The very first South African based LD to use them was production designer Tim Dunn of Gearhouse South Africa (GHSA) on the Krone Music Festival at the Grand Arena, Grandwest Casino, Cape Town. The event is one of the most popular SA showcases for Afrikaans music, and this year Tim's in-the-round concept brought a new standard of presentation to the 5000 capacity venue.
Tim positioned the four BMFLs on trusses above the stage and used them throughout the show mainly for a variety of interesting gobo looks onto the white stage floor.
"It's an absolutely beautiful light," he declared. "I think Robe have listened to what was needed and produced a high powered signature fixture which is highly flexible and versatile and ideal for many applications."
These sentiments were also shared with lighting and visuals designer Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier who used BMFL Spots for the first time on the 2014 Final of Idols SA at the Carnival City Arena Big Top in Johannesburg.
Rigged on the front truss, they could both illuminate the audience and be used for specials onstage as well as key lighting the presenters when they were roaming around in the audience. The strings section of the band, positioned on a satellite stage in the audience, was also lit with the BMFLs.
"The colour correction for camera is phenomenal and the colours are awesome," enthuses Josh, "It's a great unit and it definitely fills a gap in the market for a bright multi-purpose luminaire". Lighting was supplied by Dream Sets and combined with Carnival City's in-house rig.
Robert Grobler, one of GHSA's lighting designers used them for the first time on the final of the first ever South African edition of the X-Factor singing talent show, which was staged at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban.
The latest SA shows by rock group Kings of Chaos played the Grand Arena, Grandwest Casino in Cape Town and the Sun City Superbowl with a lighting design by GHSA's Willie Bothma and equipment supplied by GHSA's Cape Town branch supported by the Grand Arena team.
(Jim Evans)
