Parklife Weekender music festival took over Heaton Park in Manchester, UK on June 6 and 7. As they have since the festival's inception in 2010, dbn Lighting provided lighting for five out of the eight stages at the festival, including video equipment for two of those stages. Pete Robinson led the crew of 24 technicians, programmers, and operators who installed and designed the lighting.
Click through to the next page for more images and details on the stages. All photos are of the Main Stage.
Main Stage
Three weeks before the festival, the Main Stage was scaled up to a 24m high roof from Serious Stages in order to accommodate headliners, Disclosure and Rudimental. Both bands brought in their own lighting and video packages, and Disclosure requested that the house rig be gridded out so that they could rig their show underneath. Consequently, dbn kept its house lighting design straightforward.
dbn used various Clay Paky fixtures, including 12 Mythos units, four SuperSharpys, 16 Sharpy Washes, and 12 Stormy LED strobes. The lighting rig also called for 16 Robe ROBIN Pointes, Harman Martin Professional Atomic 3000 DMX strobes, and 2, 4, and 8-lite blinders.
After Disclosure's performance on Saturday, dbn and Rudimental advance crew rigged their production. Three circular trusses and an upstage projection screen were installed, with two projectors hanging on the front truss, which was clad with a scenic London railway bridge that was covered in graffiti art and CCTV cameras.
The daytime floor lighting package used for certain artists featured 12 Chroma-Q ColorForce 72 LED battens and six Patten 2013s, which were horizontally rigged together on upright trussing sections. An Avolites Pearl Expert Pro with Touch Wing was the house lighting console.
Chibuku 15th Anniversary/Kaluki
Stage two, or titled Chibuku 15th Anniversary on Saturday and Kaluki on Sunday, was a 54x74m six king pole big top. Cantilevered out from the front of the stage, a four-legged ground support system provided all lighting positions and rigging points for the two main PA hangs.
Inspired by headliner Fatboy Slim's lighting scheme, the design for the stage included plentiful Clay Paky fixtures: eight Mythos, four Alpha Spot HPE 700s, 16 Sharpys, and 16 Alpha Wash 575s. Also positioned in the rig were 16 Harman Martin Professional Atomic 3000 DMX strobes and 4 Chroma-Q ColorForce 12s as audience blinders as well as 2 and 4-lite Moles. The overhead lights were arranged across six finger trusses.
Nick Buckley and Paul Sheard ran the lighting control via an Avolites Pearl Expert Pro. Pete Robinson handled the truss layout and fixture placement.
dbn also supplied LED screen with 45 square meters of their standard 12.5 mm E-Star product configured in one big block.
Now Wave/Drop The Mustard
Labeled as Now Wave on Saturday of the festival and Drop The Mustard on Sunday, Stage three was a 48x70m big top with six king poles. Positioned at the stage end was a six-legged ground supported box truss structure that went over the stage and PA wings.
At the back of the stage were three trusses hung underneath each other. Planned by Stephen Barnett was a lighting rig, which comprised Clay Paky fixtures—16 Alpha Spot QWO 800s, 16 Alpha Wash 700s, and 12 A.leda Wash K10s fitted with B-eye lenses—as well as 20 Showtec Sunstrip Active DMX units, eight Harman Martin Professional Atomic 3000 DMX strobes, and 28 Showtec Spectral Zoom PARs.
Barnett spent several weeks pre-programming on an Avolites Tiger Touch II with playback wing. Chris Phillips of dbn also operated the lighting control for the stage.
G Stage
Stage five, also known as G Stage, was a tri-span structure. Three SaddleSpan structures were arranged in a cluster with the three mouths facing each other. In the middle, dbn rigged a ground supported circular truss for front lighting positions. A straight truss hung in each of the three stages' mouths.
Clay Paky fixtures were once again used heavily: 16 Alpha Spot HPE 300s, eight Alpha Beam 300s, and eight Alpha Wash 300s. Rigged vertically across the back of the stage were 12 Harman Martin Professional Atomic 3000 DMX strobes and ten five-way Chroma-Q Color Block DB4 battens.
Paul Crompton controlled the lighting via an Avolites Quartz console.
The Colonnade
Stage six, or the Colonnade, featured a custom Serious Stages structure with an 8m wide playing space with 4m of headroom before the arched roof.
The lighting design included 12 Harman Martin Professional MAC 250 Entours and six Atomic 3000 DMX strobes as well as eight Clay Paky Alpha Wash 575s. Six Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700s were positioned on each of the two PA delay tower structures.
Behind the stage on a scaffolding structure were rigged 30 Chauvet Professional Nexus 4x4 panels, 12 Showtec Sunstrip Active DMX units, and six Martin Professional Atomic 3000 DMX strobes.
Lighting control was via an Avolites Pearl Expert Pro. Anthony Owen mapped the Nexus panels and Sunstrips.
A ground-stacked 9mm LED video wall was positioned as one unit at the back with a smaller section of the screen on the front of the DJ booth.
Other Stages
All stages that dbn supplied gear were also equipped with Martin Professional Jem ZR44 and ZR33 smoke generators, Reel EFX DF-50 diffusion foggers, and Look Solutions' Unique hazers.
Boutique stages, including The Smallest Club In The World, which was housed in a garden shed, and the Africa Stage, were supplied with effects lighting. The lighting scheme for Africa Stage included disco effects and LED PARs.