Splashy Fen 2018 offered festival goers five stages, with an impressive line-up of both international and local artists performing over the four-day-long programme. The main stage, which offers an outdoor rig covered by a tent structure, offers professional-level sound and lighting that complies with the majority of international riders. “We have used d&b for sound on the main stage as it is listed on most international riders. We try to keep the bands that are booked for the main stage as happy as possible,” states Nadeem Moosa, managing director of Sounds Ideal. For the smaller stages, Sounds Ideal has ensured to cater to the specific needs of the artists and audience involved. “We decided to go with a NEXO Alpha system for the electric dance stage because the brand has been specifically manufactured around the EDM market,” Moosa explains.
The River Stage, situated in the heart of the natural amphitheatre on the river bend, and the site of the first festival, makes for a spectacular day-time setting, with thousands of young people taking advantage of the swiftly flowing river on water tubes to the beat of both local and international artists. This year, the River Stage was sponsored by Corona, who used the event to publicise their environmentally friendly bottling methods. “Corona has launched a campaign around cleaning up our oceans, which emphasises the importance of keeping our rivers clean as the first step in preventing pollution on the coast. There is no better place to get the message across than on the unspoiled banks of the Mzimkhulu River,” Berry explains. The natural acoustics of the space ensures wonderful distribution of sound, using another NEXO Alpha system, without being overpowering – making for a perfect family-friendly day in the great outdoors.
My personal favourite and the best representation of the spirit of the festival is captured by the simple but breathtakingly beautiful Tree House Stage. Custom designed by local artist Kim Goodwin using an intricate nest of woven wattle, and beautifully lit using Chauvet Professional Professional fixtures; the Tree House Stage provides a space for new and emerging talent to perform in a more intimate setting. “In my experience, young artists need the opportunity to cut their teeth by playing for smaller crowds in more intimate environments. The Tree House Stage is all about providing a platform for emerging talent to gain the experience they need,” states Berry.
Professional entertainment lighting for Splashy Fen comes with an interesting set of challenges for Moosa and his team. Extreme weather condition – with warm days, cold nights and intermittent downpours – making a reliable lightshow a tough ask. In response, Moosa has invested in an impressive array of Chauvet Professional lighting fixtures from local distributor Audiosure to provide a high-quality, flexible and robust lighting solution for the festival.
“In the past, I have not been overly enthusiastic about investing in professional lighting fixtures. Lighting requires enormous capital investment and LED technology is developing at such a rapid pace that there is a risk that stock will become redundant before you get a return on your investment,” states Moosa. “However, the Chauvet Professional range of professional lighting has answered many of these challenges.
“With Chauvet Professional, we are able to deliver a professional lightshow that is ideally suited to the festival environment, but remains affordable and easy to maintain,” he states. “Audiosure provide onsite support and local servicing of Chauvet Professional fixtures, providing us with complete peace of mind. If a fixture fails or we have a challenge onsite, the team from Audiosure will come to us, even when we are in the middle of a farm in the Underberg, to make sure that everything runs perfectly come show time,” Moosa says of the local supplier.
Lighting design and operation for Splashy Fen were provided by emerging talent Shaniel Laloo, who has developed a close working relationship with Sounds Ideal over the years. The main stage lighting rig featured Maverick MK2 spots, a bright moving yoke spot featuring a 440 W LED engine and precision engineered optics with exceptional colour mixing capabilities. For washes, Laloo used the Maverick MK2 Wash and Rogue R2 Wash. Taking advantage of both the even output and virtual gobo wheels available on these fixtures, Laloo showed off the versatility of Chauvet Professional’s fixtures, adding atmosphere and mood on stage. The Legend SR 230 beams demonstrated their worth by providing sharp beams and stunning aerial effects throughout the show. Laloo added an array of Strike 4 Blinders to the rig, which he used to great effect over the crowd.
According to Laloo, a major highlight of this years’ festival was the opportunity to use a Chamsys MQ 500 lighting console, provided by The Production Warehouse, to programme the show. “This was my first opportunity to work on the Chamsys MQ 500 for a live event. The console not only met but exceeded my expectations. The Chamsys MQ 500 is amazing for on-the-fly editing and is therefore ideal for the festival environment – where you need to be highly flexible,” Laloo explains.
According to Chamsys international business development manager Aziz Adikhodjaev, the Chamsys range is designed by lighting designers, for lighting designers – making the console responsive to the needs of the market. “All of our developers either were or are still involved in lighting design for shows. This allows us to test the console in real life scenarios and get feedback from those who use the technology on a daily basis.”
Adikhodjaev points out that the Chamsys range is particularly well suited to developing economies because the cost of ownership is something that the company keeps in mind when developing its products. “The MagicQ software that drives all Chamsys consoles delivers up to 200 universes directly from a single console, making the desk extremely flexible. In addition, MagicQ software comes with a free 3D visualiser, MagicVisTM and a free Media HD player, MagicHDTM. All applications run natively on PC, Mac and Linux. MagicQ offers 64 universes via ArtNet free of charge, which allows small to medium size companies the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the software before buying a physical console. Also, MagicQ software doesn’t require any external processing units to run a lot of universes, which reduces costs,” Adikhodjaev explains.
