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| Pete Hosier of Big Ant Productions, recently completed a suitably insane UK tour with Madness while operating an Avolites D4 Vision. The tour lasted a two month stretch over the winter season, bringing an end to a year which marked the bands incredible 30th anniversary. The tour took place at a mixture of Arenas throughout England and Ireland, culminating in Edinburgh on New Years Eve. | |||
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| No single two arenas were ever the same, which
kept lighting designer Hosier on his tippy toes. Pete explained how the design
changed daily, while crew aimed to keep a consistent look; ‘We put virtually the same rig in Southend cliffs pavilion as we did the o2 in London, That kind of sums up our daily challenges.’ The versatile Diamond 4 Vision allowed Hosier to compensate for the shifting venues and changing configurations of each rig. |
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| The show consisted of five main elements; the
lighting rig, video screens, LED backdrop and, of course, the backline and
artists. Pete commented that this meant it was a daily battle to figure out the
best possible configuration to maintain the shows finely tuned performance.
However, advanced forward planning from the crew meant all the logistics were
almost effortlessly pulled together. The video screens from XL Video were one of the main elements given as a brief. Made up of F30 panels in various shapes and sizes, it was clear that the screen was hugely important to the Artist. Therefore, the design had to incorporate this and compliment, rather than detract, from the act. |
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| Truss numbers, loads and trims were different
on most days. Lights, supplied by NEG Earth, were normally rigged to consist of
three 50’ trusses. The upstage was very bare with just 6 robe 1200s, and the
downstage truss held the wash lights, key lights and crowd blinders. It was all
very clean in the air so the main look was all on the floor where there were 8
manfrottos with two bb7s on each and a sunstrip as well . These all sat upstage
behind the screen. With various floor specials underneath the perspex risers -
atomics, mirror balls and dry ice all added to the fun. Suggs and co. have since announced a whole slew of Spring/Summer dates for 2010 for their European fans, which is not to be missed. Madness Madness are a British pop/ska band from Camden Town, London. Formed in 1976, the band celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2009 and have continued to perform with all seven members. Madness achieved most of their success in the early to mid 1980s. Madness spent 214 weeks on the UK singles charts over the course of the decade, holding the record for most weeks spent by a group in the 1980s UK singles charts. |
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Date of issue : 9th March 2010
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