More details from Entec Sound & Light (http://www.entec-soundandlight.com):
LONDON – Entec Sound & Light supplied full technical production – sound, lighting and video – and crew for the recent Big Comedy Night event for leading charity Scope at London’s Hammersmith Apollo.
A stellar line up included a rare stand-up appearance by maverick alt comedian Ben Elton, who co-hosted the evening with pub landlord Al Murray, plus a host of other high profile acts.
Entec was approached by event organizer Susan Dorrington of Scope, who was looking for a full technical solution for the show. Entec’s Noreen O’Riordan project managed, and asked Phil White on-board to design the lighting. Entec’s Ryan Brown and Ed Hammond took care of video and sound respectively.
There was a basic lighting plot in place when White became involved, so he used this as a starting point. “The idea was to make it a bit different and more interesting than an average stand-up setting,” he explains.
Entec supplied four white 24 ft deep by 5 ft wide silks which were used to make staggered side wings, wider apart at the front and narrower at the back, to give the stage more depth and a definite sense of perspective.
These legs were back-lit with Vari*Lite VL2000 Washes on the floor and front lit with V*L2500 Spots – one per silk – rigged on house bars immediately downstage of the silks. It was another essential requirement that the stage was kept clean and clear and that no lights were obviously visible from the front.
Upstage center was a 12 x 20ft projection screen, fed by two of Entec’s Barco R10 projectors.
The front and back trusses were loaded with a total of 11 bars of 6 x PARs – six on the front and five on the back. Five 2K fresnels on the front truss provided a strong stage wash, and another two on the back truss gave additional rear light reinforcement.
On the floor underneath the screen were four JTE PixelLine LED battens, which efficiently filled the ‘black gaps’ around the projection screen with light.
Also on the floor were four V*L 2500 spots, spread out along the back edge of the stage for beam work and other forward-facing lighting effects and to generally enhance the depth of the space.
Purple was the main color look of the evening to match the ‘Big Comedy Night’ logo. The performance space then changed color as each different comedian took to the stage, highlighted by two Pani followspots.
All the stage lighting was controlled by White using a grandMA full size console, and he worked closely with Entec’s crew.
Entec brought in Nick Burlace as production rigger to co-ordinate the needs of all departments.
Video content – including the logo and a VT play-in to explain the goal of the evening and highlight the work of the Scope organization – was programmed into a Hippo Critter media server and played back using this together with a laptop running PowerPoint. All the relevant sizing and masking of the images and footage to make it fit the screen was done by Ryan Brown in the Hippo Critter.
The event raised funds, profile and lots of laughter for Scope.
