A site wide lighting design and spec for the nine main arenas was put together by the event's production manager Simon Barrington of Production Eye, who has long been an Avo user. Equipment was supplied by a variety of lighting rental companies including Leeds-based Zig Zag Lighting who supplied five arenas, Colour Sound Experiment who supplied the Beach Outdoor Stage and the Carl Cox/Silent disco tent, and Audile, who supplied the elegant multi-poled Essential/Bedrock tent.
The D4 was selected by Matt Holden-Jones, operator for Essential/Godskitchen, who had used a D4 Vision in the same arena last year. When he knew he'd be working the same arena again this year, he decided he wanted to try the Vision. It was controlling 32 Robe ColorWash 1200 T fixtures, eight Robe ColorSpot 1200 ATs, 47 Martin Pro Mac 2Ks, 20 Mac 600s, 24 Martin Atomic strobes and 20 JTE PixelLines. Blackburn-based HSL supplied all lighting for this arena as a complete dry hire package to Zig Zag. The Robes were all rigged in trussing slung between the tent king-poles, with the Martin fixtures rigged were over the stage.
Holden-Jones spent two days before the event pre-programming at Avo. This allowed him time to get familiar with the console. "Learning the Vision took no time at all," he says, "Everything is right there in front of you, exactly where you need it!" It also enabled him to do a fair amount of groundwork that saved time on site.
Once on site, facilities like Fixture Exchange came into their own - for example when some moving lights that had been patched in as Mode 3 arrived prepped in Mode 5, Holden-Jones says: "I simply Fixture Exchange them into the right mode and - bang - it was done! A very quick and elegant solution." He also made good use of the Move function to shift fixtures around the console. The whole rig was controlled via ArtNet protocol.
Around the rest of the site, on the Air stage, LD Dave Parry used a new Avo Pearl 2004 for Friday night headliners, Hybrid. For the rest of the event, this arena was run by Zig Zag's Jon Morris, and fixtures included 20 Showtec 250 moving lights, eight Clay Paky Golden Scan HPEs on the tent poles LED PARs and a curved trussing structure.
Over in the Polysexual/Global Gathering arena another Zig Zag Pearl was in action with operator Ian Andrew. The rig in here included 52 Chroma-Q ColorBlocks, eight Golden Scan HPEs and Tour Wash and Spot moving lights.
Another Pearl was in use on Essential/Bedrock, where Audile were supplying sound and lights, the latter comprising 50 Colorweb panels, six Clay Paky Stage Zooms, 10 High End PC Beams and 10 Mac 550s, most of them hung along trussing running along the tent spine of this stylish white, multi-poled arena.
Zig Zag supplied lighting for the Hed Kandi VIP Tent, where a Pearl was used to control Showtec Explorer 250 moving lights and 24 LED PAR lights. An Avolites Azure was used in the Laptastic/Comedy tent, featuring pole dancers, lit with eight Robe 160 XTs and 24 PARs.
Zig Zag's Neil Hunt says: "We continue to use Avo consoles for this type of work because they are the best hands-on, live operation consoles on the market. Apart from that, any visiting LDs are virtually guaranteed to be happy using them."
Zig Zag's crew of 14 included crew chief Haydn Thomas and another four Avo operators - Richard Sage, Richard George, Robin Taylor and Anthony Lukeman, allowing the operating schedules to be run in shifts.
(Chris Henry)
