Lighting
and visuals designer Andy Hurst enjoys challenges, and when that d‘n’b star
Netsky announced a high profile one-off homecoming show at Belgium’s legendary
Antwerp Sportpaleis, he knew he needed to pull out all the stops to ensure it
was a visual adventure for all in the room!
Blackburn
UK based HSL was chosen by production manager Mike Clegg as the lighting
equipment supplier and Andy and his crew worked closely with Dave Whiteoak of Video
Illusions, who supplied and co-ordinated the screens and camera package.
Andy commented,
“Jordan Hanson, in the HSL office, did a great job of project managing the
lighting supply and an absolutely top crew on site was chiefed by Ian Stevens.
They worked very hard ensuring the installation of a complex lighting rig ran
as smoothly and efficiently as was possible in a very short space of time”.
All the
technical departments including staging, rigging and audio as well as lighting
and video had one – very long – get-in day which was fully utilised.
Andy has
worked with the Netsky for four years, and this was the largest
single-headliner gig he’s performed to date. His goal was to produce something spectacular
and jaw-dropping that was practical to rig in the timeframe.
Eleven
‘finger’ lighting trusses (see below) were therefore designed so the fixtures
could travel in the truss to speed things up at the venue.
Netsky’s
new album, ‘III’, provided some initial inspiration for Andy who decided on
three upstage LED screens – 180 square metres in total VI-L6 6 mm LED each one
measuring 12 metres high by 7 wide — and three risers onstage was a good
starting point, with multiples of three permeating the design.
The music
is incredibly dynamic and full of tempo and mood changes. He performs with a
full band onstage plus assorted guest vocalists and musicians, which on this occasion
included some classical talent which brought a richness and completely new
dimension to some of the more hardcore d’n’b sounds.
Andy
undertook a week of intense pre-vis which dealt with all the lighting building
blocks, which allowed him to free up programming time onsite to fine-tune and
add detail and finishing touches which can make all the difference between a
show and an experience!
The
trussing system comprised of six upstage / downstage orientated fingers above
the main stage, all on Kinesys motors. A U-shaped truss curved around the front
of the stage and coming off that were five more straight trusses running lengthways
down the arena above the first section of audience (which were static). The
stage left and right IMAG screens were also flown from their own trusses.
At the
end of these over-audience trusses the B stage was built in the centre,
connected to the A stage by a runway, and above the B-stage was an octagonal
shaped truss also on Kinesys motors, which came in and out for a big laser
effect at the top of the show and again for the first number of the encore. The
Kinesys operator was Andy “Paris” Hilton.
Right in
the middle of the octagon was a 40 inch mirror ball, used as a highly effective
bounce surface for the Laser Blades around the octagon truss, another glorious
example of the renaissance of the glitter ball!
The bulk
of the moving lights were 68 x GLP X4 LED washes and 88 x Claypaky Sharpies for
beams and these were scattered all over the trusses and aligned the bottom
edge of three LED screens. X4s also lined the runway between the stages at
floor level.
Out of a
total of 10 Martin MAC Viper Performances, four were reserved to highlight the
mirror ball in the middle of the octagon, three on the front truss were the
prime key lighting for the band risers, with the other three upstage behind these
risers for silhouetting effects.
For low level
front fill, five Robe LEDWash 1200s a side were positioned along the downstage
edges and very effectively skimmed across the stage and set.
The three
risers were picked out with Robe CycFX 8 moving LED battens around the edges
which created an interesting lightbox effect, and when pointed downwards, it
looked like the artists were standing on a floating wedge of light.
Forty-nine
PixelLine LED battens were used too.
Thirty
Laser Blades – all laser equipment was supplied by ER – were positioned around
the perimeter of the octagon, with another six on the ends of the over-stage
trussing fingers and nine BB3 lasers were rigged along the bottom of the LED
screens, three per section.
Last but certainly
not least, 60 x Philips Nitro LED strobes were dotted all over the rig for some
serious retina burn Andy has a technique of utilizing strobes for drops that go
into a moody section of music as well as those which precede an explosive build
up
It was
Andy’s decision to run the IMAG video content primarily in black and white to
make it edgier and more contrasty and new playback content was also created for
this show to Netsky’s brief of being more filmic in style.
Andy
operated lighting using his own fully redundant Road Hog Full Boar control
system to run lighting and lasers.
Joining
Ian and Paris on the HSL crew were Harrison Cooke, Andrew Whitaker, Ben Eastham
and Neil Smith. “They were all fantastic, and the service and support from HSL
both on the run-up and at the venue was excellent,” stated Andy.
The show
was a huge success. An exciting collage of colour, movement and great music to
energise the crowd and a testament to all on the production team who worked
tirelessly to make it happen and give Netsky an awesome homecoming gig.
http://www.hslgroup.com
Photos –
Louise Stickland
