The
three day music extravaganza staged in the picturesque Hertfordshire, UK
countryside, and produced by leading production industry technical solution
specialist Universal Event Productions (UEP) – was another resounding success.
Company founder Steve Butcher maintains a
cutting edge inventory of lighting, sound and video equipment, which he
showcases at this event, and several months ago he invested substantially in
SGM’s SP-6 SixPack pixel blinders, XC-5 RGB colour strobes and P-5 wash lights.
These were deployed in production lighting designer Simon Maddison’s
imaginative concept, along with four of SGM’s award-winning high powered G-Spot
profiles.
The latter were placed on the PA wings
either side of stage to boost low level front lighting across the crowd – which
also served as a great atmosphere builder. As one of the most exposed fixtures,
its IP65 rating proved essential, as the weather was typically erratic.
The event brought the very best music from
the 1980s – indie rock from the Boomtown Rats, Big Country, Heaven 17, etc;
classic pop from Jason Donovan, Boney M, Go West – and contemporary pop with
Union J, 911, Stooshi and more to the leafy heartlands of Tring.
Chilfest was started last year initially as
a novel and interesting way of celebrating UEP’s 15th year of successful
operation. As the idea gained momentum, it took on the format of a full scale
two day family focused music festival.
It went down so well that Steve Butcher
and his team decided to repeat the exercise, adding an extra day – together
with a larger, 15-metre Orbit-style stage, a rolling riser system to optimise
the changeover times and some other new features.
This all helped to show off the SGM
lighting to its best advantage. Maddison had set out to provide a good and
practical house system with the flexibility and dynamics to cover all artists
playing, providing a host of interesting looks and scenes with plenty of
headroom.
It was essential that the lighting also
worked well in daylight as the majority of the action took place when it was
still light.
The six SGM SP-6 SixPack pixel blinders
were installed downstage and used for audience illumination and 10 of UEP’s new
SGM XC-5 RGB LED strobes were rigged above and used for classic strobe effects
as well as floods, excelling at both applications!
Butcher concludes: “We were all delighted
with this year’s results. We had a trouble free event and brought new standards
of excellence and production values to a truly boutique festival setting that
you would normally only expect on much larger shows.”
Photos: © Louise Stickland, courtesy
Universal Event
