EventPlus on song at Namibia Annual Music Awards
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Micky Lehr from EventPlus has headed the technical production for the NAMAs since 2015 and had a clear vision of what he wanted the show to look like in 2017. A substantial amount of Robe gear, with 12 Robe Squares being a predominant feature, ran off a grandMA2 control system.
With over 42 years’ experience, Micky Lehr is a leading technical producer, production manager and designer to the live event and entertainment industry. “This year’s production design relied heavily on lighting as the set mostly consisted of scaffold structures,” Micky explained.
“I believed that Joshua Cutts from Visual Frontier, who I hadn’t worked with before, would be the right man for the job. So, I approached him to see if he was keen on the project and he happily obliged. He did an amazing job by providing a wonderful palette for operator Andre Siebrits (also from Visual Frontier). We then had to scrape together every single light fixture that we could find in Namibia!” DB Audio, Windhoek supplied the bulk of the light fixtures, trussing and rigging.
Windhoek based rental company MikelJes were the main contractors, who supplied audio, AV, staging and most of the crew for the event. “It was the first time that I had worked on the awards,” said Michael Vermeulen, owner of MikelJes, who was the go-between man between Micky and the technical team. “I’ve always wanted to be involved. You can tell when a production is managed with passion and I wanted to be part of it.”
Lighting control consisted of two grandMA2 light consoles with two NPUs and a grandMA VPU for pixel mapping. “The grandMA2 was perfect,” said Andre. “I was once again impressed by its multi-user functionality and how seamless MA makes it happen. The VPU is amazing for pixel mapping because it integrates so easily into the MA system and creates nice eye candy effects! The set and lighting design found a middle space between symmetrical and asymmetrical ensuring that there was a formation to the rig, and having all the lights in the right places made my job very easy on site.”
The lighting rig included: 4x Robe BMFL Blades, 8x Robe BMFL Spots, 12x Robe Squares, 24x Robin Pointes, 16x Robin miniPointes, 16x Robe Robin Spikies, 12x Robe 600 LEDWash, 18x Robe 300LEDWash, 30x Robe Robin LEDBeam 100, 12x Robe Robin 1000, 12x Robe Spiiders, 8x Robin 600E Spot, 12x Philips Nitro 510C Strobe, 60x Longman Battens, 60x Led Parcans, 24x Single Cell Blinders, 8x Chauvet Core 3x3, 12x 2 KW Selecon Fresnel.
“I would like to thank EventPlus for the opportunity to work on the NAMAs,” said Andre. “They were great company to work with. Micky Lehr was always clear about his vision for the show and it was a pleasure implementing it. Max Lehr, the Production Manager and Jessica Lehr, the Technical Producer were always there for support and are a vital part to make this an exceptional show.”
(Jim Evans)
