Martin @ Glastonbury 2004

Every year thousands of festevarians from around the world make the pilgrimage to Glastonbury, England for one of Europe’s classic music experiences. Few festivals have such a long and distinguished history.

This year’s Glastonbury line up was typically impressive with the likes of Oasis (LD Andi Watson), Paul McCartney (LD Roy Bennet), Morrissey, Black Eyed Peas and James Brown. But of course many of the gems of the festival could be found on the lesser stages as well.

Main stage or not, Martin gear was omnipresent at this year’s celebration, with an abundance of MACs, Martin’s Maxxyz lighting console, and Jem smoke gear in operation on the multitude of stages. Production companies Fineline, Neg Earth, Utopium Lighting, Electric Fly Productions and Halo Lighting provided the Martin/Jem gear and lighting expertise.

Acoustic Tent
At the Acoustic Tent Fineline’s Rob Sangwell handled a Fineline-supplied MAC rig managed by Martin’s Maxxyz controller with Playback Wing. Rob, who has been handling various lighting duties at Glastonbury for six or seven years, took on lighting design and crew chief duties at the Acoustic Tent, as well as acting as Fineline’s on site representative. “The Acoustic Tent is more about the music then a spectacular light show,” he commented. “Nonetheless, this year’s rig included twice as many automated luminaires as in previous years.”

Rob incorporated animation effects from four MAC 2000 Performance, located along the front of the 40’ x 20’ standard truss ground support system, to texture the entire tent area including the stage to “make it look a little less flat,” he stated. “We had some gauzes on the back truss and we used the framing system on the MAC 2000 Performance for doing effects onto those.”

On the rear truss where the four gauze strips hung down, Rob placed a MAC 550 on the top of each strip. “We created some nice effects from the animation wheel on those, subtle moving effects. We also had four MAC 2000 Profile E hanging on drop bars on the rear truss to make beam shapes and focal positions.

“Across the front truss we had four MAC 250 Entours. There was a lot of décor in the tent with white inflatables so we put a lot of projection onto those so that the whole tent got dragged in as part of the show rather than having everyone standing there looking at it. The tent is a large 6-7000 capacity Kayam tent with blue canvass so it was fairly dark and the ambient light level was low. All the décor was white silk and the Entours worked on that from a distance of about 80 feet. They did the job.”

Rob also used 4 MAC 2000 Wash for simple color wash looks onto the stage although, as he admits, “We didn’t do anything particularly challenging with those.”

Maxxyz lighting console...
Rob employed a Maxxyz console for control, the first time he had used the lighting desk. “It was my first time using Maxxyz and I was quite impressed. To be honest with you, I expected it to crash a lot. It’s a historical thing, being a rental company, we’ve seen it all before. You normally can’t touch a console for the first year but the Maxxyz didn’t crash once all weekend. It ran from the Wednesday to Monday, 24 hours a day, continuously for five days without falling over. I was pleased. It’s a good versatile board. I like the fact that it has a Visualizer on it - that is quite handy - and I like the instant access via the touch panel which lets you get to your pallets and everything quickly.”

Programming was completed with help from Martin UK personnel as the Fineline crew had little time to familiarize themselves with the Maxxyz before the event. Rob and Fineline’s Gary Churchill, Chris Drake and Steve Russell took care of operation on a shift system.

…with Wing
Rob and his crew added a new Maxxyz Playback Wing to the console for increased flexibility. “One reason we got the Wing is because we don’t get a lot of time to preprogram. We can preprogram looks for the stage but because it was a festival situation you never know what you’re going to get. There are 12 hours worth of bands each day and only a few bring their own LD in. We often don’t know what we’ll end up with so sometimes we busk it, operating on the fly. That’s why we had the extra wing so we had some looks we could whack up.”

Backstage Bar
The Acoustic Tent staff is fortunate in that there is a Backstage Bar area where some acts will spontaneously perform for the crew. Here Fineline provided a pair of MAC 250 Entour controlled via a Martin Xciter. Other areas with gear supplied by Fineline included 4 MAC 600s at the Circus Tent and a Jem ZR 24/7 hazer in the Cabaret Tent.

Dance Tent
Chris Rock of Utopium Lighting was the lighting designer and main board op at the Dance Tent for the three days. Basically a portable arena with a large stage and dance podium, the Dance Tent can hold thousands of people. Chris created a club-like environment in the large space using 12 MAC 500s to cover the dancefloor and front of stage, with 6 MAC 600s across the back of the stage. Two Jem ZR33 Hi-Mass foggers working with two DMX controllable Jem AF-1 fans helped keep the atmosphere thick. 

“It was a rainy festival rig, something that would hold out with the weather,” Chris stated, who admits he was also busking it for most bands. “It was lighting by the seat of my pants but it ended up looking quite good.”

Pyramid Stage
Martin gear was also a key element of the festival’s chief focal point. NEG Earth outfitted the festival’s highest profile stage, the Pyramid Stage, with 12 MAC 2000 Profile E, 15 MAC 2000 Wash and 14 Atomic 3000 strobes. NEG Earth also supplied the Other Stage (Other as in ´Like No Other´) with 12 MAC 2000 E and 2 MAC 550 profile spots.

Other areas with Martin gear included the Budweiser Tent with 8 MAC 300, 10 MAC 250 and 2 Atomic 3000 strobes supplied by Electric Fly Productions; and the Radio 1 Dance Stage with 12 MAC 300, 2 Jem ZR33 Hi-Mass and 1 Jem AF-1 fan supplied by Halo Lighting.