Martin has a folking good time in Shrewsbury

Yellow Events, a new major player in the corporate event and live design industry recently supplied the full lighting and electrical systems for a major UK folk festival. Now in its twelfth year The Shrewsbury Folk Festival is getting bigger every year and the lighting system has grown into quite some visual spectacle. Yellow Events, the brain-child of Tim Soden and Rob Lloyd worked closely with Essential Lighting to realize their ideas for this year’s festival. ‘We’ve used Essential now for a number of years, as the festival has grown rapidly our designs have had to reflect that. Essential’s service and prep is always second to none, I wouldn’t use anyone else. I have been involved with The Shrewsbury Folk Festival for eight years and since the collaboration with Essential Lighting the growth has been seamless.’ comments Soden.

Tim, a self confessed Martin junkie had nothing but praise for the extensive amount of kit he had which included, 4 x MAC 700’s, 13 x MAC 250 Washes and 5 x LC panels controlled with the Maxedia Pro system and a Maxxyz Compact console. ‘I always specify MAC 700’s, there is nothing else on the market that packs the amount of features into its size and represents such great value for money.’ said Tim ‘With 700’s in the rig then the wash lights need CMY capability too for colour matching which is where the MAC 250 Washes come in. I love the frost/focus functionality and their raw power never ceases to amaze me, they cut through haze like no other 250w fixture.’

Having first seen the LC panels at PLASA 07, Tim decided that he’d have them for his ‘something new’ at Shrewsbury 08, ‘I saw the LC panels and instantly knew exactly what I wanted to do with them. I have always had a black backdrop ‘cause it’s what the promoter wants, but it just makes the stage look like a dark box, not anymore! The LC panels added another dimension and looked fantastic as a backdrop.’ With a large number of different bands playing across four days Tim needed a quick, versatile system to cope with the high volume of traffic, this is where the Maxedia Pro coupled with the Maxxyz Compact system really came into its own. ‘Using the LC panels to display the Folk Festival Logo along with some of the bands artwork proved surprisingly easy, to upload images you want onto the system and see them live on the screens literally took seconds. I like the buskability from the Maxxyz Compact, having chosen the graphic it’s so simple to change its attributes to suit the piece and the rest of the rig.’

The Shrewsbury Folk Festival ran from 22nd-25th August 2008 with a diverse lineup featuring acts ranging from traditional two piece Irish folk groups to large scale folk/rock bands. Every year Tim try’s to add something new to the rig to make it diverse, and this year was no different. So what does next year hold? Tim answers, ‘You’ll have to wait and see, but you can bet your life it’ll be Martin!’