Maxedia Effects for Böhse Onkelz Farewell Concerts

This past summer controversial German rock band Böhse Onkelz gave a pair of farewell concerts at Lausitzring in Germany. With some 140,000 spectators on hand each evening, the shows were reflective of the 25-year history of the band.

PROCON Event Engineering GmbH of Hamburg supplied a complete lighting package for the two shows which included a Martin Maxedia Digital Media Composer. Lighting and media design for the shows was by Jerry Appelt. Thomas Giegerich was Maxedia programmer with Jan Schröder of PROCON responsible for Maxedia setup. “We were looking for a media server system to control a 48 Frame G-Lec Classic Wall and to put images on stripes of I-Tiles which were mounted in front of eight moving trusses,” commented Jerry Appelt. “We tested the Maxedia system in our warehouse and were sure that the system was the right choice to do the job.”

The first evening’s show was dominated by generic lighting but the second evening featured a multimedia based show that included Maxedia digital effects used for I-Tiles in BGV C1 traverses. When speaking of the benefits gained by using the Maxedia, Jerry states, “It is fast and intuitive to operate. The results are good with less input because there are a lot of modification tools in the system. The different effect plug-ins and the easy access through our lighting desks were features that we found useful for the show.”

The Böhse Onkelz (or Evil Uncles) was one of the most successful German rock groups throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. Both the band and audience were pleased with the shows and fans were satisfied to see this legendary band one last time. The show will soon be available on DVD.