Robe illuminates Ghent Jazz Festival
- Details
The event was located in the attractive surroundings of De Bijloke, a charismatic historic site formally a hospital that now houses the Ghent Music Centre in the Belgian city. L&L has been involved in the main stage technical production for the last few years, working directly for the organisers.
This year, L&L purchased T1s with this and other projects in mind from Robe’s Benelux distributor Controllux, adding to their ever-growing rental inventory of Robe moving lights which is now around the 650 mark. He wanted to use them on the Jazz festival because they are silent.
Jazz performance often features some very intense ‘pin drop’ moments - where the ambience can potentially be ruined by the clunking and whirring of a moving light!
In addition to these, 29 Spiiders and 22 LEDWash 600s graced the rig which was based on Danny Nolan’s design for Sting. Other high-profile stars included Jamie Cullum, Rymden, Diana Krall, Joan Baez, Gregory Porter, Mulatu Astatke, Melissa Aldana, Big Whoop and many others all reflecting superlative jazz from around the globe.
The lights were positioned on three overhead trusses slightly racked (lowest at the back) above the stage and on a front (advance) truss, with the LEDWash 600s on two 90-degree trusses running out above the audience. This year the main stage was beneath a new semi-open tented roof structure.
In addition to meeting all of Sting’s requirements, the lighting scheme was designed to give a good general coverage for the great diversity of artists.
The main stage hosted around four or five artists per day over the 10-day festival, so the rig had to work well for all and cover multiple bases.
The primary lighting director / operator for the main stage was Kristof van Mensel of TCF who used a ChamSys MQ500, and L&L deployed a crew of six for the show days.
(Jim Evans)
