Andrews, and with a relatively short lead time of
only two days at the Coca Cola Dome, Gearhouse’s
man on the ground Robert Grobler, with Herman
Wessels, put together the grand plan of getting over
555 intelligent lighting fixtures into every corner of
the massive stage and AV setup. From under the
stage to behind the LED backdrop, to around the
screens and finally over the audience, a mass of
power and data cabling made its way backstage to
distros and processing.
20 Universes of DMX were distributed on a re-
dundant fibre network from a Grand MA2, with one
for backup. Flanking each side of the massive 21 m
wide by 6 m high LED backdrop, one of the features
was a matrix of 60 x Martin MAC 101 fixtures on
each side of the stage, amassed to create a wall
of light that literally blasted into the crowd or was
used with subtle pixel mapping effects.
The show had beams … a lot of them ... with
Robe Pointes and Clay Paky Sharpys all over the
‘set’. At the best of times it would be difficult to
compete with the sheer power of all these beams,
but truly inspiring programming from the Armin
crew brought out the best in the workhorse Martin
MAC Vipers and the trusty Martin Atomics, along
with most of the fixture shutters and irises, were
given a thorough work-out that evening.
After an hour of ‘warm up’ and then taking peo-
ple on a four hour journey incorporating live singing,
drum and guitar solos, trampoline artists and a huge
balloon drop, Armin surprised enchanted fans with
an hour long ‘old school’ set on vinyl (the rest of the
evening was played on CD), playing inside the front
of house area amongst the technical crew. Just as
he started this set, his entire crew descended on
the front of house area, (which was not exactly
spacious to begin with) and proceeded to dance
on the tables – to the delight of the throngs of fans
pushing against the crowd barriers.
The quality of equipment and the skills of Gear-
house and the men and woman behind the scenes,
illustrated the world class status of the technical
event industry in South Africa.
Lighting equipment list (excluding trussing, power, etc.):
72 x Martin MAC Viper profiles
67 x Martin Atomic strobes
120 x Martin MAC 101
23 x Varilite VL3000 spots
19 x Varilite VL3500 spots
54 x Robe Pointes
68 x Clay Paky Sharpys
96 x LED Force 18 RGBW LED Par cans
4 x BB4 LED wash light
24 x Molefay blinders
Images supplied by Electrosonic SA
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LiD
08-09/14
