The annual three day event, which is organised by vzw Beachvolley Deluxe and a dedicated team of volunteers headed by Stijn Saliem, celebrated its 14th glorious year, welcoming over 200 teams and up to 1000 spectators a day ... to enjoy some superlative beach volleyball action. It sold out in 15 minutes.
Baal might be decidedly landlocked, but the spirit of the beach lived on ... complete with a fully sanded venue, volleyball courts and two large beach parties staged on the Friday and Saturday nights, complete with an all-action DJ line up.
Production values are high on the agenda at this event which features a StageCo stage, a specially designed roof from WiCreations covering the venue together with sound, lighting and video equipment supplied by locally based NSL.
Its proximity to the famous Werchter live music and festival site also means that many of the regular tech crew from there get involved in Beachvolley Deluxe.
Frederik's design was based around a Robe moving light rig. Lighting is crucial to highlighting the volleyball players naturalistically during the daytime matches and also for creating a cool and cosy ambience for the parties - the largest of which is attended by 6,000 revellers.
The elegant tensile roof structure lends itself to being coloured and textured with lighting and effects.
The 12 Robe Pointes were rigged on a series of drop bars coming off the roof and over-stage trusses, together with the other Robe fixtures, which included 16 x ROBIN Spot 600Es and 18 x LEDWash 600s.
These and a selection of other lights were all run by Frederik from a grandMA2 lighting console, which also triggered an ArKaos media server running all the playback video content (and also captured live video.)
Adding to the visual equation in some considerable style for this year's Beachvolley parties were pyrotechnics, designed and supplied by AVM Belgium.
(Jim Evans)
