London, UK rental company Colour Sound Experiment (CSE) supplied lighting, lasers and LED screens for the two day Bass Culture / Together Winter Music Festival at London’s Alexandra Palace venue, which culminated in an incendiary EPIC performance – Eric Prydz in Concert.
Also on the weekend bill were some of the best names in techno, trance, electro and drum ‘n’ bass including Pete Tong, John Digweed, Simian Mobile Disco, etc. while Friday night’s Bass Culture was equally as exciting, headlined by Chase & Status. Three other Halls at Ali Pali were in action for the two completely sold out all-nighters produced by the Lock ‘n Load Events team.
Colour Sound is a regular supplier to their events, and Haydn Cruickshank comments, “It was great to be involved in this fresh new event which united a lot of familiar faces on the production team. The main challenge was the complete turnaround in the Great Hall across the two days”, although with an intensive summer of festivals behind them, the Colour Sound crew took this completely in their stride.
The lighting rig for the Great Hall was specified and designed to accommodate the requirements of both headline acts. The very serious changeover started at 6 a.m. on the Saturday morning after the event closed, resulting in two very diverse productions facilitating the two nights of superlative dance music.
Colour Sound also supplied all the trussing, motors and rigging to fly the EPIC set, which amounted to 50 points.
A total of 130 moving lights were utilised, a mix of GLP Impressions, Martin Professional MAC 250 Beams and Clay Paky Stage Zoom 1200s, which were distributed around the trussing and band sets.
This was the third and final of three EPIC show performances this year with visuals created by Immersive’s Mark Calvert, the show’s creative director and production manager. The EPIC stage is defined by a series of wide scenic panels stretching out far beyond the stage, plus two vertical columns towards the centre with rotating and static sections.
These surfaces are all fed with images stored on an Addict media server, which are mapped beautifully to the shapes and contours of the set. The show also incorporates a large Musion holographic screen fitted into a 45 degree angled truss frame filling the downstage area in front of the DJ booth. Content is beamed onto this from LED panels laid flat on the floor – also supplied by Colour Sound and fed by content from the Addict server – producing really bright and effective floating 3D visuals that match and contrast with the main projections.
Colour Sound supplied the moving mechanism for the set columns, in the form of custom 100Kg editions of Robe’s Stage Banner rotating pole.
On the Friday night, the same 7 x 4 metres of LED panel laid on the floor for EPIC’s holograms was used to line 11 trusses in a thin strip effect.
The lighting for EPIC was run by Dave Parry using an Avolites Pearl, and the house lighting rig operated by Chris Steel using one of Colour Sound’s Chamsys MQ300s. Colour Sound also supplied a Pearl Expert with a Touch Wing for some of the other band’s LDs. Chase & Status’s LD Neil Carson brought in his own Chamsys desk
The lasers were four 6 Watt Vlitz Tippo greens, which were controlled by a Pangolin system.
In addition to these, there were a number of acts bringing in festival style ‘specials’ packages which also had to be integrated on both nights. This was again a seamless operation for Colour Sound’s 11 crew, chiefed by Andy Melleney, who applied their vast fund of green-field experience in this decidedly more urban environment – without having to worry about the weather!
In Room Two, the lighting rig included GLP Spot Ones and Robe ColorWash 700E AT moving lights, Sunstrips, Moles, PARs, ACLs and 8 x 4 metres of Colour Sound’s own BT37 LED screen with a Hippotizer media server, plus an Avo Pearl Expert console run by Dave Kyle.
The other two smaller rooms were provided with basic stage lighting rigs and LED uplighters around the walls to boost the atmosphere.
The event was a massive success, and looks sure to set a trend for ‘winter festivals’ to grow in popularity.
Ends.
Date of issue : 8th December 2011.
For more information on Colour Sound Experiment, please call Louise Stickland on +44 7831 329888/+44 1865 202679 or Email [email protected] To contact Colour Sound direct, please call +44 208 965 9119.
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