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Best Disco In Town for Bandit
Bandit Lites UK recently supplied the popular “Best Disco In Town” UK theatre and arena tour. They again worked with Tony Denton Promotions, following on from the very successful “Once In A Lifetime” tour the previous month.
“Tony required a flexible looking lighting design solution for a decent price,” explains Bandit UK’s chief executive, Lester Cobrin. Bandit’s creative team swung into action, and the plot was conceived and drawn by Dizzy Gosnell of Bandit’s San Francisco office.
Ewan Cameron was asked onboard to design, program and direct the show on tour, which starred soul giants and disco divas from the 1970s including Rose Royce, The Three Degrees, Tavares, George McCrae, The Real Thing and Odyssey, all of whom shared the same backing band.
“My main challenge was to make each set look different and individual as all the artists were on equal billing,” explained Cameron.
The lighting rig was based around two trusses – front and back – both with edges that curved gently backwards and downwards. The front truss also had a 4ft mirror ball suspended in the middle of an elevated central arch section. The rear truss trim was just below that of the front, so when viewed from FOH, the two trusses and their curving edges fitted the picture perfectly and gave the stage clear, clean architectural lines.
Upstage, three white banners were used for stage dressing. A star-cloth was placed behind the banners – without which no disco tour would be complete!
Cameron had a specific amount of lighting fixtures at his disposal, so each one was ‘multi-purpose’ and worked hard.
The moving lights were 12 Martin Professional MAC 500s and four MAC 600s. These were joined by two bars of 6 PARs, six bars of 4 PARs and four bars of ACLs (2 strings), along with four linear 4-lite Molefeys and one 4-lite Mole with a scroller.
Eight Pulsar Chroma Par36 Cans were arranged on a trussing circle rigged underneath the centre of the rear truss and used only at strategic moments, for some additional punch and to provide a “different quality” of light.
On the floor were four of the MAC 500s positioned on top of four vertical truss towers, two at 9ft high and two at 5ft. On top of these towers were four half mirror balls.
Cameron operated the show using a Jands Vista console – his current desk of choice. “It suits my operational style – you can see exactly where everything is and you don’t have to number-crunch all the time – the desk does it for you,” Cameron explains.
Bandit also supplied seven points of rigging and motors, Avolites dimming, three Lycian 1200 Stark Light followspots and technician Tom Crosbie, of whom Cameron says, “We make a great team.”
Cameron was able to go into the first show without any production rehearsals and attributes a big part of that to Bandit: “Bandit always look after me. I really appreciate their rigorous pre-prepping and overall effort.”
6th June 2007
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