Manchester
based lighting and visual specialists dbn, working for two of their regular
clients – the Warehouse Project (WHP) and the biennial Manchester International
festival (MIF) – supplied lighting and visuals to ‘10×10\’ Day & Night’, two
special nights energised with 12 hours of non-stop pumping music, great DJs and
live music plus the very best dance vibes to mark 10 years in the city for both
MIF and WHP!
Staged in
the historic Mayfield Depot, a charismatic ‘found space’ and site of the former
Manchester Mayfield railway station, active as a passenger terminal from 1910
to the 1960s after which it became a warehouse and parcels depot. Since the 1980s
it’s been completely closed and derelict … until resurrection as an
entertainment venue for the 2013 MIF.
WHP – whose
regular venue is just the other side of the railway tracks in a car park
beneath Piccadilly Station – took over the whole ground floor of the Mayfield
Depot and asked dbn – their regular lighting providers – to create a production
lighting design for two rooms.
dbn’s
Pete Robinson project managed and commented, “We were really excited to be
working in the venue and for the landmark occasion. There were plenty of
challenges associated with working in a disused building and turning it into
the must-go destination of the weekend … BUT we set out to compliment the
unique location with plenty of visual magic!”
A big
part of that ‘visual magic’ was the chance to show off the amazing new i-Pix
db1 fixtures, used for the first time in this context as a high–impact special
effect”.
The db1 –
i-Pix incredible new and completely different hybrid lightsource that combines elements
of video and lighting – was the special effect for the second evening .. But
more about these later!
A stage
was set up at one end of the cavernous main space with a 4-legged ground
support above, cantilevered at the front to provide PA wings – as there was no
flying. A number of vertical truss sections were strapped to the pillars down
the room and smaller ground supports were erected over the bar areas. The void above a row of old offices and the
ceiling was utilized for additional lighting positions.
Five
short truss sections were sub-hung from the back of the ground support forming
a cross shape, and between these and the front truss, the dbn team deployed 24
of their new Clay Paky Mythos moving lights and 24 x CP a.leda K10s fitted with
B-EYE lenses, 20 x active Showtec Sunstrips, 18 x Atomic strobes, 12 x CP Alpha
Wash 700 and 24 x 2-lite Moles.
These
made a highly effective upstage wall of light effect.
The first
night was headlined by Four Tet, who brought in his own innovative visual
element in the form of a grid of golf-ball LED pixels on strings, suspended
over the stage on 24 catenaries … giving 4192 DMX controlled pixels run from a
laptop … which looked fantastic!
dbn
supplied the scaff towers and catenaries so digital art specialists Squidsoup
could install this immersive environment.
The second
night was headlined by Carl Craig and Mike Banks, and for this … dbn added the
24 x i-Pix db1s as the WOW factor, which were arranged in four pyramid shaped
stacks of 6 units.
These
were fed video content from an Avolites AI Infinity server controlled via an
Avo Tiger Touch, run by Chris Ewington – the fixtures’ inventor. The LED light
cells in the db1’s were mapped and activated by dbn’s Edwin Croft’s Avo Pearl
Expert, with which he was also controlling all the other fixtures in the room.
Working closely together the two of them created some truly awesome visual
moments which really put the units through their paces.
“The db1s
looked incredible” declares Pete, “They presented something completely
different, their vibrancy and power was really striking … they were the
highlight of the event!”
To light
the dancefloor and make sure everyone felt involved in the energy and
atmosphere of the music, dbn strapped 8
short truss sections to the room pillars and rigged these with a total of 16 x CP
Alpha Spot QWOs, 16 x Spectral LED Zoom PARs and 16 Atomics.
For décor
lighting, clamped onto the pillars were another 20 Spectral LED PARs and 12 x
SGM P5 LED floods. Along one side of the room above the old office rooms seven
City Color LED RGBW units were ensconced, illuminating the arches of the room.
Towards the end of the night they were also used as a super-intense strobe
effect which everyone loved!
A serious
amount of strategic smoke and haze generation helped fill the large room, with
14 machines dotted around.
Room 2
featured a smaller stage with an equally sizzling selection of DJs in a long
and interesting space which had the glass windows at one end painstakingly blacked
out by dbn’s Nick Todd resulting in a proper sense of underground clubbing.
Lighting
was designed by dbn’s Nick Walton who brought a flourish of gritty idiosyncrasy
starting with a trussing structure wrapping the stage, with columns made up
from 36 x Chauvet Nexus 4×4 panels for a very low resolution screen, and moving
lights and strobes rigged in rows in between the columns.
Six truss
towers running down the room were each loaded with Sharpie Washes, Alpha Beam
700s and Alpha Spot 300 HPEs, while more Beam 700s and 300 HPEs made up the
beam factor onstage. Zooming LED PARs were positioned on top of the room towers
for illuminating the vaulted ceiling, accentuating the height of the space.
Lighting
in Room two was run by Anthony Owen who regularly operates for the WHP’s autumn
season, using an Avo Tiger Touch.
The
entire dbn crew took their spirited ‘can-do’ attitude to the event and relished
the challenges presented by the building, all helping the organisers achieve
their end goal of presenting two great evenings of a distinctive, memorable and
inclusive dance experience.
