lighting

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SCB – Gala “Anniversary” 2009

14.12.2009 in Touring! | No comments

Sporting Club Belvaux is a local artistic gymnastics club and these guys organize a large show on a regular basis. Stage design has been provided for the 6th or 7th time by myself and 2 colleges. Due to time restrictions and several budget cuts, we had to come up with a design that could be setup in less than 5 hours by 4 technicians (and local helpers). The scale of the scene is always about 30 *20 meters and to spice things up, there is no way to fly anything in the venue. Lucky me. :-)

The final setup consisted of:

  • 15 Martin Mac 250 Wash
  • 8 Martin Mac 250 Entour
  • 2 Martin Atomic 3000

on the 30m backtruss and 2 8m sidetrusses

Front lights were:

  • 15 ABD F201
  • 10 Martin Mac 700

and about 10 ADB C103 as houselights.

All of this controlled by a Flying Pig Wholehog iPC Console. The Video World consisted of 2 Barco R12+ Beamers projecting on a slate grey backdrop. This mean a loss in brightness, but gave us the opportunity to change between gobo patterns from the Mac 700, video animation or laser effects (oh yeah we had lasers to) without having a this “blank screen frame – look”. Video was controlled by 3 Dataton Watchout Servers (1 Production / 2 Presentation). To feed the servers with live footage in several images the Servers were equipped with grabber cards that got their sigal from a JVC GY-DV5000E Camera (oldschool, I know). Most content was pre-produced and preprogrammed in out labs and copied to the rental servers on site.

To make the beams visible, 5 Martin (or Jem?) Magnum 1800 ere on site as well as a Roadie Extreme. Unfortunately the Roadie caused severe problems on the second show day so we had to switch it off. :-( Sad but true.

And as usual I have no idea what was going on in the sound department. :-)

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10 Years – Cheers!

26.10.2009 in Touring! | No comments

Stage design for a local band celebrating their 10th anniversary. For this occasion the 10 musicians (11 during that time) invited all former members of the band to join them for one very special evening. An because that still wasn’t enough pain for the sound guys, several brass musicians and a percussionist were invited to participate. In the end we had 2 Keyboarders, a brass section of 7 people, 1 drummer, 2 guitarists, 1 percussionist 1 or 2 bass players (can’t even remember) an not less than 6 Singers on stage. (I was ill and could not participate, I got sick in the evening so the remaining guys had a few cm to move ;-) )

As you can see the stage had to accommodate many musicians and instruments and this would be the reason why the first idea was rejected. The idea of a large X-shaped (X being a roman 10) came up, open to the audience on 3 sides, giving a feeling of having a party in the crowd. Unfortunately the musicians were afraid that not everybody would fit onto the stage, and communication with the audience would become to difficult. After knowing the figures of people onstage, I guess they were right.

The bad came up with the idea to use the venues (weird) shape and build a large L shaped stage, which would give a large opening towards the audience, without losing to much space. This made it rather complicated to find a way to light the show without burning most of the budget. (As the budget was needed for the Sound department and their awful expensive desks :-) )

The final design consisted of a 6 x 13m rig, as support for about 10 ADB F201 Fresnels, 4 Martin Mac 250 Wash and 1 Aircraft Set. Furthermore it was the mother grid for 4 trusses, each 7 meters long with 2 Martin Mac 250 Entour, 2 Molefay Blinders and 4 Eurolite Led Par36. 2 Mac 250 Wash were positioned on each side of the stage go lighten the singers. Moreover 2 Martin Atomic 3000 were installed on the sides for special effects. 2 more aircraft Sets were mounted on the floor, and a 9m x 9m L-shaped truss, mostly used to hang the backdrop; 4 more Molefay blinders were installed on the front truss.

PS: I’m really sorry for the crappy pictures but I didn’t have the time to take good ones. And iPhone3G users should know how bad smartphone pictures can be ;-)

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AC/DC Black Ice Tour – Cologne, Germany 19/05/2009

20.05.2009 in Listen!, Touring! | No comments

I had the great luck to get tickets for this AC/DC Tour (german stadium concerts were sold out in 77 minutes). They are one of the few bands that one has absolutely to see in your life (or theirs) comparable to the Rolling Stones or for british heavy metal fans maybe Iron Maiden, too.

As a stage design adept, I was amazed by their setup. Even with exclusivly up to date gear being used, the influence of  a classic rock’n'roll stage with it’s tons of par cans was clearly visible as intended by the designers. Centerpiece of the stage was an impressive train influenced by a famous train accident in 1895 at the “Gare de Montparnasse”, Paris. In a animated video intro, the Rock’n'Roll train, was heading towards a city, when Angus was seduced by 2 girls who made the train derail. After several Pyro effects the LED Wall spitt and revealed the Stage and the train replica.

The lightning grid was inspired by the architecture of several train stations, with it’s large roof arcs. The many washes and Studio Beam fixtures gave the stage a neat rock’n'roll look.

The setlist had a reasonable lengt and all the most wanted songs could be found in the set. Angus’ solo in the center of the stadium was a real highlight and this not only because of the 6 follofspots used. The crowd was fantastic, all in all a great night and superb show.

Thanks to AC/DC and their road crew.
For those about to rock, I salute you.

Cologne - People waiting for AC/DC AC/DC Black Ice Tour - Stagedesign

AC/DC Solo AC/DC Stage - Hells Bells

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Mac III

4.05.2009 in Buy!, Touring! | No comments

A few weeks ago I had the chance to lay my hands on a brandnew Martin Mac III for an hour. Here my first impressions.

This fixture is big, and by big I mean enormous. The 2k was not a small fixture but this is definitly no kids playground anymore. The design is well done and everything looks nice which means it’s a fixture that you don’t have to hide because of its uglyness. :)

One thing I didn’t like was the new display. Even if the kryptographic 4 char messages were often not understandable and the navigation drove most people crazy, the shortcuts on the old Martin Menus were a great feature. Turn the display by 180deg and go to address 1 were usefull time savers. The known shortcuts seem to be missing (untill now) so that it took me 3 steps to turn the display around. That’s OK when you are standing with you two feet on the ground, but is annoying when your hanging somewhere on a truss.

After switching it on I was surprised by the brightness of the new Mac III. In a good way! The lamp is powerfull, the colors are, spoken in martin terms, astonishing even on the boundaries. Unfortunatly Martin kept the habit of putting unusable gobos into their fixtures. Third party suppliers will be happy, I am not.

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Bieles am Jumm 2009

28.02.2009 in Click!, Touring! | No comments

Bieles am Jumm is a local carnival event, visited by several thousand people year by year. It takes place in 3 different venues, all with different kings of music and a different style of customers. The guys who organize this event really take care and even not being professional event managers, they set up a pretty neat feast for everyone to enjoy.

We lived now for a few days on the site and I’m proud to present some making of pictures, as well as some snapshots form a night to remember: Read the rest of this entry »

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