Sido, SkiAggu and others meet magicians, jugglers and clowns: Hokus Pokus FestiWELT is no ordinary festival, but – by its own account – a magical place where you can “be a kid again and just have a good time”. After the successful premiere in 2022, the open-air festival took place for the second time in Gießen at the beginning of September and attracted around 5,000 thrilled visitors despite the initially rainy weather. After the Hokus Pokus lighting team had already illuminated the stage exclusively with Cameo last year, project manager Daniel Brohl and lighting designer Alessandro Schnörch from Showfile Veranstaltungstechnik used even more spotlights in 2023.
“Our Cameo setup has once again proven itself under tough festival conditions,” confirms Alessandro Schnörch from Showfile. “At a festival, the lighting design should suit all the artists as well as the external operators. This is where powerful and bright lights are most important. Cameo lights are durable, reliable and offer consistent performance, and they are versatile and offer many creative possibilities.”
Nearly 100 Cameo lights will be used at Hokus Pokus FestiWELT, including the OPUS H5 and X Profile, the EVOS W7, MOVO BEAM 200 and the ZENIT W600 SMD. Compared to 2022, Schnörch and Brohl have changed the positioning of the spotlights in order to be able to provide new and flexible lighting patterns and to meet the individual demands of the artists. Alessandro Schnörch was particularly impressed by the OPUS H5 Beam-Spot-Wash Hybrid Moving Head: “For me, the OPUS H5 is a true jack of all trades. It offers bright beams as wide open mid-air effects, beautiful gobos and fantastic pan/tilt speed. With its zoom range of 2-42°, I can meet every requirement – especially for hip hop shows where accents are very important and a large spectrum is needed.”
While the OPUS H5s are suspended from the centre and back trusses to make optimum use of the stage depth and allow for a variety of lighting designs, the OPUS X Profiles serve primarily as front lights in the stage canopy. “Moving lights as front lights have been standard for a long time to create different lighting situations during operation,” explains Alessandro Schnörch. “The OPUS X Profile is our first choice here with its high light output and rich colours. With the iris sliders, we can illuminate the stage broadly and at the same time place individual accents on the artists.”
With 30 units, the MOVO BEAM 200 is the most numerous fixture at the festival and is used by Showfile as a pure effect light. In addition to its two high-speed motors for ultra-fast and limitless pan/tilt rotation, the circumferential LED ring with 24 individually controllable segments also plays an important role in the lighting design.
“The MOVO BEAM 200 is one of my favourite fixtures and it is always a real eye-catcher on stage with its Aura LEDs,” saysAlessandro Schnörch.
For Schnörch, the EVOS W7 is an “LED wash light in a class of its own” – both as an effect light in the roof or as an alley light on the ground. “The EVOS W7 is the perfect complement to the OPUS H5 – not just for ‘soft’ wash effects and illuminating people, but also for sophisticated beam-like effects thanks to its large zoom range and beam shaper.”
The ZENIT W600 SMD also serves multiple purposes on the Hokus Pokus stage: classic strobe from the back truss, soft light on the floor from the stage background, and artist lighting on the catwalk. “Hardly any other light can give me this kind of versatility in this brightness. The ZENIT W600 SMD is a fixture I wouldn’t want to do without. For me as a lighting designer, other lights are hardly an option,” comments Schnörch
