HSL was working for Neil MacDonald's Clockwork Productions who were appointed by promoters Live Nation to co-ordinate all the Leeds site's technical production requirements. On site, HSL's crew of 11 was led by project manager Mike Oates assisted by Debbie Owens. They collaborated closely with main stage production manager Mick Brown.
Taking Saturday night main stage headliners' Kaiser Chiefs as the starting point in terms of building lighting rig, HSL brought in designer Andy Liddle to liaise with all the headliner LDs - Susan Sasic for the White Stripes (Friday), the Kaiser Chiefs' Richard Larkum (Saturday) and Sunday headliners Daft Punk's Martin Phillips - Three top bands with three dramatically different lighting designs.
This resulted in a slightly unusual approach in that HSL decided to realise - as far as possible - each band's complete lighting rig, rather than adapting one generic 'festival' system and expecting each artists to rely on their 'specials' for differentiation. Although specials remained very much on the agenda.
As with all the other departments on site - the HSL crew also had to deal with three days of torrential rain before the event opened, making working conditions extremely treacherous and unpleasant.
The White Stripes rig consisted of a front truss and four straight over-stage trusses, with 40 Robe ColorWash 1200E ATs and 24 Martin MAC 2K Profiles for the moving lights. Other lighting included 41 Atomic strobes with colour changers, 38 linear 4-lites plus substantial quantities of PARs and ACLs.
The standard generic front truss contained 36K of PAR washes, 12 Robe ColorWash 1200E AT moving lights and two follow spots. There were another 4 Robert Juliat Cyrano follow spots at FOH.
The White Stripes rig was also designed to be dropped in at the end of their set and have elements removed from their overhead trusses, allowing the HSO crew to start building the Kaiser's rig really quickly and efficiently.
They brought in a nine axes Kinesys automation system for the Kaisers's four upstage most trusses, which was rigged and operated by Danny Spratt and Peter Barber.
For FOH control, three WholeHog II consoles and two WholeHog wings were provided. Onstage, the dimming was all Avo ART 2000 - including some of the £80,000 worth of new Avolites dimmers that HSL has just purchased to help get them through this phenomenally busy summer season - plus HSL's own custom Soca and mains distro units.
HSL's crew chief was Jonny Harper. He was joined by John Gallagher, Rob Starksfield, Andy Illiffe and John Lahiffe, the two aforementioned riggers - Spratt and Barbour - plus Andy Liddle at FOH.
Over in the tented Stage 2 (which proved exceedingly popular with those desperate for a bit of dryness and warmth), HSL's Ryan Hopkins designed the rig and operated using an Avolites Diamond 4 console. This stage featured some serious names include Air, The Thrills, The Bees and many more.
Staging specialists Upstage supplied two two-legged mini-beam ground support goalposts to make the front and back trussing positions. The moving lights were 8 each of Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 700E ATs, joined by 28K of PARs on the front and 5 4-cell Moles.
(Jim Evans)
