The annual Car-Fest event in Samara, Russia, draws enthusiasts from all over the country for three days of everything car-related, from modern and classic auto shows to fast-paced motorsport competitions. This year’s also featured high octane open air concerts by famous DJs, where ETC’s Cobalt 20 desk was in the driver’s seat to control the lighting.
The Cobalt desk was designed to make busking in live concert environments a breeze. For Car-Fest, head lighting designer Evgeniy Toma used the desk to control a rig of moving lights, LED par cans, strobes and strip lights. Toma could program swiftly, thanks to Cobalt’s full colour master-playback displays, which show the current state of the masters and allow the ability to quickly switch from page to page.
One feature that Toma especially enjoyed is Cobalt’s ability for customisation. He assigned the desk’s nine independent control buttons to get instant access to the functions he used the most during the Car-Fest shows. And Toma was able to change the tab based workspace on the desk to fit the way he programs, making many functions accessible at the click of a button.
Cobalt is so easy to use that several novice lighting designers were able to step in during Car-Fest and do on-the-fly lighting control. One of them was Irina Kuzmina, who had never worked on an ETC desk before. Despite not being familiar with Cobalt, she was able to try out the desk and experiment with its capabilities without skipping a beat during the concert.
