Krezip played three nights at Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome (photo: The Art of Light)
The Netherlands - When Dutch rock band Krezip reunited after a 10-year hiatus they wanted to make a big impact, so their management Friendly Fire asked Andre Beekmans of The Art of Light to create a signature lighting and video production design for three epic shows at Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome.
Assisting him in the task were over 150 Robe moving lights - a mix of Spiiders, BMFL Spots and BMFL Blades.
The stage design, including a thrust connecting main and B stages, was already decided on when Andre joined the team, but he had an open brief for lighting and video.
Six 9m high by 2.5mwide upstage video columns defined the upstage area, and these moved sideways on a tracking system making up multiple configurations. While the show narrative was evolved from the band’s music and history, another wish was to move the whole production up several levels from where they left off on 2009.
Andre collaborated closely with the artists and their technical producer Marcel Buurman and the band’s manager Robert Swarts, who both had some requests, but they were keen for Andre to further develop his creative ideas, so there was a healthy bi-directional dialogue and communication as well as a complete trust of each other’s vision and talent. “It almost felt like I was another band member at times,” Andre stated.
The show started with all the screen elements butted together in a solid block with a lot of IMAG on it for the first part of the show so audiences could clearly see everyone. When the screen divided it revealed nine columns of six Robe Spiider LED wash beams rigged behind on ladders. Another 41 Spiiders were rigged on side trusses in the rig, bringing the total to 95.
Thirty-four BMFL Spots were in the overhead rig, 19 on the overhead trusses with a line of 15 upstage on the deck, used for all the beam work, while 16 x BMFL Blades in the front truss did all the key lighting.
Four of the BMFL Spots were controlled by two RoboSpot remote follow systems.
Andre operated the show himself using a grandMA2 full size console.
Lighting, which included around 300 other fixtures, was supplied by Phlippo. The video (live camera) director was Johan Veerman who was also briefed by Andre about the essence and vibes of the seven-camera IMAG, while VeeMee were commissioned by Art of Light to supply the playback video content.
(Jim Evans)

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