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grandMA at the Summerpops Festival in Liverpool

From June 29th until 23rd July Merseyside has been host to the Summer Pops 06 Festival. The Central Docks has seen the Big Top Arena return for its 11th year of daily concerts with top-name pop groups headlining.

David Hill has been the lighting designer for this major event for six years now and he’s seen a lot of changes as the festival has grown and gone from strength to strength. The truss extends from the stage all the way over the main audience and supports a large lighting rig. Dave said: “We try to install a versatile lighting rig that all the touring bands will can use. This year there were 33 Vari*Lites, 44 MACs, 192 Par Cans, 56 ACLs, Source Fours, Moles, Hazers, and 4 Pani short-throw truss followspots.” The equipment was supplied and installed by Entec Sound and Light.

Looking after the system are the on-site lighting directors Phil White and Leigh Yeomans. They keep the equipment working, assist with the, almost daily, load-ins and load-outs, liaise and help to smooth the band’s use of the lighting facilities. Some of the show’s bring their own operators and sometimes Phil will run the lighting.

Having heard good things about the grandMA lighting control system Dave asked about having a grandMA “guest” console to complement the Hog2 that’s normally at the Festival. Entec supplied a Full-Size as the main console, an NSP for DMX link into the system, and a Light console as Backup. This proved very popular and was chosen to control Simple Minds, The Who, The Darkness and also two shows - Oscar Peterson and the Sugababes - both of which Dave designed and operated using grandMA.

Having the DMX link via an NSP allowed a further Backup using a laptop, while the grandMA Light console could be used by the lighting tech team backstage to Restrike or Reset any of the moving lights that may need it, independently and invisibly to the main programmer/operator. It also provided extra DMX outputs on ports 5 thru’ 8 in the stage area for any temporary DMX equipment that may load-in for a particular band – useful for the Colour Web that came with the Sugababes! The Matrix software that’s integrated into grandMA allowed quick and easy effects to be written specifically for the Colour Web.

In between shows at Summerpops Dave wasn’t resting – he was also working on productions back in London at the Apollo Hammersmith. George Clinton and Roberta Flack at the Apollo were also programmed by Dave on a grandMA control system.

http://www.malighting.de

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grandMA at the Summerpops Festival in Liverpool

15th August 2006

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