Robe aids Fire Fight Australia concert
- Details
Throughout the day, the heroic efforts of people uniting and the dedicated commitment of the firefighting community were highlighted in the context of the massive fight to save lives, homes and land.
Dave Jackson, Jeff Pavey and a crew from Queensland and New South Wales-based rental specialists Creative Productions provided the lighting which included nearly 130 Robe moving lights including BMFL Spots, Blades and WashBeams and Spiider LED wash beams.
Their many challenges included an exceptionally short planning period and get in time on site.
Queen + Adam Lambert played the stadium the night before, utilising the same roof but with their own production lighting rig, so that was completely stripped out before Dave, Jeff and their crew of eight could start their build at 4am - to hand over for a show-start eight hours later.
Creative Productions donated the entire lighting rig plus all the preparation expenses and crew wages for this landmark occasion after they were contacted by Colin Skals of promoters Teg Dainty who organised the event for Fire Fight Australia.
It coincided with three major international tours that they already had in progress - Q+AL, Alice Cooper and Michael Bublé - of which the latter was performing in Melbourne that same night, so a portion of this show was beamed live on to screen at the ANZ Stadium.
Dave’s production design for the show had to provide great looking lighting for the 20 diverse artists on the bill - and the cameras once the decision was made with about 10 days to go that it would also be a live telecast beamed worldwide.
The 32 BMFL Blades were on the floor upstage, making a big, dramatic contrast to the overhead rig, with some on the four overhead trusses, The 36 BMFL Spots and 36 BMFL WashBeams were also rigged on the overhead trusses, making up the core of the stage and effects lighting.
The 30 Spiiders - 15 a side hung on three ladders stage left and right - were added once the telecast was confirmed - picked for their great range of colours and CT whites and also for excellent pixel and ring-control ‘back-of-camera’ effects for the side shots. “They worked brilliantly in these positions,” confirms Dave.
In addition to the Robes, Dave used an array of LED battens, strobes, and 4 and 8-lite blinders, together with some additional waterproof beam lights for Q+AL’s B-stage.
All of these were controlled from a grandMA3 full size which was the main event ‘house’ console, with a grandMA2 full size for backup. A Hog 4 was provided for LDs preferring to work from that and a greandMA3 lite was available for any LDs who wanted to take advantage of pre-vis time during the day.
Throughout the day there were around five guest LDs including Queen + Adam Lambert’s lighting director Graham Feast (the LD is Rob Sinclair) and Scott Warner who is touring with Alice Cooper. Australian LD Brad Alcock from Melbourne ran lights for four bands - Tina Arena, Ronan Keating, Guy Sebastian and Delta Goodrem.
It was the third bushfire fundraising event that Creative Productions has donated its kit to so far in 2020.
Creative Productions’ crew for Fire Fight Australia were: Scott Black, Jeremy Dehn, Daniel Callaghan, Tony Hall, Luke Hall, Dane Boulton, Matt Doherty, Dylan Hines, Nathan McLure and Maddy Murphy. Sound was provided by JPJ Audio and video by Big Picture Australia (NEP).
(Jim Evans)
