Set against a dramatic, mountainous Snowdonia backdrop, the four day music extravaganza featured headlining appearances by some serious Celtic talent including Westlife, Shirley Bassey, bass baritone Bryn Terfel, The Proclaimers and Welsh rockers Anweledig.
Rourke has lit the event since its inception seven years ago, but this was the first year he has brought in HSL as the lighting contractor. It's also the first year he used Robe.
The most important element of the lighting brief was to design and deliver a rig capable of the specific demands of lighting for TV whilst also ensuring that the 15,000 live audience had a full light-show each night. Obviously the rig also had to be flexible enough to deal with lighting the diverse range of talent and differing musical styles of those taking the stage.
The stage was a 2-bay 18 metre Serious Structures' Orbit. The trussing was designed to maximise the available headroom and take advantage of the roof shape - squeezing as much space out of it as possible. Lights were rigged onto a box truss in the centre, suspended on six points, and two upstage/downstage running side trusses which were gently raked.
For the opera and Shirley Bassey evenings, Rourke also used eight Robe ColorWash 575 Zoom ATs to uplight the cyc at the rear of the stage. In addition to these, he utilised a full generic rig, controlling everything including a Catalyst media server off a WholeHog II console and wing.
The initial entertainment each day started in daylight, but the 1200s also had no difficulties registering on camera when this was the case.
Robe also had the chance to prove its resilience as an outdoor fixture. With unsettled weather rumbling around the whole weekend, the skies opened big time during Shirley Bassey's set. Tthe rain continued through the night but by the morning, when crew chief James Gould turned on the rig to assess the situation - he was greeted by every Robe fixture firing up first time.
"From a rental company standpoint, you really can't ask for more than that in a fixture," says HSL's Mike Oates.
(Chris Henry)
