HSL has been involved with Bestival since its inception in 2004. Once again its team, led on site by Rory MacKay and in the office by Mike Oates, worked closely with site and event production managers John Gray and Lee Charteris, and producer Loudsound Events' Jim King.
The main stage production lighting design was created by Steven Abbiss. He looked at the principal headlining band's spec' and created a "house" design that would work for them, along with their assorted specials packages, plus the raft of other performers taking to the stage over the weekend. As always with a festival situation, flexibility and adaptability was the key to the design, which involved some intense overnight re-rigs on Friday and Saturday.
The Main stage was a 20m Star Events orbit style roof, under which HSL sub-hung its own trusses, fitted to the shape of the ceiling and maximising the available space. In the centre they installed an 'H' shaped truss, flanked on both sides by upstage/downstage trusses providing side lighting positions. At the back were two additional cross stage trusses, one for visiting artists' screens and/or backcloths, and the other for lights.
The moving lights were all Robe. They used 12 Robe ColorSpot 2500E ATs and 12 ColorWash 2500E ATs. There were also 12 Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 700E ATs, 20 Martin Professional Atomic strobes, three strings of ACLs, 11 ETC Source Four profiles on the front truss for key lighting and a selection of 4-lite and 2-lite blinders.
For control, HSL supplied Avolites Diamond 4 and Hog 3 consoles. Some headline LDs brought in their own desks, including Mark Wynne Edwards, who LDs Grace Jones and also happened to be part of HSL's main stage Bestival crew.
(Jim Evans)
