More than 17,000 people flocked to Devon's Somersault Festival in July for a five-day musical extravaganza. Fineline provided lighting for four main music performance areas at the festival, including the 15m wide Main Stage.
The production lighting rig was designed by Fineline's Stuart England, and based around the requirements of the various headliners, an eclectic and interesting line up of Bombay Bicycle Club, Laura Marlin and The Staves. "The house lighting desk was an Avolites Sapphire Touch and all the dimming was Avolites," says England.
At Cornwall's Eden Project, Fineline provided the production lighting for the 2015 Eden Sessions - seven high profile concerts with a diverse line up including Elton John, Paolo Nutini, Paloma Faith, Motorhead, The Stranglers, Spandau Ballet and Ben Howard.
With a team led by Fineline's Rob Sangwell, another Avolites Sapphire Touch was used as the house console, with all Avolites dimming and DMX buffering.
During the Glastonbury Festival, Fineline Lighting, which has been closely involved with Glastonbury over the last 24 years, supplied lighting equipment including a wealth of Avolites consoles and dimming racks for the Acoustic, Astrolabe Theatre, Cabaret and Circus venues, as well as Silver Hayes' Wow Stage.
Designed by Sangwell and England, the Acoustic stage featured performers such as The Proclaimers and the Moody Blues, with control coming from an Avolites Tiger Touch II plus wing, and ART2000 dimmers powering the generics.
The Astrolabe Theatre featured a line-up of performers spanning dance and physical theatre. Lighting was handled by Hal Himsworth, with a Pearl Expert Pro providing control, plus ART2000 dimming throughout. Dimmers were also used in the Cabaret tent with Wingnut controlling lighting.
Heading overseas, Fineline also specified Avolites Sapphire Touch consoles for Croatia's Dimensions Festival. "This was a no-brainer," says England. "With the need to control lighting, video and LED more was better - the number of faders allowed for more options and easy control of it all in a busking situation. The desks were set up in multi-user mode allowing LD Nic Ayres control off the entire rig and Will Dale to manage the LED and Video from a tech point and also back up."
Also in Croatia, Fineline supplied the Outlook Festival with yet more Avolites equipment. Two Sapphire Touch consoles running in multi user/backup mode controlled 48 ways of Avolites dimming, an EX4 media server and 48 moving lights using Avolites DMX buffers. 60m2 of video was spread across the stage hung in multiple columns of various sizes.
(Jim Evans)
