Lighting designer André Beekmans of Eindhoven-based lighting design house The Art of Light created the extraordinary lighting concept for the two-day event, which saw a line-up of some of the biggest electronic dance music (EDM) artists of the moment including Armin van Buuren and David Guetta.
Ampco Flashlight supplied the Clay Paky kit, comprising 108 Sharpys, 15 Mythos, 96 Sharpy Wash 330, 93 Stormy CC and 15 Mythos. The festival took place in the vast Amsterdam Arena and was attended by thousands of revellers from around the world.
"We were honoured to be able to use the Stormy CC on such a large scale," says Beekmans. "We employed them to deliver vibrant strobing in a huge range of colours. I was really impressed with its brightness and am delighted there is finally a proper LED strobe with RGBW output."
The Stormy CC's strip of powerful RGBW LEDs perfectly emulates a bright Xenon lamp but can flash in any colour, mitigating the need for gels that dramatically reduce the amount of light.
"There were several factors we needed to consider when creating the lighting design for AMF," says Beekmans. "We wanted to deliver an intimate club atmosphere that disguised the sheer size of the arena and would also work for the live stream and filming."
As a solution, Beekmans and his team decided to immerse the crowd in light by rigging the fixtures around the entire dance area. This meant the arena seating was hidden and there were dynamic light effects in every camera shot.
"To create the beam effects on the dancefloor we used the Sharpy, whilst in each corner of the stadium we had a matrix of Sharpy Wash 330s. These were ideal because of their small size yet fantastic brightness. We used the Mythos as a special behind the stage, delivering the bigger, bolder effects. They were perfect for such a large-scale production."
(Jim Evans)
