It was the second year of this boutique festival staged by Lost Ventures with site and production management co-ordinated by Andy George, Jay Jameson and Ben Atkins with whom dbn enjoys a creative synergy. dbn's Nick Buckley project-managed for them, commenting, "A huge increase in production values this year underlined Andy, Jay and Ben's commitment to the event, and making it among the best alternative festivals of the UK season."
Staged in the beautiful Lincolnshire countryside in a low key location, replete with pastures, woodland, a small lake and a properly magical feel, the event presented dance music, activities and positive vibes in a vibrant and fun environment.
This year's Lost Village also upped its game with Fatboy Slim playing Friday night on the main stage, a host of other live acts and DJ's appearing across the three days, the massive investment in production and an increased audience capacity.
For the Main Stage, G2 built one of their striking structures in a small meadow, which featured a lighting and video production design by Nick Buckley to maximise the elegant architecture of the roof system.
The installed trussing included two V-shapes either side (stage left and right) with the middle and lower elements attached to ground support towers, and a three-quarter circle truss curving around the full over-stage area and going out above the audience. Another two dbn trusses were used to fly Audile's PA arrays.
The LED elements of the set were designed to extend the stage sideways with three horizontal strips of dbn's proprietary 12.5mm Eastar LED. Careful positioning - and clamping to the trusses - of the panels allowed the gentle curve of the metalwork to be replicated with no gaps in the pixels.
In the centre, the Lost Village logo was reproduced using 18mm LED panels.
dbn's design also took into account some specific requests from Fatboy Slim's production and lighting designer Abbiss - who was "extremely accommodating" explained Nick.
The whole lighting and visuals rig stayed in for the rest of the weekend so all performers had the benefit.
The moving lights were chosen for their flexibility as workhorses and comprised 20 x Clay Paky Sharpies - 16 in the air and four on the floor; 20 x CP a.leda K10s fitted with B-Eye lenses, 10 on the back wall, four on the floor and the other 6 over the dancefloor; six CP Alpha Spot 575s on the back wall and another six on the dancefloor truss.
Sixteen (of 18) Martin Atomic strobes were rigged on the back wall, with the other two on the floor, and 20 x Moles were also on the back wall - a mix of 4 and 2-lite DWEs.
Four ETC Source Four profiles provided DJ booth / band key-light with two PAR 64s on the V trusses for additional keys on Fatboy Slim, while four ADB 1.2K fresnels created a solid basic stage wash.
All the video content and control was supplied by video artists and VJ Tom Bartley, and the lighting was operated and run for the weekend by dbn's Edwin Croft.
Nick Buckley concludes, "It was fantastic be back at the Lost Village again this year and to see it develop without losing any of the unique and friendly vibes making it so different and special! It's always great working with Andy, Jay and Ben - their approach to creating great entertainment environments is truly innovative."
(Jim Evans)
