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Bandit Supplies Westlife

Bandit Lites UK has supplied lighting equipment and crew to Westlife's much acclaimed ‘Back Home' UK arena tour, which marks an incredible 10 years as one of the most successful pop bands of the century. Once again, this year's tour was produced by Production North with Karen Ringland at the helm as production manager. Bandit has been associated with Westlife since their touring career commenced in 2001.
   Bandit Lites UK chief executive, Lester Cobrin comments: "It has been a pleasure to watch Westlife mature into an extremely talented group of performers over the last 10 years. It continues to be an honour to be part of their production team."
   The stunningly visual 2008 show was designed and directed by William Baker, who also designed the set, with the lighting design created by Baz Halpin. Halpin went for a very theatrical look with all the structures concealed, apart from a centre stage ‘W' shaped truss. Lighting fixtures were all carefully positioned on a series of angled trussing sections, some of which moved. This ensured that no gaps were left, and that light could be focussed from all angles right across the performance area for even and balanced coverage.Combined with a highly dynamic video and set design, colourful and provocative video content and the usual slick choreography for which Westlife is renowned, the show has been hailed as one of their best ever live extravaganzas.
   Starting upstage, there were six moving trusses, all suspended on two points each. Running on Bandit's own fully programmable Motor Data control system, which was operated by crew member, Rob Starksfield, each truss contained three Martin Professional MAC 2000 luminaires.
   Two diagonally running side trusses each contained eight Martin MAC 2000 Washes (and two moving video screens below). To the front edge of these was the ‘W' shaped truss, which apart from fulfilling a scenic function and continuing the ‘W' theme of the stage set, was rigged with 16 Martin MAC 2000 Spots. During the acoustic section of the set, the ‘W' truss was dropped in, and sat a couple of feet off the floor, providing an intimate backdrop to the band. This was on an IBEX Motor system controlled by tour rigger Mark Wade.
   At the front of stage was a 50ft curved truss with 13 Martin MAC 2000 Spots, and then three smaller downstage trusses, each with three 2000 washes for key lighting and a bit of ACL style ‘zappiness'.

   A rear spot truss contained four Lycian 1.2k followspots with long throw lenses, which created some fabulous, strong and very tight back-lit looks and some of the show's defining moments.
   The lamp count was rounded off with 16 Martin MAC 300s, which sat on the floor lighting the set and doing aerial effects, two Studio Due Space Flowers on the floor either side of stage, 6 bars of ACLs and 6 Coemar SuperCycs to light up the far upstage backdrop - a stripy design containing a subliminal ‘W'.
   Lighting director, Dave Lee - who has also worked on several Westlife tours - operated the show using a WholeHog II console, which Halpin programmed during six long nights at Litestructures in Wakefield. "Baz put a massive amount of detail and some real complex cueing into all the songs," states Lee. "It really makes the final results smooth, refined and with lots of subtleties.

"The service from Bandit has been excellent as you would expect," he continues. "The prep was completed to the usual high standards, the kit is in excellent condition and the crew is fantastic."
   Lee was joined on the tour by a strong crew from Bandit consisting of the legendary Johnny Harper, the aforementioned Rob Starksfield, Rick Butler, Jason Dixon and Joe Simpson.
   Westlife continues touring in May, culminating in a massive show at Croke Park Stadium in Dublin, before taking a break for a year.
   www.banditlites.com

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Bandit Supplies Westlife

18th April 2008

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