South Africa – The music festival market can be fickle. Staying on top of it requires at least three things: a beautiful setting, excellent music, and the willingness, as well as the ability, to change. South Africa’s beloved Splashy Fen, the country’s oldest music festival, clearly checks off all three boxes.
The first (beautiful location) is breathtakingly evident as soon as you approach the festival grounds, which are situated on the high steppes of the famed Great Escarpment. The second is evident in the global stars who join South African artists every year. As for the readiness to grow and change… this year, the 35th in the festival’s storied history, it gave its main stage a whole new look with the addition of a 90m x 30m internationally spec’d dome.
Shaniel Laloo, who lit the main stage for headliners Goldfish as well as Billy Raffoul, Jack and the Weatherman and other artists, wasted no time in bringing the new dome into his show. “This is the first time having Splashy Fen under a dome, and I wanted it to pop at different moments throughout the festival,” said Laloo. The roof thus became part of the show, reflecting different moods depending on if it was lit, and how it was lit.
Helping Laloo achieve this vision was a collection of 18 CHAUVET Professional COLORado PXL Curve 12 motorized battens.. Their bright output, up to 200-degree tilt, and 5.7 degree to 36.3 degree zoom allowed him to light the roof with a variety of colors from different angles.
Laloo positioned 12 of his versatile PXL Curves in a straight line over the center stage video wall. The six remaining IP65 rated batten fixtures were arranged on the floor where they were used to create even fields of light across the stage deck.
Thanks to their output (38,727 Lux at 5-meters), vivid colors, and fluid movements, the COLORado PXL fixtures were used to fill a variety of roles beyond the dome roof in Laloo’s artful lightshow. “They fanned out a beautiful curtain of light…what more could anyone ask for?” said Laloo. “Another thing — this fixture worked out great to separate the main artists visually from their bands. It also handled a lot of the pixel work. It was a good fixture to use between intimate acoustic acts and high energy electronic music, both of which were represented in this festival.”
Looking back on the Splashy Fen festival, Laloo summed up his vision this way: “I wanted to group the fixtures to create big looks but still have good coverage over the artists.” Mission accomplished!
