13th Huisgenoot-Skouspel

06 November 2012

  The 13th Huisgenoot-Skouspel was hosted at Sun City’s Superbowl on the 6, 7, 13 and 14 October 2012. The show, which has been described as the largest Afrikaans music performance of the year, saw a collaboration of 60 artists performing 80 songs in a three hour period.    

Gearhouse Splitbeam provided the lighting gear which was a mostly Philips Vari-Lite rig with grandMA2 in control. For the sixth year, Joshua Cutts from Visual Frontier was the lighting designer and was assisted by Marcel Wijnberger from Gearhouse who stepped in as the MA Systems Technician and Travis Yeatman who assisted with the Lighting Design and implemented the crew. Michael Gill was responsible for the set design, and Southern Lighting for the television lighting of the show which is broadcast for television and for the production of a music dvd.

  “The lighting style was very different this year,” commented Johsua Cutts. “It was not very rock and roll and had no effects, but was instead beautiful lighting to wash over the stage.” The lighting was kept clean, with very little movement, while the media server took centre stage.   “One of the key aspects of the show was that the whole MA System was triggered by SMPTE time code operated by the musical director by using Pro Tools,” said Cutts. “It ran flawlessly. I find the MA VPU amazing, it responds more like a lighting fixture and the response time to video clips was fast and manipulation of colour simple.”     Marcel Wijnberger loves the live aspect of a show and how everything eventually all works in symphony. He explains that the show ran off three MA VPU Servers, one of them running to the OB van. “We had two optic fibre lines, one as back up and one as the main VPU. Video clips were edited to fit pixel perfect onto LED. We had the Command Wing for full tracking backup with the lighting console.”    

On the lighting side, the main performers were 16 x Philips Vari-Lite VL 3000 Spots, 8 x Philips Vari-Lite VL 3500 Spots, 24 Philips Vari-Lite VLXs, 12 x Robin 300 Spots, 6 x Robe CitySkape 48s and haze and atmosphere created by a MDG Atmosphere and two Le Maitre MVS Hazers. Six lasers, provided by LaserX, were also used in the show.

  “The Philips Vari-Lites worked very well and were very bright,” commented Cutts. “The crisp beams that provided the punch and the zoom on a Vari-Lite always impresses me. You get a sized gobo without losing impact or focus.”    

Skouspel, with this year’s theme “Nostalgia”, played to full houses. Popular performers, to mention a few, included Chris Chameleon, Manie Jackson, Kurt Darren, Gerhard Steyn, Snotkop, Karen Zoid, Laurika Rauch, Flooze and many others. The host of the show was Lizz Meiring and Riaan Cruywagen.

  Lighting Equipment:  

8          x          Philips Vari-Lite VL 3500 Spots

16        x          Philips Vari-Lite VL 3000 Spots

24        x          Philips Vari-Lite VLX

16        x          Philips Selecon SPX Profiles

12        x          Robin 300 Spots

6          x          Robe CitySkape 48

60        x          Tri-Tour

60        x          Longman LED cans

18        x          5K Fresnels

24        x          2K Fresnels

72        x          Par 64 Parcans

12        x          Atomic 300 Strobes

3          x          Robert Juliat Spots

2          x          Super Trouper Followspots

2          x          MVS Hazers

1          x          MDG Atmosphere

6          x          Lasers

60        x          LED Stage Bars

1          x          grandMA2 Light

1          x          grandMA2 on PC Command Wing

1          x          grandMA2 Fader Wing

1          x          NPU

3          x          VPU

1          x          Video Processing Unit

8          x          LSC MDR 10 Way Rack Splitters

                        Fibre Optic Network for System