Nemesis takes control of Farmaggedon
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For the past 17 years, the tranquil rural corner of Downholland near Ormskirk in Lancashire has awoken to a frightful force, as Farmaggedon opens its doors for another season. For 2023, this ghoulish entertainment is being triggered by a new power - Nemesis Research’s OSCA Range.
Combining an immersive experience with sound, lighting, lasers and flame effects, creating the total experience for the Zombie War Zone relies on perfect and tight control. For the technical team involved once again in helping to create Farmaggedon 2023, Infinity Technical & Production Services, a core element of this year's brief was to find a new way to deliver complete control via a simple system, with the daily programme involving performances every 20 minutes.
Farmaggedon Scare is the brainchild of farmer and expert scare attraction designer Mark Edwards, who opens his fiery gates each year to a new set of ever more horrible experiences, designed to terrify and tantalise visitors with a combination of scare attractions. For 2023, part of the new line-up includes the Zombie War Zone, hosting 60 visitors at a time to an action packed 12-minute arena horror experience.
Mark explains: “Having discussed the new theatrical paintball concept with Infinity Technical & Production Services’ Sam Robinson-Davies, it became apparent that having the correct show controls in place to enable reliable continuity for every show was first and foremost.
“Sam went to market and came across Nemesis OSCA. Through research and discussion with them the decision was made to install Nemesis OSCA GPO Relay Boxes, and OSCA R5 button boxes for simple show control. Once installed the triggering systems have been flawless and I would happily recommend Nemesis OSCA.”
The Infinity Technical & Production Services team has been involved in the annual horror-ganza for the last three years, as the sole provider of technical kit and product management for the event. Project manager and engineer Sam Robinson-Davies, together with Dave Murray worked closely on this year's project and decided very early on to utilise Figure 53's QLab as the core system, providing the level of control needed for this complex immersive show.
Sam elaborates: "The ability to use OSC to provide all the control around the arena was a major attraction, coupled with OSCA, which is a very carefully thought-out and packaged product. With OSCA-R5 5-way OSC programmable button boxes in the control room, and seven OSCA-O4 4-channel OSC GPO outputs boxes located around the arena, the show technician can run the entire production single-handed, including operating all the contact closures required to operate the pyro elements that are a key feature of the attraction. We were really impressed with everything, and importantly the OSCA units worked first time out of the box.”
The Zombie War Zone attraction formally opened on 30 September, alongside eight other new shows arranged in four ‘scare houses’ at the location.
