This years South African Idols proved to be the biggest, finest and largest to date. Dream Sets for the seventh year supplied the full technical and created the set, while lighting designer Joshua Cutts from Visual Frontier did what he loves best on a grandMA2 full size, using over 7 000 parameters on the desk and running each fixture to its max. He also had the opportunity to use the Robe BMFLs for the first time and had an enormous Robe rig.
“This year the main difference in the show was in terms of it being held at the Pretoria State Theatres for the elimination rounds,” explained Cutts. “The final night was hosted at Carnival City. We wanted to make it different, not just by adding lights but also by changing the look and feel and by having a larger venue. The shows really have grown from strength to strength, also in terms of voting and auditor numbers.”
The State Theatre, obviously designed for live performances, added a theatrical element. “Carnival City, an arena, was intended for that type of show and it was great for rigging and awesome for staging. It made the stage feel grander and larger, it felt like a celebration,” said Cutts.
Carnival City recently took ownership of 48 Robe Robin Parfects and Cutts was impressed. “I used them to wash the audience and they were great, giving me the intense power and punch of a Robin 100 and perfect for colour mixing over the crowd.”
He also gave the Robe BMFL a good report. “Their main purposes was to texture the audience with patterns and I also used them as key lights for different presenter positions in the audience. The colour mix of CTO was great for camera.”
Cutts worked on a grandMA2 Full size with an 8 Port Node and 2 MA 4 Port Nodes. He used 16 universes of fixtures and 2 universes of media servers – these ran on Coolux.
A new adjustment included building all pryros, co2 jets and flame jets into the actual set, which was built by Dream Sets.
The Dream Sets team under the helm of Technical Manager, Eben Peltz, were fantastic especially on the final. “We were under huge pressure to get the biggest show in during the shortest time,” said Cutts. “The crew worked like machines and we achieved it with perfection. Eben was a trooper – he had just come out of hospital and was on site 12 hours a day like everyone else. Everyone was in good spirit.”
The show looked fantastic both on television and for the live audience. “Lots of beams, lots of lights and lots of fun, ” said Cutts. “It was great and I hope to do it again.”
Lighting Equipment:
1 grandMA2 Full Size
1 grandMA2 on PC
1 grandMA 4 Port Node
1 grandMA 8 Port Node
4 Robe BMFL
48 Robe Robin Parfect
30 Robe LEDBeam 100
8 Robe MMX
16 Robe LEDWash 800 RGBW
4 Robe LEDWash 600 RGBW
16 Robe ColorWash 2500
12 Robe ColorSpot 700
36 Clay Paky Sharpy
12 Beam Lights
6 Robe Pointes
12 Philips Nitro
24 Elation Cuepix Marix Panels running media on coolux