Not everyone
gets to have their lights gracing a 55 ft. tall, 60 ft. wide, 50 tonne spider
made from re-imagined industrial waste and Robe is hugely proud that Arcadia
Spectacular chose to invest in its moving lights to ensure this masterpiece of
imagination, engineering, resourcefulness and fully immersive performance will
have its own lightshow and the highest production values.
The Spider, which
started its journey at the Glastonbury Festival circa 2010 when its first
incarnation was crafted with love, enthusiasm and some glorious craziness by
Pip Rush and Bert Cole, is now gaining widespread international acclaim. As the
Arcadia performance concept leads to more and more high profile bookings around
the globe, the time was right for them to be self-sufficient in terms of
production hardware.
Arcadia Technical
Production Manager Tim Smith takes up the story, “We had played a few festivals
and been offered substitute fixtures to those on our rider, and with everything
ramping up several levels this year, we decided that the best way forward for
continuity and to achieve the standard to which we all aspire was to carry
our own lights.
“This allows us
to focus on the creativity of the shows and effects, rather than the monotonous
task of fixture exchanging and re-programming”.
Sixteen of
Robe’s BMFL WashBeams are right at the heart of the lighting rig.
Eight are a
special custom version of the luminaire which is a collaboration between Robe
and Light Initiative, with a bespoke LED ring around the front of the BMFL.
These are used
for the three sets of Spider’s eyes (with two spares!) The eyes are set in
reconditioned reverse thrust units modelled out of scrapped Rolls Royce jet
engines. The bespoke LED is fed with video content stored on Arcadia’s AI media
servers and combined with the vast array of effects from the BMFLs, bring a
whole new dimension to the eyes.
Six of the other
eight BMFL WashBeams are active, with one rigged on each PA tower around the
performance space. “They are absolutely amazing lights, sharp, bright and the
internal framing allows us to pinpoint areas on the spider from over 40 metres away,”
comments Tim.
Twenty Robe
Pointes join the show, with four each mounted inside the three legs of the structure
(previously Customs & Excise scanning machines) and six more Pointes rigged
beneath the DJ booth for lighting the core rave / dancefloor area.
Then there are
nine LEDWash 600s which multi-task but one of the main functions is for six of
them to follow spot the aerialists in The Landing Show and to provide vital
rigging and safety lighting during the complex and stunning Metamorphosis show.
For the Landing
Show they have been modified with the pan / tilt motors deactivated, the colour
and intensity parameters are controlled from the lighting desk and they are
pointed by human operators because highlighting aerialists is such a precise
and specialised task. They needed a small, neat fixture with a nice yoke, and
this is an elegant lateral solution.
Tim, an
experienced technical production manager and lighting programmer / operator himself
commented, “Robe lights have always been reliable, well designed and excellent
quality as well as offering many creative options. I have had nothing but good
experiences, so it was an obvious choice. It was a pleasure dealing with Ian
Brown from Robe UK and Simon Gooding from Anolis for both this and all the structural
LED elements”.
The supply also
included a substantial amount of architectural LED fixtures from Robe’s sister
company Anolis. Like Robe, the brand is manufactured in Europe and has a great
reputation for quality and robustness.
The Anolis elements
were mainly completely customised lightsources to illuminate various parts of
the Spider. Three different fixtures alone are involved in lighting the legs with
24, 36 and 48 lengths of ArcLine double Outdoor Optic – all fitted perfectly
into different leg cavities for a sleek, streamlined look.
The Anolis LED units
are effectively ‘dumb’ fixtures on the structure powered from a whole bank of rack
mounted Anolis 384 power supplies built into touring racks which are safely
stashed away in the backstage area.
Anolis ArcPad
48s and ArcLine Mini Outdoors are used to highlight the crane arms at the top
of the spider. The fixtures are mounted on the edges facing back into the arms
– and again are perfectly ensconced.
More ArcLine
Mini Outdoors are rigged in the DJ booth giving a spotlight effect which is both
practical as work-light and subtle as effect light, blending in seamlessly with
the other architectural elements.
One of the objectives
was to ensure the structure looks great – lit smoothly and evenly – for the
countless images and videos that are posted throughout cyberspace so it looks
every bit the fantastic spectacle and fully immersive experience that every Arcadia
Spectacular really is.
