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ADB Warp/M is New Lighting Star at France’s Top Rock Festival
The power and versatility of ADB’s award-winning Warp/M automated spot profile luminaire is already widely appreciated by many of the world’s leading lighting designers in theatre and television – but its attributes were tested to the maximum by LDs at France’s number one pop/rock festival, the annual Festival des Vieilles Charrues, at Carhaix in Brittany.
The event, which celebrated its 15th anniversary this year by adding a fourth day and drawing an audience of 200,000, ranks in Europe’s top four festivals alongside Glastonbury, Roskilde and Rock Werchter. Headliners included Placebo, Madness, The Pixies, Tracy Chapman and French superstar Johnny Hallyday.
Laurent ‘Lolo’ Coatmélec and Phil Ménez were resident lighting designers for the Scène Kérouac (Stage 2). They had used ADB’s Warp/M at the Ancienne Belgique live music venue in Brussels, where the units form a key product in the venue’s lighting grid, and decided to make it a major element of their design for the festival.
Six of the fixtures were specified for the main front truss, each fitted with ADB colour scrollers, providing visiting LDs with a unique lighting tool – a high power, fully automated profile light that complemented the rig’s Martin MAC moving lights and assorted conventionals.
Another eye-catcher was Coatmélec’s and Ménez’s addition of 11 ADB Svoboda 2.3kW light battens to provide a huge variety of washes and stage set modelling effects.
ADB’s André Broucke says: “They chose the Warp/Ms for the same reasons they’d enjoyed using them at Ancienne Belgique – high light output, warm colour temperature, and easy refocusing for each act – or into the crowd.
“They caused some of the visiting LDs a surprise, because touring LDs don’t normally expect to get moving profiles on a festival stage, so it took them a little while to explore all the extra possibilities that the Warp/M made possible. According to Lolo Coatmélec and Phil Ménez, most of the LDs thought the Warp/M was a 2kW light – it’s that bright. And throughout the festival, several LDs, from both stages 1 and 2, expressed interest in this true moving profile for their upcoming indoor tours.”
The Warp/Ms were controlled over DMX and, as is standard for this fixture, also provided the operators with real-time status feedback via a Wi-Fi Ethernet network, with each luminaire displaying its own web page in a regular web browser on the operator’s laptop.
The luminaires had to take their fair share of the physical stresses you’d expect at a festival – the average daytime temperature that weekend in France was 35 Celsius in the shade, and the Warp/Ms were hanging in direct sunlight. “Everything was covered in dust from the dust clouds kicked up by the energetic audience all weekend,” adds Broucke, “but we had no problems at all; the luminaires performed faultlessly throughout. Both LDs were very satisfied and are looking forward to using Warp/M and Warp, its manually operated version, for their upcoming events.”
The lighting production company for the Kérouac stage was Spectaculaires, part of the leading French rental group DuShow.
In picture: Warp/M luminaires with scrollers in the front truss, with ADB Svoboda battens in the next truss behind.
15th November 2006
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