Bristol’s fabulous ‘Love Saves The Day’ Festival moved to the new, expanded location of Eastville Park this year dramatically increasing its capacity from the previous city centre site, a move that allowed 27,000 music and fans to enjoy a superlative line-up and weekend of music and entertainment graced with the blazing sunshine beneath blue skies.
Locally based lighting and visual specialist Fineline was once again at the forefront of providing some of the high production values for which this event is renowned – delivering lighting, video and rigging for the three main stages.
Fineline MD Rob Sangwell commented, “We were really excited to be involved again after supplying lighting and video to the main stage last year. It’s great to see the festival move forward and it was a huge pleasure collaborating with Production Manager Tom Paine and everyone from organisers Team Love”.
Production lighting and visuals designs for the three stages were created by Fineline’s Wingnut based on the headliner’s rider requirements and ensuring that there was a good general purpose lighting rig in place for all artists playing over the weekend.
Main Stage
This year the stage size was increased to a 15 metre Supernova structure from Serious from which the Fineline crew sub-hung three trusses loaded with a variety of lighting fixtures.
Twelve Robe Pointes positioned upstage were the main effects moving lights, rigged at staggered positions on four drop arms – 3 units per arm – for great in-the-face looks.
These rows of Pointes flanked three central columns of Lighthouse R7 LED screen. Also on this truss were six 2-lite Moles and four bars of ACLs.
Hung on the offstage edges of the mid truss were two further drops of LED screen. Having these over two trusses added some proper depth to the stage. Also on the mid truss were 12 x Robe LEDWashes for general stage coverage, plus another six 2-lites and four bars of ACLs … always a winner at festivals!
The front truss facilitated all the key and front lighting with four lamp PAR bars, six ETC Source Four profiles and – audience facing – six 8-lites.
For control, two Avolites Tiger Touch II consoles at FOH enabled multi-user set-up to facilitate simultaneous programming on two consoles by two different operators … which saved a lot of time. The main console also triggered the AI media server running video content, and the server was monitored – and tweaked when necessary - a by Stu using another Tiger Touch located onstage in the dimmer area.
Other control infrastructure included a ChamSys R8 ArtNet node for the networking and Avo FD dimming.
Some bands rocked up with their own LDs, leaving Wingnut to add his magic touch to all the artists without a dedicated operator. “The rig was designed with plenty of flexibility,” he comments, “So we certainly didn’t run out of ideas or looks, and also kept all the guest LDs happy”.
Stage Two
This was a single king pin 40 metre Big Top marquee, so a very well balanced front truss was installed with the help of substantial bridling to keep it stable. The truss was loaded with two bars of 6 PARs, four Robe 600E Spots and four 600E Washes.
Onstage, four 20cm trussing towers on floor bases provided the main lighting positions, two at 8ft high and two at 6ft high, and to give these a bit of idiosyncrasy … they were angled at 10 degrees.
Each tower was rigged with four Miltec LED PARs, a bar of ACLs, a 2-lite, an Atomic strobe and a Robe LEDBeam 100 on the top.
Fifteen panels of Lighthouse R7 LED screen were arranged in a large U-shape onstage, and for this stage, video content was supplied by Love Saves The Day.
For lighting control, the ever popular Tiger Touch – a ‘must-have’ festival control option - was run by Will Dale, who ensured that the mix of bands and DJs all received great looking shows.
Stage Four
This DJ stage was housed in another 40 metre single king pin marquee, for which Fineline rigged a 6 metre front truss that was identical to that in Stage Two, and also installed a large space ship set piece onstage, designed by the Love Saves The Day creative team, together with other scenic elements around the stage that transformed the tent into an intergalactic environment for the weekend.
The set was up-lit with Miltec LED battens, 10 x Robe LEDBeam 100s, four Atomic strobes along with 4-lite blinders scattered around the stage, up-lighting and blasting out into the crowd. The main design criteria for lighting in here was to make it vibrant, energised and dancey.
Control was a ChamSys MagicQ100 desk, dimming was Avo and the lighting was operated by James Box.
Joining Wingnut, Stu England and the Fineline operators mentioned above were Ben de Sousa and Rachael Mule, a highly organised crew who worked quickly and efficiently on site to help deliver the largest and most successful Love Saves The Day to date.
Photos supplied by Love Saves The Day