KINGS LYNN, Norfolk, UK — The Glade Festival, a celebration of electronic dance music festival that started out as a stage at Glastonbury, was staged in Houghton Hall this year, and a key supporter of the 2011 event was Central Presentations Ltd (CPL), which is based in West Midlands and Bristol, UK. CPL coordinated and supplied a full technical production package encompassing video, lighting and sound for the Overkill stage.
Overkill at Glade 2011 was project-managed for CPL by Nick Diacre from the Bristol office. It is the second year that CPL has supplied the complete stage production package to Overkill and the fifth year that Diacre has been keeping the visuals synched to the music, which this year included performances from Eskimo, African Hitech, The DJ Producer, Ed Rush, MachineDrum, Jacky Murda, 2 Bad Mice and many others.
The venue was a 20-meter dome from Gaia Nova, which was a challenging space in which to work in from a technical angle, with everything having to be rigged and fitted in a specific order. Having one company responsible for supplying all the production elements made this easier, noted Diacre. “It was a real imaginative collaboration aimed at producing a fabulous overall production design involving some great teamwork.”
Video
Diacre and CPL collaborated with Lumacoustics to make the space as dynamic as possible to support a wide range of different artists and styles over the two days using 48 panels of Barco MiTrix upstage center stage in columns. The crew used Resolume software and fed the panels with custom content created specially for the event stored on Lumacoustics’ custom media servers. Some of the content was audio-reactive, so an input from the sound desk was also fed directly into the video servers, which were programmed by Tom Hogan.
CPL supplied three Sanyo 15K projectors which beamed footage onto a set of three custom-printed scrims at stage left, right and center.
The center-stage scrim was rigged in front of the MiTrix columns, creating two different overlaid surfaces offering completely different and atmospheric properties that could be run in varying configurations during daylight and after dark.
During the day the MiTrix proved bright enough for visual effects. As soon as dusk fell, the projections onto the scrims started, completely changing the feel and ambience of the space. The two surfaces could also be run in unison for some memorable looks.
The central scrim was over-painted with a 7.5 x 4.5 meter 3-colour (black, white & red) image of a screaming ape’s head. Video footage was precisely mapped – also using the Lumacoustics software – and fitted exactly to the white bits, producing unique 3D effects.
The side screens were also treated. They were warped and masked via the Lumacoustics software to give them the appearance of being a pair of retro CRT TV sets, complete with bulbous curves. The footage streamed onto them came complete with pockets of grainy jittering.
Artists pitching up with their own visual shows and content were also hooked into the CPL system. This was treated and distorted similarly, then output to the side screens, again lining up perfectly with the curves and projected in the same style. This enabled their standard footage to take on new dynamics and a completely different look and feel for their Overkill shows.
Analog Way PLS-200 switchers were used to mix between the various video and audio sources and inputs.
Lighting
The lighting design by James Bunning included fixtures rigged off 2 x 9 meter trusses that were installed by the CPL team.
The moving lights were a mix of Martin Professional MAC 700 Profiles, MAC 250 Washes and MAC 250 Entours, joined by Atomic strobes, 4-lite Moles and PixelPARs, which were used for general stage washing and around-the-tent illuminations.
Bunning using an Avolites Pearl 2008 console for control.
CPL’s crew of 10, plus Diacre, worked one long and full-on 12 hour shift to complete the entire technical installation.
For more information, please visit www.cplav.com.
