South African Gig Lit Up By Gearhouse

A well known broadcast logistics supplier, Gearhouse South Africa, has been supplying lighting, sound, video, staging and power for the prestigious 2009 Coca Cola Zero festival.
It was staged on two sites in two cities - Riversands Farm in Johannesburg and Lourensford Wine Estate, Cape Town.
The event was headlined by Oasis along with Northern Ireland band, Snow Patrol, (pictured) and also featured Panic at The Disco plus 6 Africa-based bands - The Dirty Skirts, Zebra & Giraffe, Casette, Foto na dans, aKing and One Day Remains.
Gearhouse Media and Lighting divisions utilised the latest version of the Green Hippo Hippotizer HD digital media server for the first time.
The overall production design included a series of onstage LED screens, which, combined with the content run through the Hippotizer - were used to provide a strong visual backdrop and highly effective eye-candy for the daylight section of the performance.
This included the five opening acts at each venue, and part of Panic at The Disco's set.
Supplied by Gearhouse's sister company LEDVision, the centre stage screen comprised 6 x 6 panels of Lighthouse R16 LED, flanked by two columns of 2 x 6 panels.
This was augmented by two 6 x 6 panel side screens for the IMAG mix. EventCam provided 7 cameras, two of which were locked off backstage.
The Hippotizer was run by Gearhouse Media's Chris Grandin via a grandMA full size lighting console, and used for the first 6 bands of the day, concluding with Panic at the Disco. Headliners Snow Patrol and Oasis both of had their own self contained shows.
Grandin also operated a Barco Encore multi-screen control system, allowing any source - including the Hippo, other media servers and the camera feeds - to be output to any destination.
"I set the Hippotizer up to run in busking mode," he explained.
"I had no set lists and there were no rehearsals, so it was a highly improvised show!"
Each layer on the Hippo has two effect engines, which allowed him to use a huge variety of effects - colour sparkles, neon bumps, altering the hue, saturation and brightness, etc, which he used to flip content to black and white or negative.
He used a combination of Hippo library footage and specially created clips.
Gearhouse's StageCo roof system was utilised for both shows, and the lighting and sound rigs were also trucked from Johannesburg to Cape Town for the show there two days later.
The rig contained 85 Martin Professional MAC 2K moving lights - a combination of Spot and Wash fixtures, along with 26 High End Cyberlights, adding a slightly vintage feel to the stage, together with 32 Atomic strobes and four new MDG smoke machines.
Generic lighting included a healthy mix of PARs and ACLs, with 28 i-Pix BB4 LED blinders, and 24 i-Pix Satellite LED ‘bricks’ used for truss toning.
Gearhouse supplied another grandMA full size console to run lights for the local bands and Panic at The Disco.
Oasis and Snow Patrol both bought their own control systems – each featuring three Hog 3s.
Snow Patrol's show was run by their LD Davy Sherwin and live visuals director Robin Haddow.
This is the 4th year that GHSA has supplied the Coca Cola Festival for promoters Big Concerts.
The company's ability to deliver all technical production aspects required in a cost efficient and efficiently organised package once again illustrates the advantages of a multi-disciplinary business.
(BMcC/JM)