Entec Lighting renews its acquaintance
with The Australian Pink Floyd
Show by supplying full production
and crew to the latest 2 month
leg of their phenomenal European
theatre and arena show.
TAPFS is universally considered
to be the best and most authentic
Floyd tribute experience after
the real thing.
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| The
band are currently enjoying massive
global interest, and an important element
of their success is their awesome light
and projection show – based on
the visual experience that made Pink
Floyd one of the most important and
influential super-groups of the 20th
century. |
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Entec’s project manager
Noreen O’Riordan says
it’s a pleasure to be
associated with such an articulate
team of people. Each department
works immensely hard to produce
and sustain an amazing show
quality that gives huge job
satisfaction to all at Entec
as well as audiences throughout
the world.
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| TAPFS’
lightshow was created in 2004 by Dave
Hill. At this point, they upped the
production ante in response to the impressive
concert sales figures, ensuring that
their audiences enjoy real visual value.
Entec has supplied lighting to TAPFS
for several years, and was instrumental
in helping to produce this larger show,
which has now been refined and tweaked
into an even slicker optical spectacle.
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| Lasers
have also been introduced into
the TAPFS equation for the first
time, and at the larger venues,
they are also joined by Skippy
a 20ft high inflatable bouncing
kangaroo, who erects himself in
seconds – with a little
help from Skippy ‘exciter’
Roger Middlecoat - just upstage
of the drum kit. |
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| The show is now being
looked after for Entec by Phil White,
who has been lighting director since
September 2004 when they toured the
US for 3 months. He also works regularly
for the west London based company on
a host of other shows.
Entec’s WYSIWYG facility has
proved invaluable before the various
legs of the tour explains White. This
time around, he spent two days in there,
tweaking the show and adding some new
songs ahead of two days full production
rehearsals with rig and band at Shepperton
Studios.
The lighting rig includes the famous
Floyd circular projection screen –
this one measuring 6 metres - and an
upstage ‘goal-post’ of trussing,
from which another rectangular widescreen
projection screen is stretched, covering
the full area. |
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Lighting fixtures include 24
Vari*Lite 2000 Spots and 22
VL2000 Washes, with alternate
Spots and Washes dotted around
the perimeters of the goal post
and the circle. The goal post
also features 8 Martin MAC 300s
used for truss toners. There’s
an array of Thomas 2-lite Moles
around the goal post for blasting
into the audience, and more
across the front truss and on
the floor.
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Other fixtures include 6 strings
of ACLs three 5Kw fresnels, 4 Atomic
strobes, 4 Source Fours for key-lighting
the band, and two Space Flowers used
to great effect at the beginning of
“One of These Days”. These
were supplied to the band by Entec
as a sale.
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No self-respecting Pink Floyd
show would be complete without
its mirror ball! This one measures
4ft and is expediently saved
for “Comfortably Numb”
– where it flies in on
cue for the powerful concluding
guitar solo. For the rest of
the show, it’s concealed
in a special mirror ball ‘hide’,
devised by crew member and Entec
stalwart Simon “Boff”
Howarth, and compliant with
all the latest Health &
Safely regulations.
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White operates the show using a WholeHog
II desk and a wing. He’s investigating
transferring to a WholeHog 3 for their
upcoming 3 month American and Canadian
tour.
The light show is a vital component
of the full TAPFS performance, with
many cues receiving an audience reaction
and their own share of the adulation,
as do the lasers when kicking in for
the first time. The lights transform
the environment into a fully immersive
trippy mass of colour, beams and suggestion.
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Entec also supplied the projectors
– two Christie LX100 Roadrunners
– and crew member Chris
Gadd to look after this element
in addition to pitching in on
the lighting. The animations
for the circle projections were
created by Bryan Koludski. It
also features new video footage
produced by the band, with the
sources stored on two PCs running
time-coded Nuendo software.
The widescreen projection is
fed from a DVD player, manually
cued by Gadd. The materials
for this are more abstract than
the circle clips, the majority
produced by guitar player Damian
Darlington.
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The laser is supplied by Arcstream
from Chiswick and was a 5 Watt air
cooled green YAG, split into two beams
and controlled by Ryan Hagan using
a Pangolin system.
Wigwam are supplying the d&b
PA, with Colin Norfield – a
veteran of the real Pink Floyd’s
“Division Bell” tour mixing
FOH and Mark Buckley on monitors.
Production manager is Andy Keightley.
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