Avolites delivers eclectic mix of lighting and video at Glastonbury 2016 posted: 28/07/2016
Avolites lighting consoles, dimmers and media servers have once again delivered robust, festival-proof performance to astounding shows across Glastonburys vast and varied musical programme.
For nearly 40 years, Avolites equipment has been found surviving the mud in each corner of the Worthy Farm takeover. This year the British manufacturers consoles and media servers were not only used on the main stages such as the Pyramid, which was also powered by Avolites ART2000 dimmers, the Other, John Peel, West Holts and the Acoustic Stage but also Arcadia Spectacular and The Temple immersive dance environments, and afterhours areas such as the Unfairground art field.
Lighting designer Andrew Liddle, whose recent portfolio includes OMD, The Charlatans and La Roux, has been working with Avolites consoles for the past 35 years. Like Avolites, Liddle is a Glastonbury stalwart, hitting the festival for the 16th year running - this time with indie dance legends New Order. With a performance of atmospheric magic that impressed NME magazine, the Manchester-born group took to the Other Stage in support of their latest album Music Complete.
Liddle augmented the Other Stages house rig with 24 x Clay Paky Sharpys, 4 x Martin Professional MAC Vipers and 6 x ETC Source 4s, controlling the set up with an Avolites Arena, supplied by technical event production house Hawthorn.
New Order Stage
Lighting designer Andrew Liddle
Ive been an Avolites user since 1996 and began using Titan in 2010, explains Liddle. Ive always liked how easy the desks are to use, plus the patching and palette creation they offer. They are also intuitive and fast to programme, which is ideal for the festival setting.
Performing on the John Peel stage was Brightons DJ legend Fat Boy Slim, with long-time lighting designer Stephen Abbiss creating the ultimate rave atmosphere for the raucous crowd that packed the tent. Abbiss transferred the show file from his own powerful Titan Mobile, which he uses for some of his biggest shows, to a Tiger Touch II running Titan v10.
Fat Boy Slim
Fat Boy Slim
Ive been using Avolites consoles since they only had one wheel, says Abbiss. Theyre always my desk of choice as theyre so familiar to me now and my fingers like the fader spacing! I think Titan v10 has some good new features - window resizing is very helpful as is the Undo option.
Also on the John Peel Stage, Tom Campbell of TC Lighting Design was operating a Tiger Touch II to control his design for John Grant; whose performance received a great review from The Guardian despite the American singer-songwriter suffering from flu.
Campbell, who is also currently out on tour with Welsh rockers Bullet For My Valentine, has been using Avolites for a decade: I have always been a big fan of the speed and ease of programming on Avolites consoles - its incredibly useful, he says.
As John Grant captivated the audience with his heart-wrenching back catalogue, Campbell complemented the performance with a series of retro-esque lighting looks, cleverly using LED technology disguised as classic tungsten fixtures. His design is also based around a rear analog video wall, constructed using eight rear set pieces made out of metal gauze, ranging in height from 12ft - 20ft, depending on the venue. These are used to create a range of spectacular three-dimensional visual looks for the band to perform in, which Campbell triggers from the Tiger Touch II.
Moving across to the West Holts Stage, lighting designer John Rogers chose a compact yet powerful Avolites Quartz console to control his design for soulful funk group Quantic All Stars.
The compact design of the Quartz makes it really festival friendly, says Rogers. However its small size is deceiving - one of the house techs of the West Holts Stage was really impressed that such a compact desk could take 15 universes in its stride. It definitely made a good impression.
I was also using the new Titan v10, which Im really impressed with. The expanded import feature gives you the ability to map the same source fixture to as many fixtures as you like. This makes rig expansion and show reusability a lot better. I already own Capture so importing theatres for visualisation will be a nice way to bring my show together more. There are also great improvements to existing functionality, such as Key Frame Shapes. Ive always liked the immediacy of Avolites software features. Plus, the user interface elements always strike me as carefully implemented.
Also important to Rogers was the ability to transition his original show file over to the Quartz from a Tiger Touch II running version 9.
This show started life as a festival house desk show, so being able to bring that programming across consoles and software versions was vital, he continues. Without it I probably would have just busked the house desk at Glastonbury.
Rogers festival tour design for the Quantic All Stars is energetic and bold, utilising Robe Pointes striking beam and prism looks to create a strong party vibe that runs through the set.
Block 9
The looks have to be big and bouncing, like a carnival in the sun, even if youre in a muddy field in the pouring rain. And this year was particularly muddy, he laughs. However we had a great show and it was lovely to see some familiar faces around the festival. Big thanks to Greg Haynes for helping me get the Quartz up to the top of the slippery FOH tower and generally being excellent.
Another seasoned Avolites user, lighting designer Ken Coker operated a Sapphire Touch - the Acoustic Stages house desk supplied by Rob Sangwell at Fineline Lighting - for Barclay James Harvest. Interestingly, the progressive rock group were the first band to take Avolites original equipment on tour in the 1980s.
PJ Harvey
I have been using
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Avolites delivers eclectic mix of lighting and video at Glastonbury 2016 posted: 28/07/2016 
