Over 300 GLP fixtures light Summer Well
- Details
Promoted by SC Livada Advertising and held annually on a picturesque 24-hectare meadow and forest site outside Bucharest, Summer Well peaked last year when Arctic Monkeys were headlining. However, it emulated this success in 2023 when Florence and the Machine, Röyksopp and Yungblud headed a line-up of 30 artists, featuring both international bands and DJs.
Production manager since the first festival is a self-confessed fan of GLP lighting fixtures, Vlad Darie, who runs Film Location. So impressed was he when the JDC1 hybrid strobe first came out that he decided to invest personally for smaller shows he was producing, later adding Fusion Stick FS16 Z, followed by Fusion X-PAR 12Z and impression FR1. JDC1 in particular had caught his eye when he noticed a rider insisting that “no substitute product was permitted”. “The JDC1 is a benchmark, and I always expect to see this as mandatory fixture despite all the copies on the market,” he says.
However, for larger events such as Summer Well, which saw around 30,000 people per day descending on the site of the Știrbei Domain estate in Buftea, he turned to his regular dry hire supplier, Heli Heinrich at German-based Motion GmbH. This was because he needed more than 300 fixtures - mostly to decorate and power the main stage, but also for the three subsidiaries.
The principal stage saw the deployment of 48 JDC1 and a further 40 JDC Line 1000. The JDC1 was run in maximum SPix 68-channel mode while the JDC Line was programmed in DMX Mode 7 MultiPix Quadpix (76 DMX channels).
In addition, production deployed 52 of the large impression X4 L, 47 impression X4 Bar 20 battens, 34 impression FR10 Bar and six impression FR1.
Finally, installed at other locations around the site were 24 Fusion Stick FS16 Z linear battens and 32 IP65-rated Fusion X-PAR 12Z’s (affectionately known as the Oom-Pars).
When arranging main stage lighting design, Vlad Darie says production was fortunate in being sent the plot by Florence and the Machine’s LD, Sam O’Riordan, and then adapting it slightly for Yungblud LD Liam Griffiths - both seasoned users of GLP devices. It was the task of local lighting designer Gelu Popescu to turn O’Riordan’s plot into 3D reality.
Meanwhile, handling the lighting for Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp was their LD, Dave Ross. “They also wanted some small fixtures for around the DJ booth,” reveals Darie, “so I provided some impression FR1’s.” He said these and the Fusion Sticks - notably the FS16 Z - were perfect for illuminating the DJ booths.
Other key personnel who played a major role in the event’s success included stage manager Rik Benbow - a long-time friend of Vlad Darie, who took an unscheduled break from his stateside touring duties with 50 Cent.
The production manager stated that the stage itself had been enlarged this year to enable it to accommodate any size of show - making the task of lighting the stage dynamically all the more important. However, this was made easy by the fact that such a high percentage of the fixtures specified were from the GLP portfolio. “I was surprised, but in a very positive way,” he says.
