BELFAST, Northern Ireland – Production Services Ireland (PSI) supplied lighting for the first gig staged at Belfast's new Giant's Park venue, which included performances by DJ Fatboy Slim, Deadmau5, Kissy Sell Out, Zane Lowe, Sidney Samson and Thomas Gandey, among others. Planet Love Music, for whom PSI has supplied many other events, promoted the outdoor show. Sean Pagel led the PSI team and said, "It's always a great honor to work on a landmark event and inaugurate a new venue."
Fatboy's lighting designer Steven Abbiss sent over the plot, together with Alan King to mind it for him, and PSI flew the rig inside a Star Events Orbit stage that was set up lengthways down the north foreshore of Belfast Lough to spread the audience out sideways. This also gave the performers a view of the Lough and the dramatic surrounding environment from the stage.
PSI built Fatboy's full festival rig, which included three overhead lighting trusses, four trussing towers and two flown "ladders" which they fabricated for the show. The downstage truss towers stood at three meters tall, which was the highest they could go with the curve of the orbit above, while the upstage ones were at four meters high and in the next arch back. Upstage from these in the next arch of the roof were the ladders, which were attached to each side of a central LED screen that was flown from the roof.
Each of the ladders was rigged with three Robe ColorWash 700E ATs, with the bottom fixture at head height for access purposes.
The overhead lighting trusses were at the front and mid positions overstage, with another truss flying the video screen far upstage, and a third lighting truss behind this, complete with three Space Flowers that blasted through the PixLed screen supplied by XL Video.
There were 62 moving lights in the rig – 28 Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs and 34 Robe ColorWash 700E Ats – plus 24 Martin Atomic strobes, four CityColor 1800s, five Space Flowers, two Source Four Zooms for keylighting the DJ console and 28 4-lite Moles strategically positioned on the towers, the front truss and the floor.
Thirty-four PixelLine 1044s were also dotted around the stage and rig. The front truss was loaded with six Robe 700 Spots and Washes, four Atomics, six PixelLines and the two profiles. The mid truss, positioned just behind Fatboy's DJ console, contained eight Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 700E Ats (four of each) plus three Atomics.
The back truss – upstage of the screen – was used just for two of the Space Flowers, with the other three units positioned on the floor in an arc around the back of the stage, together with the four CityColors.
Lighting on all four towers was identical – four Moles, three ColorSpot 700E ATs, four ColorWash 700E ATs, three Atomics and four PixelLines.
On the floor – in addition to the SpaceFlowers and CityColors – were another six ColorSpot 700s and four ColorWash 700s and five Atomics, plus two Moles, illuminating Fatboy from behind.
"It was a very flexible design," said Pagel, "which looked and worked really well in the space".
The "festival" desk supplied by PSI to run lighting for most of the opening acts – the show started at 4.30 p.m. – was an Avolites D4 Vision. Alan King brought his own Chamsys MagicQ to run Fatboy's set, and Deadmau5's LD John McGuire bought his Road Hog Full Boars – along with some of the MiTrix screen columns and the floor lighting package that they are touring with. PSI rigged an additional truss to hang the MiTrix.
It was a tough gig time-wise for Pagel, who crewed it with Joe Byrne over four very long days. They started on the Thursday night, with the Fatboy production arriving on Friday. Everything was rigged and ready for Alan King to program through Friday night .. and then they were back on site first thing on Saturday morning to meet the Deadmau5 crew.
Both Fatboy Slim and Deadmau5 were production managed by Mark Ward.
For more information, please visit www.productionireland.com
