With the festival growing in popularity every year, Creamfields producer LarMac LIVE are working to create a bigger and better experience for the audience at each event.
Featuring two main stages - North and South - with identical screen set-ups, and a further seven tent arenas, PRG XL Video were brought in early in the design process to help deliver Creamfields' most ambitious production to date.
The recent combination of PRG and XL Video further streamlined the process this year, with video across all stages, and lighting and rigging on the two main stages all supplied by the new integrated team. Under the direction of Ian Greenway of LarMac LIVE, Paul 'Macca' McCauley oversaw the video elements which incorporated more than 2300 square metres of LED in total, with Q Willis managing the rigging, and Gordon Torrington taking care of lighting on the main North and South stages.
The video team also worked closely with a variety of other suppliers in the tent arenas who supplied lighting and audio, ensuring a quick and efficient set-up and de-rig.
On the two main stages, the video design used around 20% more LED screen than last year with LED onstage forming both the backdrop and header screens. On either side each wing measured over 20m wide and 12m high. The header screens were used for festival and artist logos and branding, and all the LED for the main stages came from PRG XL Video's extensive inventory of ROE Visual MC products.
On the lighting side, LarMac LIVE's brief was also one of scale. PRG XL Video music group director, Yvonne Donnelly-Smith, commented, "After discussions with Ian Greenway at last year's Festival Awards, we were delighted to be asked to supply the lighting for the two giant main stages at this year's Creamfields.
"With the festival growing not only in popularity, but also in size, PRG XL Video's extensive lighting inventory, and expertise in large-scale rigging projects made us a natural choice for the team when up-scaling this year's event."
As well as supplying lighting and rigging, PRG XL Video's Q Willis provided extensive support with the preparation and filing of the required CDM (construction, design and management) paperwork for the main stages.
In addition to the main stages, Creamfields has a number of smaller stages, hosted in tent arenas around the site. These featured a variety of different designs which called for creative use of video.
The largest of the tent arenas, at almost 115m long, featured a variety of LED surfaces both onstage and dressing the PA hangs and eight king tent poles, which created a really immersive space for the crowd.
Tent arena 4 included an upstage wall and riser formed from LED, and was reconfigured for Saturday night's show using PRG XL Video's MC 7mm modular screen in their custom touring frames built into rolling truss structures. This created a new look with two downstage screens flanking a riser screen.
For the curved arena the design called for more than 50 1.3m square LED screens rigged on to a Layher system which mimicked the curve of the tent. These were spaced evenly and uniformly either side of a central high resolution LED screen and riser.
In the Towers arena, PRG XL Video worked again with a Layher system with multiple towers arranged around a central screen. The company used a combination of semi-transparent 25mm LED and Versatubes to highlight the upright sections of the construction.
Across all of the stages, PRG XL Video supplied Resolume media servers for content playback. Resolume was selected due to its popularity with VJs, intuitive interface, and ease of use.
Summing up the production, Macca commented, "Each year, Creamfields aim to create a bigger and better eve
