The 2000 capacity seating stand - supplied by Havaseat (a Gearhouse company) - was on dry land. The three weeks of the event spanned the peak festive holiday season, and included the resident AquaCircus, a special daily performance devised by Zip-Zap, a local circus school dedicated to developing the skills and potential of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Other highlights included the H2Opera, AquaJazz, AquaBallet and concerts by a wide range of artists from SA's favourite rockers, The Parlotones, to the popular Afro-fusion of Freshly Ground and SA's greatest music export, Johnny Clegg.
Gearhouse's Cape Town branch supplied staging and roofing, lighting, sound and rigging to the project which was managed by Richard Blamire. Gearhouse has worked with Hunta Live on many previous occasions, and they specifically wanted one company to provide all the production elements.
The stage - made from industrial plastic and consisting of 1200 interlocking cubes forming a flat surface - was supplied and installed by Cubi-System from France.
The audio system was designed by Gearhouse's Johan Griesel and consisted of 12 L-Acoustics dV-Dosc elements a side. There were 10 L-Acoustics HiQ115 wedges and both monitor and FOH consoles were Yamaha M7s, with monitors mixed by Bjorn Fielding. Mics and stands were also supplied as part of the generic audio package, with some artists bringing their own.
The house lighting rig was designed by Gearhouse's Philip Chames, and also had to be flexible enough to deal with the wide variety of performers.
The lighting fixtures were rigged onto the Dome roof, and included 12 Martin Professional MAC 2K Profiles for moving lights. Source Four profiles were used for key lighting, and also in the roof were eight 2K fresnels and bars of 6 PARs providing stage washes. Five 4-lite blinders along the crown of the stage were used for highly effective audience illumination, and there were additional 4-lites in the roof of the stage.
Front lighting was supplied by 500 Watt fresnels in the footlights position plus two Super Trouper follow spots on the FOH tower. Four Studio Due CityColor floods positioned behind the stage were focussed into the marina, highlighting all the yachts and enhancing this already highly atmospheric location at night. All lighting was controlled through a Hog iPC console.
"It's always good to work on a new event, especially one that is in such a special setting," says Richard Blamire, who reports that everything went extremely smoothly throughout.
(Jim Evans)
