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Bandits at Blenheim
Bandit Lites UK supplied full lighting production to the four-day Blenheim Palace Music Festival, staged in the grounds of the glorious Oxfordshire seat of the 11th Duke of Marlborough. The festival featured a wide range of musical styles, from contemporary performers like Jamie Cullum and Katie Melua to mavericks like Van Morrison and Barry Manilow, to the cast of the musical ‘Rat Pack’ and the classical sounds of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Bandit UK’s Lester Cobrin project-managed the event for their client Field Services, and asked LD Simon Tutchener onboard to design a festival rig to cater for a diversity of illuminative needs. Vince Foster also joined the visual team, working for TV production company CC Lab, looking after additional stage and audience lighting for Jamie Cullum’s set, which was recorded for TV broadcast.
It was Tutchener’s first show using Bandit – an experience he’s found wholly positive. Once the show was confirmed, Cobrin looked for an experienced designer/operator/programmer to run lights for those who didn’t have their own LD, and to babysit the rig for who did bring their own. Cobrin thought Tutchener – with his vast fund of experience – was an ideal choice.
Tutchener devised a lighting system that would work for all artists on the bill. The basic rig consisted of three 56-foot pre-rigged trusses, fully loaded with Pars, with their end sections angled downwards making a gentle arch. An upstage A-type truss was used as a drapes truss complete with an LED starcloth. Jamie Cullum’s LD Kevin Ludlam, also brought in four white floor-to-roof Trevira drape ‘columns’, lit by Mini Scan HPEs.
The primary moving lights were Martin MAC 2000 profiles. Bandit also supplied 8-lites strategically placed on the front truss for audience ‘moments’, and four FOH Lycian followspots. All the stage lighting was run from an Avolites Diamond III – Tutchener’s preferred desk. Dimming was via two 72-way Avo racks, and Bandit also supplied all rigging, motors and necessary safety equipment – plus their usual detailed round of paperwork.
For the additional TV lighting, Bandit supplied Martin MAC 2k wash lights and more MAC 2k spots, plus two additional truss follow spots, a selection of low level lights onstage for cross lighting, sixteen 8-lites and 12 City Colours to illuminate the stunning courtyard buildings. The architectural lighting was further boosted with the addition of 12 1k Sun Floods and six 400 Watt MBI floods. They also sourced several hundred feet of rope light that ran along the front of stage and around the PA and provided the WholeHog II used by Foster to operate his fixtures.
Tutchener worked alongside a Bandit crew of five: Ian MacEwan, Matt Jensen and Rob Starksfield, with two extra crew – Ewan Cameron and Nigel Julian – boosting the team for the Jamie Cullum show.
Lester Cobrin commented: “It was great to be involved in such a high profile event with so many diverse elements and LDs.”
PA for the event was supplied by Canegreen and LED screens by XL Video.
In picture: Ewan Cameron, Nigel Julian, Lester Cobrin, Rob Starksfield, Ian MacEwan, Matt Jensen, and TV lighting director Vince Foster.
15th July 2004
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