Rocking the Daisies was held at the start of October at the Cloof Wine Estate in Darling, under an hour's drive from Cape Town, and included a line up of international and local musical acts, camping, relaxing and good food. In fact the owners never suspected that what started off, as a small festival on their tranquil grounds, would turn into one of the most popular annual music occasions on the South African calendar.
"We were commissioned by Seed Experiences to provide a technical solution for the Lemon Tree Theatre, the Campsite Stage, the ever popular Beach Bar and the infamous Electronic Stage," said Neil Zaayman, director of Kilowatt AV. "We love working with the team at Seed. They trust us with their vision by giving us full control over concept and design of the Electronic Stage."
This year Kilowatt installed over 100 panels of high res LED as a backdrop onto the stage as well as 80 panels of LED above the crowd at the Electronic Stage, a dome shaped structure. "A highlight for us was the level of immersion created for punters by having 180 LED Panels surrounding them," said Neil. "Having said that, the hardware is not enough on its own. We used the Avolites Ai Infinity Server to video map all panels and gave multiple VJs a very simple plug & play solution. All content was managed by our very own Michael Edwards, who has become a specialist on the Ai. He is internationally trained and is one of very few in SA who can comfortably operate the Ai Infinity Server."
The lighting included over 130 fixtures at the Electronic Stage alone. Lighting design was by Willie Botha and Matthew Meyer. Control was on an Avolites Pearl Expert with an Akai MPD26 Midi controller as a trigger pad.
"Our secret is having the passion to create remarkable events," said Neil. "To create remarkable events you need to focus on every detail; that creates talkability, which in turn boosts our clients' ROI."
(Jim Evans)
