The lighting rig was designed by Keane's LD Rob Sinclair, with whom HSL have worked on many past projects, and the event was co-ordinated for HSL by Mike Oates.
Keane wanted a completely different looking lightshow from their touring one, and the rig had to be diverse enough to deal with a variety of artists including The Pet Shop Boys, Lily Allen, The Magic Numbers, The Guillemots and more. It also had to be expediently budgeted as the whole idea was to raise money and awareness for War Child - which is dedicated to helping children living in war torn countries.
This gig marked the launch of War Child's Iraq Appeal, a new initiative to raise £1.5 million to give immediate help to children and their families in Iraq.
In addition to all these criteria, Sinclair also had to light the Brixton show and venue for TV, as it was recorded and broadcast three days later on Channel Four, directed by Matthew Amos.
"Mike and Simon at HSL did us an amazing deal and gave us many, many more lights than our wallet should have allowed," says Sinclair, "I was even honoured to have Mike Oates come out of the office and crew chief the show. He and the rest of the team worked so hard over an extremely long day and met all of my many outlandish requests with a smile."
Mike Oates adds: "We are completely behind organisations like War Child, and were very happy to be involved in the event, and do all we could to ensure Keane, War Child, Rob and all the other artists had the best show possible."
HSL's crew for the event were Tim Oliver, Andy Hilton, Gabriel Crosse, Dan Tiley, Rupert Reynolds and Mike Oates. HSL also supplied three Robert Juliat Cyrano followspots.
Other companies contributing to make the shows happen included Lite Alternative who supplied a Jands Vista, XL Video, who supplied FOH projectors, Scenographic, who supplied the Catalyst digital media server storing and playing back all the video clips and inserts and Skan, who dealt with all things audio.
Hangman manufactured the War Child backdrop and custom flooring, co-ordinated by Sam Booker and Steve Connolly at Rosco created a set of War Child gobos which will also be used for future events.
(Jim Evans)
