The festival recently won a KykNET Fiestas Award for 2011's Best Festival.
The four-day arts and culture extravaganza, held in Nelspruit at the Bergvlam School Grounds, was attended by 120,000 people. Technical production for the Main and Klipdrift stages was supplied by Martindale, Gauteng based rental company Sound Headquarters, and it was Ferreira's seventh year of designing the lighting.
With the additional resonance of the Award win, more audience were expected and the organisers wanted to generally up the ante on the look and feel of the event and in particular the Main Stage, so Ferreira set about designing something special.
The Robe fixtures totalled 52 - a mix of Robin 600 LEDWashes, Robin 600E Beams, ColorSpot 700E AT and 250E ATs and Scan 575 XTs.
Each day the Main Stage hosted between seven and 10 artists including Juanita du Plessis, Steve Hofmeyer, Snotkop, Theuns Jordaan, Riana Nel and numerous others, so the pressure was also on to make all look individual and deal with a wide variety of musical genres.
Ferreira's approach was to bring a theatrical look to the stage. Although much of the show is improvised, it's imperative to him that everything looks programmed and pre-planned down to the finest details. "There's no reason a large outdoor stage can't resemble an intimate and personal theatrical space," he explains.
The Robin 600 Beams were positioned on the first three LX trusses in a V shape, with the ColorSpot 700E ATs also flown above the stage.
The LEDWash 600s were rigged on the front truss and used for general stage lighting, while the ColorSpot 250s were scattered around the deck and utilised for assorted back-lighting effects.
"The Robe 600E Beams are always a great crowd pleaser," Ferreira reports. He used them for eye-candy, both pointing directly forwards and up into the sky in searchlight style.
(Jim Evans)
