UK based creative lighting and rental company Colour Sound Experiment kicked off a potentially record breaking summer festival season run by supplying lighting equipment and crew to 4 major festivals last weekend - Rockness in Inverness, the re-launched Glade in Norfolk, "Get Loaded In The Park" in Clapham, London, plus the VIP areas at the Isle of Wight Festival.
Some of Colour Sound's latest purchase of 32 x GLP Spot One LED moving lights from A.C. Entertainment Technologies also had their first outing at Rockness.
Rockness
Colour Sound produced a production lighting design for the main stage of this popular event staged on the picturesque shores of Scotland's most famous Loch, which was based on the spec's of the three headline acts - Kasabian (LD Nick Gray), The Chemical Brothers (LD Paul Normandale) and Paolo Nutini (LD Jason Hyne). All three also bought in their own specials packages, of which Nutini's was also supplied by Colour Sound.
This is the second year that Colour Sound has supplied Rockness, which is renowned for its fabulous warmth and atmospheric vibes - whatever the weather!
Chris Steel looked after everything FOH on the main stage while Phil Lee kept it running smoothly and efficiently at the stage end, their tight teamwork ensuring that all the various LDs were happy.
Kit supplied for the main stage included 32 x GLP Impression Zoom 120 RZ LED wash lights, used for general stage coverage, 20 x Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500s, for strong back lighting and beam effects, together with 16 Martin Professional MAC 250 Beams and a selection of Atomic strobes, Molefeys and generics, all run from a Chamsys MagicQ 300 console.
Paolo Nutini's specials comprised GLP Impression Zoom 120 RZs, CP Alpha Spot 1500 HPEs, a splattering of 2-lite Moles and a Chamsys MQ200 desk.
Over on the Goldenvoice second stage, Colour Sound's Richard Gilson enjoyed an eclectic mix of hi-energy performances from Groove Armada's 'Red Light' DJ set, Mark Ronson's DJ set, DJ Shadow, Herve, Disco Glimmers, The Cribs, Bombay Bicycle Club and many more.
Colour Sound supplied a 6-legged trussing ground support system for this large tent to facilitate all the lighting positions and fly the main PA arrays. Moving lights included 12 of the new GLP Impression Spot Ones and 12 x Robe ColorWash 575E ATs, plus Sunstrips, strobes and a selection of generics. Lighting was run by Gilson on an Avo Pearl Expert.
The Glade
One of the UK's all time favourite boutique dance and electronic-orientated festivals made a hugely successful comeback "stripped back to its shiny grass roots", set in the beautiful and historically landscaped environment of Houghton Hall near Kings Lynn in Norfolk.
Colour Sound's association with The Glade dates back to the very first event in 2004, and the crew have always clamoured to work on it because of the great ambience and cutting edge music.
This year Colour Sound supplied about 10 smaller areas with a wide selection of equipment, including Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 575 moving lights, Robe 575 XT Scans and High End Trackspots. Colour Sound has a lovingly preserved quantity of these high quality antique moving mirror units that have arguably never been surpassed for certain applications - including in intimate spaces needing high impact dance-tastic lighting!
Also making up the rigs at Glade were a heterogeneity of generics, sunstrips, PARs, LED PARs, plus GLP Impression 90 LED moving lights and numerous discos effects.
The pool of small lighting desks included Avo Pearl Tigers and Martin 25-18 disco controllers, the latter a well used item in Colour Sound's inventory and absolutely perfect for this!
Crew chief was Kester McLure, and he was working alongside Toby Lovegrove, Stuart Barr and Summee Holloway, Stuart Wood & Sam Akinwale. Lighting design was by Steve Marley.
Get Loaded in The Park
Back in London, Colour Sound supplied lighting production for all 3 stages at this brand new urban festival on Clapham Common, which provided a stunning downtown environment for 2 days of action packed live music and entertainment
Colour Sound's Steve Marley created the main stage production design for this outdoor stage, which was a Serious Supernova roof. The days were headlined by INXS and Razorlight respectively - both completely sold out.
Design wise, again the criteria was to accommodate the requirements of the 2 headliners, so the main stage featured 22 x GLP Impression Zoom 120 RZs and Martin Professional MAC 2Ks along with Atomic strobes, Jarags, 50 square metres of 37mm pitch LED screen and generics, with an Avo Pearl Expert for control.
Over on Stage 2, the Gigwise Arena, more Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 575s were installed, together with strobes and generics, all looked after by Jasper Johns, and on Stage 3, the Last.fm Arena, some more Trackspots were in action along with a dynamic mix of disco effects.
Get Loaded's promoter is a regular Colour Sound client, and they supply lighting for many raves and dance events at Brixton Academy as well as the SW4 festival - also on Clapham Common - during the August Bank holiday weekend.
Isle of Wight Festival VIPs
Working for production company LarMac LIVE, Colour Sound provided lighting for the Absolute Radio and Solo (promoters) VIP areas which were designed by LarMac LIVE's Jo MacKay.
Lighting included several hundred metres of LED festoon lighting, i-Pix satellites, LED PARs and outdoor PARs with a Pearl Tiger for control, run by Jen Webber.
Underworld
As if all that were not enough - and this is by no means Colour Sound's busiest weekend of the summer - company owner and founder Haydn Cruickshank was LD'ing one of his regular bands, Underworld, who played the Bitterfield, Sputnik Springbreak Festival in Germany.
He took a 108 square metres of Chroma-Q Color Web 250, PixelLine LED battens and a Hog 3 console... which left the warehouse almost completely bare apart from the dust ....... and a good reason for a thorough spring clean!
For more information on Colour Sound Experiment, please call Louise Stickland on +44 7831 329888/+44 1865 202679 or Email [email protected] To contact Colour Sound direct, please call +44 208 965 9119.