Lighting director Bernie Davis comments: "The key thing is flexibility. All the programming is done over three days on site, and we have to be ready for any plans to change. The only way to achieve the range of looks is to use moving lights."
The decision on which lights to use was partly influenced by the venue. Bernie explained, "We took over the Palladium during the run of The Sound of Music, and inherited their lighting rig. Fortunately for us, Mark Henderson, the SOM lighting designer, had used a good healthy rig of moving lights. We then topped this up to suit our design and our event. Mark had used Martin TW1s, MAC 700s and MAC 700 washes - all very good choices - and to match in with the rig we used more of the same.
"I was able to try out the new MAC III Profiles - four of these were used as floor lights." "The beamwork on the new MAC III's is excellent, and they proved themselves during the show, especially for Take That's performance which needed good strong beams. The MAC III's were excellent: they are phenomenally bright, it looks like a 3Kw on the stage instead of 1500W."
(Jim Evans)
