The hugely popular 'boutique' style music festival produced by Loudsound Events is now in its fourth year on the Isle of Wight and has expanded to a capacity of 30,000. The site surface area at its Robin Hill Country Park location has also increased. Main stage headline acts for 2007 were the Chemical Brothers (Friday), The Beastie Boys (Saturday) and Primal Scream (Sunday).
HSL has been involved with Bestival since its inception in 2004, and once again worked closely with event production manager Lee Charteris and Loudsound's Jim King and Jo MacKay in co-ordinating all the site's technical production and infrastructure.
This year, HSL hired its own site vehicle fleet consisting of two Landrover Defenders, a 4-wheel drive MPV and a Toyota HiLux pick up. They also supplied their own 18-way radio system. Both these elements made all the difference to the site distribution logistics and in getting equipment to the correct locations, which included over 14 satellite venues around the rambling site.
"We had an absolutely top crew onboard which really shows when you're working in such a tough environment," says Ian Stevens, adding that it was as much an exercise in personnel management as technical production. "We experienced some fantastic teamwork and it to was down to this and everyone's total dedication to the job that made it happen."
The main stage this year increased in size to a 3-bay 20m Star Events orbit structure with 8.6m of headroom. HSL brought Steven Abbis onboard to design a rig incorporating all the elements required by the headliners that also dealt with the many other performers appearing. He came up with a design based on four trusses plus a drapes truss at the back.
Rigged on 26 points (by HSL's Rory MacKay) the trusses - hinged to maximise the roof space - were easily moved into a series of angled asymmetric cross stage positions for the Chemical Brothers - and then back out to their straight positions for the Beasties and Primal Scream.
The main stage moving lights were 24 Robe ColorWash 1200E ATs and 24 Robe ColorSpot 1200E ATs. Other fixtures included 12 PixelLine LED battens, 4-lite and 8-lite Moles, PixelPARs, Source Four Zoom profiles, a selection of PARs plus three Robert Juliat Cyrano 2500 HMI follow spots for the Beastie Boys.
Control was via a WholeHog Ii console and a Wing, and Chemical Brother's visual director Ricardo Lorenzini brought in his own GrandMA console.
Bestival 2007 was co-ordinated in the HSL office by Mike Oates. He comments: "Once again it was great to be working with Jim, Lee and the Loudsound Events team. Our crew really did us proud again - their passion and dedication to the job shining through along with the sun - a great way to conclude our summer 2007 festival season."
(Jim Evans)
