Kave supplied a comprehensive package to multiple stages of both generic and moving lights, scalable sound systems, all necessary rigging and staging and a quantity of the site power infrastructure.
SPLAT Fest, celebrating Student Performance Literature Art & Theatre at the University of Warwick, is dedicated to creating opportunities for all students to pursue their creative talents. The Festival is now in its sixth year and proved to be the most successful to date.
For the first time, this year the event moved into an A&J Bigtop dubbed "The BigSPLAT". This provided the organisers some much needed space to expand the festival, allowing two stages to work back to back in the same venue. With a packed schedule this was essential to ensuring change over times were kept to a minimum.
For the main stage Kave supplied a 13.5m x 8.5m stage from their stock of Alistage products. Due to the tight get in time and available space behind the stage they built a freestanding truss structure, and flew only one FOH truss.
On the back truss were 9 Martin Mac 500s, 4 Martin Mac 600s, 4 Martin Atomic Strobes, 4 Studio Due CS4s, 12 Pulsar Chroma Pars, 8 Thomas Pixelline 1044 Battens, 4 4-lite Blinders and 3 6way Par Bars. On the FOH truss they simply rigged 4 Par Bars, 2 8-Lite Blinders and 4 Source 4 Profiles.
They then placed a further 6 Mac 500s and 12 Pulsar Chroma PARs on the stage floor. The whole rig was operated on an Avolites Pearl Expert by Student LD Elliot Griggs (winner of the 2009 Showlight Award for Lighting Design).
For sound Kave deployed their Litec QD Fly towers to hang 6 Boxes of d&b Q1 per side, supplemented with 4 Q-subs per side with Q7's acting as infill and a mono block of B2 subs under the stage all driven by D12 amplifiers. FOH was a Midas Heritage 1000 48ch console with racks of outboard, under the hands of Student sound tech Paul Crooks & Ant Lynch.
For monitors Kave supplied a 12way d&b Max system driven by P1200 amplifiers and side fill comprising of an E9 and a Q-sub cabinet per side. This was driven from a Yamaha PM5D console by Student tech's James Toyer & Hannah Schmitz. Kave also supplied a vast mic stock for everything up to 60 piece symphony orchestras along with a Trantec S6000 radio mic system for use on the theatrical and musical events. Towards the end of the week the system design had to change to accommodate the closing concert event.
The other stage in the Bigtop (dubbed "The BabySPLAT") was a much smaller 7.3m x 4.9m concept used primarily for small bands, cabarets and dance groups. Kave supplied a Martin Moving light rig of Mac 250 Entours and Mac 250 washes as well as a pair of 6way PAR bars and some Source 4 profiles for key light. The rig was also run from the Expert console situated at FOH via wireless DMX. Sound for this area was simply a stack of d&b C7 per side (1 top, 2 subs) driven from P1200 amplifiers and some d&b max monitors for the acts requiring them. A Yamaha LS9 16ch took care of the FOH and monitor requirements.
The whole event was co-ordinated by Lettie Graham and Rowan Rutter and technically managed by Rhys Thomas.
Kave supplied project manager Dave Singleton to assist the students with the week's festival. Dave commented: "SPLAT is a fantastic festival, showcasing the many diverse talents that can be found on a University Campus. From our point of view it lets us train the technical students in all aspects of technical production for such large scale events. The whole student technical team worked incredibly hard with the common goal of making this year the most successful yet, and it certainly paid off." He goes on to say: "Well done Guys, I'm already looking forward to working with you next year".
(Claire Beeson)
