That weekend and the preceding week were exceptionally hectic for the company, which also - unexpectedly and at very short notice - was asked to provide and install rigging and trussing to facilitate lighting of the church for Irish politician Garret Fitzgerald's state funeral.
The same weekend as the Jenkins shows, PSI supplied lighting design and equipment for the first Clan Wars cage fight to be staged in Belfast's Ulster Hall, and a few days before that, lit the Northern Ireland Tourism Awards event.
PSI was asked to supply the Katherine Jenkins shows by Neil MacDonald of UK based production company, Clockwork Productions. With MCD being the promoter, PSI also supplied all the necessary rigging services at the Odyssey Arena, for which they are MCD's preferred rigging contractor.
For the lighting supply, they worked to the specification of Jenkins' regular LD Tim Routledge, which was designed to illuminate a full orchestra onstage, complete with a selection of dynamic specials and individual looks for Jenkins to reinforce the power and drama of her performance.
In Dublin, she was backed by the RTE Concert Orchestra and in Belfast by The Ulster Orchestra.
The lighting rig comprised of three straight trusses - a 60ft wide one at the back which accommodated Jenkins' touring Austrian drape backdrop, and 2 x 40ft spans for the front and mid trusses.
On the front were eight Robe ColorWash 700E AT moving lights. On the mid truss were another 12 Robe ColorWash 700E ATs and eight Vari*Lite VL 3000 Spots. The back truss featured 18 GLP Impression 120 RZ zooms, together with eight VL 3000 Spots, with four of each mounted on two drop bars either end of the truss.
On the floor upstage, skimming up the drape were another 12 GLPs, and downstage, in a V-shaped configuration were six more GLPs, concentrated around the centre vocal area. Behind Jenkins on the floor was a Space Flower, used for strategic moody moments.
Routledge and the touring production brought their own grandMA console, so all the lights were hooked in to that, and PSI supplied three crew to ensure everything ran smoothly - Joe Byrne, Brian Crowe and Davy McCready.
Says PSI's Sean Pagel. "We were all very pleased to be involved in these shows which were very high profile and needed a lot of detail even though they were relatively straightforward to rig. It was good to put a face to the name with Neil MacDonald and his team a few years after the last time we worked together."
(Jim Evans)
