Elation Proteus Hybrid weathers Nature One
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Thomas Gerdon of Gerdon design has been working Nature One since 2003 and this year discovered the benefits of using Elation’s popular weatherproof Proteus Hybrid moving head. Since 2011, he and his team have been supporting the Open Air Floor, the largest floor of the festival, and for the first time this year also handled the visual design for Century Circus, the festival’s second largest floor.
Although EDM festivals have grown massively in recent years, Nature One is something special for Gerdon. "At most EDM festivals today you find broad, high and massive stage setups. That's different with Nature One. The producers of the festival want to create the largest open-air club in the world and in clubs the lights usually hang over the dancefloor. That's an integral part of the design.”
Above the Open Air Floor stood a structure in the form of a giant steel pyramid with a 40 x 40m footprint and a height of approximately 26m. “We chose to do a pyramid again this year because it has been effective in the past,” Gerdon stated. “It’s also cost effective and from a rigging point of view you can hang 20 tons on the main construction. This year we asked ourselves what we could add to it to give it a massive look.”
Gerdon, who was familiar with the Proteus Hybrid, had recently seen it in a shootout and was impressed with the output. “It was very obvious how much more powerful the Proteus was,” he said. “Many times on a shootout there are marginal differences but on this shootout it was very clear what fixture was brightest. That really got my attention. So I thought, let’s see what else it can do. And it could do a lot. The CMY was really good for a hybrid fixture and the speed of gobos and colour was also good. It was really a ‘wow’ moment and really an improvement over other fixtures.”
The Proteus Hybrid moving lights were subsequently chosen for the project and installed on the pyramid. From the middle of the pyramid hung a central truss element, consisting of eight inter-hanging tapered circles. Each of the circles held eight Proteus Hybrid fixtures and eight LED blinder lights.
“In past years it was a wide look, a wide rig with fixtures not concentrated together but very spread out. This year we wanted a greater concentration of fixtures. This centre effect with the Proteus Hybrid was the key design element,” Gerdon confirms. Each leg of the pyramid then held eight Proteus Hybrids with a further 32 Proteus Hybrid fixtures located on stage - eight on side wings, eight surrounding an LED screen, eight on the floor and eight on a back truss. Gerdon exploited the hybrid moving head’s versatility, using it as a spot, beam and wash light. “It was the only moving light in the rig so it was important that it deliver in all three modes.”
The Open Air Floor is outdoors, exposed to the weather and completely unprotected, an ideal environment for the IP65-rated Proteus Hybrid. "Compared to previous years, the Proteus Hybrid made a massive difference,” Gerdon says. “The use of IP65 lights has many positive aspects and it starts with economic considerations. With weatherproof lights you don’t need additional weather protection and manpower. This frees up budget that can be invested in more fixtures.
Technical service provider was Schoko Pro who rented the Proteus fixtures from Motion Rental. Gerdon was wholly satisfied in his choice of fixture and praised Elation as the first company to really deliver effective IP65 products. “As a relative first mover with IP65 it is impressive that the fixtures work 100% from the beginning,” he said.
(Jim Evans)
