UK – TSL Lighting’s major spring investment in lighting fixtures and consoles has resulted in a busy summer festival season, with the new kit being used at Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds and the biggest European festival stages.
A recent delivery of grandMA3 full-size and light consoles meant that no-compromise control could be supplied for British DJ and production duo CamelPhat at Reading & Leeds festivals at the end of August.
“The MA3 is a new investment for us but one which we’re sure will become a real workhorse for the future,” says TSL Senior Project Manager, James Davies. “We’ve set up our systems and networking infrastructure so that our lighting designers and operators can get used to the new control surfaces ready for the launch of the version 3 software. The Reading & Leeds shows looked great. Designer Sam Tozer and Operator Patrick Krause did a fantastic job, as always.”
TSL recently doubled their stock of Martin VDO Sceptron 10 units, which were put to good use by lighting designer Matt Kemp to create a fantastic floor package for Jorja Smith’s 2019 Festival Tour, supplementing an eye-catching rig of MAC Viper Profiles and SGM Q-7s. The Sceptron units were also used on Clean Bandit’s Summer Festival Tour for lighting designer Liam Griffiths. For both packages, TSL also designed, built and supplied custom frames and rolling skids to enable the rigs to move on and off the stage seamlessly.
July saw an increase in TSL’s stock of Chroma-Q Colorforce II 12 and 48 LED battens, improving the flexibility of its existing Colorforce II systems and increasing the total inventory to more than 150m of total length. These were flight-cased and straight out on a huge number of shows over the summer.
Also new to TSL stock is the GLP JDC1 Hybrid Strobe, which combines a traditional single tube strobe element with a surrounding full face of RGB LED power.
“Both elements of the JDC1 have independent control and can be used as separate pieces or combined for stunning effects,” Davies continues. “Both the tube and the full face sections can be run continuously for high output blinder and wash light effects, which never reduce output or have thermal cut outs.”
The JDC1’s first outing was on one of the three shows TSL supplied at Glastonbury - Sigrid for lighting designer Ben Mansfield: ‘’We’ve been utilising TSL’s brand new GLP JDC1 fixtures for Sigrid on a system that’s been designed to be freighted and incredibly easy to set up and roll on at festivals, while delivering a punchy and broadcast-friendly look. We expanded this set up for Glastonbury, where Sigrid was performing the sunset slot on The Other Stage, adding 30 JDC1s to frame the stage and the bands risers. Using TSL is peace of mind for us, we know we are going to get great service and high-quality equipment.’’
Davies adds: “There was a large amount of pre-prep time spent on this to make sure the cabling was dressed correctly and neat enough for something being filmed in HD for TV. The JDC1s looked fantastic both on-site and on TV, and really cut through the daylight during the early evening slot.”
The lighting fixtures and control kit were delivered to the festivals in TSL’s new 45’ trailer, which is the company’s largest-ever branded truck. “We’re very proud of our eye-catching new trailer, and our expanding inventory of top-notch kit,” says MD Sam Tamplin. “Investment is at the core of TSL, as we continue to respond to new technology and customer demand to meet the need of the industry. TSL is going from strength to strength and I’d like to thank everyone involved in making summer 2019 one of our busiest and most diverse yet.”