fixtures in the room. Working closely together the two of them created some truly awesome visual moments which really put the units through their paces.
The entire dbn crew took their spirited 'can-do' attitude to the event and relished the challenges presented by the building, all helping the organisers achieve their end goal of presenting two great evenings of a distinctive, memorable and inclusive dance experience.
(Jim Evans)
