It was the first year that Fineline has been involved as a technical supplier. Stu England designed the rigs for both areas, which were based on being flexible to give all the artists as many options as possible for their sets to look individual and interesting, delivering excellent 'bang-for-buck'.
The Main Stage was outdoors on the slopes and comprised a 12m roof system beneath which Stu and the Fineline crew sub-hung four finger trusses running upstage / downstage.
With limited space and weight loadings, when it came to the choice of moving lights, the smallest, lightest and brightest fixtures able to produce the maximum amount of looks were selected and rigged on the fingers.
This included 12 x Pointes, 12 x LEDWash 600s and 12 LEDBeam 100 moving lights - all Robe - plus six Martin Atomic strobes, 12 x 2-lite Moles and a string (of eight) ACLs in the air and another on the floor for a bit of retro beam technology. There were also four 4-way bars of PARs for general stage washes.
"I went for a mathematical formula - everything was divisible by four, apart from the Atomics, but it's always good to have a curved ball in the mix," explained Stu.
The two sets of ACLs were diligently focussed to replicate a light-beam version of the distinctive double-X Snowboxx branding, so this could be incorporated into the lighting.
Upstage was a truss on two motors that could be flown in and out to accommodate artist backdrops.
All lights were controlled via an Avolites Arena console, and only one band brought their own LD, so Fineline's Will Dale operated for most of the rest, assisted by James Harrington on dimmers / general technical.
The idea in Club XX was to freshen up the resort's own venue which had a basic house lighting rig, some of which was utilised.
Four of the five metres of stage width was usable, so they added six Chauvet Rogue R2 Beams, six R2 washes, 16 x Miltec LED battens, two Atomics and four 2-lite Moles, with an Avo Tiger Touch console for control.
Fineline used their extensive experience of scenic festival site illumination, lighting the slopes behind the main stage with more LED PARs shooting up the piste - a surface that takes light particularly well.
"It was the architectural elements that were the real challenge both in design terms and the practicality of powering, running data and rigging them," explained Stu. Carrying fixtures through serious snow is a lot harder work and more time-consuming than running around on a green-field site."
Stu concludes, "It's great to be involved with an up-and-coming event like this which is being organised by nice people with a genuine love of music and on a mission to deliver great production values to their fans."
(Jim Evans)
