Bristol-based
entertainment lighting hire and event production specialist Fineline Lighting
is celebrating an amazing 2015 using Avolites Titan consoles, dimmers, Ai
servers and TitanNet Processors on some of Europe\’s biggest festivals.
More than
17,000 people flocked to Devon\’s Somersault Festival in July for a five-day
musical extravaganza. Fineline provided lighting for four main music
performance areas at the festival, including the 15-metre wide Main Stage.
The
production lighting rig was designed by Fineline\’s Stuart England, and based
around the requirements of the various headliners, an eclectic and interesting
line up of Bombay Bicycle Club, Laura Marlin and The Staves. \”The house
lighting desk was an Avolites Sapphire Touch and all the dimming was
Avolites,\” says England.
At
Cornwall\’s Eden Project, Fineline provided the production lighting for the 2015
Eden Sessions – seven high profile concerts with a diverse line up including
Elton John, Paolo Nutini, Paloma Faith, Motorhead, The Stranglers, Spandau
Ballet and Ben Howard.
With a
team led by Fineline\’s Rob Sangwell, another Avolites Sapphire Touch was used
as the house console, with all Avolites dimming and DMX buffering.
During
the incredible Glastonbury Festival, Fineline Lighting, which has been closely
involved with Glastonbury over the last 24 years, supplied lighting equipment
including a wealth of Avolites consoles and dimming racks for the Acoustic,
Astrolabe Theatre, Cabaret and Circus venues, as well as Silver Hayes\’ Wow
Stage.
Designed
by Sangwell and England, the Acoustic stage featured performers such as The
Proclaimers and the Moody Blues, with control coming from an Avolites Tiger
Touch II plus wing, and ART2000 dimmers powering the generics.
The
Astrolabe Theatre featured a line-up of performers spanning dance and physical
theatre. Lighting was handled by Hal Himsworth, with a Pearl Expert Pro
providing control, plus ART2000 dimming throughout. Dimmers were also used in
the Cabaret tent with Wingnut controlling lighting.
Heading
overseas, Fineline also specified Avolites Sapphire Touch consoles for
Croatia\’s Dimensions Festival. \”This was a no-brainer,\” says England.
\”With the need to control lighting, video and LED more was better – the
number of faders allowed for more options and easy control of it all in a
busking situation. The desks were set up in multi-user mode allowing LD
Nic Ayres control off the entire rig and Will Dale to manage the LED and Video
from a tech point and also back up.\”
Pixel
Mapping featured heavily on the Dimensions festival – 2 x TNPs were used to
expand the DMX outputs from the Sapphire Touch consoles to allow full control
of the 65m LED tape spread over 13 universes. This was laid out in four
triangles getting smaller as they went further upstage.
In
addition, Fineline specified an Avolites Infinity EX8 server, to \”create
an immersive lighting and video package,\” says England.
\”They wanted to surround the crowd with lights and video creating
a continuous effect.\” The EX8 was chosen to backup Fineline\’s own
EX4, allowing control of the 40m2 of video laid out in 4 x 2m wide by 10m
high towers.
Also in
Croatia, Fineline supplied the Outlook Festival with yet more Avolites equipment.
2x Sapphire Touch consoles running in multi user/backup mode controlled 48 ways
of Avolites dimming, an EX4 media server and 48 moving lights using Avolites
DMX buffers. 60m2 of video was spread across the stage hung in multiple columns
of various sizes.
\”The
Ai EX4 was a breeze to map the video on to so many various sized columns,\”
England explains. \”Different layers were set up to allow control of
selected screens to add an extra depth to the video.\”
Fineline
celebrated its 25th year in 2015. It was founded by Darren Wring in 1990 as a
lighting rental and touring company and expanded in 2004 to include a
manufacturing facility for bespoke staging and scenic elements. Current MD Rob
Sangwell joined in 2002 and managed the production lighting and rigging aspects
of Fineline until 2011 when he purchased the company with a view to focusing
more on the rigging and lighting production.
England
concludes: \”I really like Avolites kit and the company itself. They really
get involved and listen to the end user. Fineline has always been a strong
backer of Avo, and this just keeps growing. They\’re a nice bunch of people
who are always there to help and when you do need support its always there
any time of the day.
\”Kit wise,
we, and our customers, find it very simple to use Avolites. With
minimal training we can create something backed by a lot of power. I find
all the layouts very easy and simple. We work our kit hard during the year and
it just keeps going. The servers were bought because we liked them and again
they are very simple to set up and use but very, very powerful.
