Creamfields

CREAMFIELDS

Operator and Programmer for the stage, Tom Sulat, continued: “Robe MegaPointes and LEDWash 600s made up the majority of the rig. We had a massive bank of Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 washes which made some great effects on stage. Martin by Harman Atomics and two cell moles made for some great punch for when the beat dropped.”

The rest of the rig had an asymmetric layout, but with “little hidden symmetries nestled within the number and direction of the hanging L shapes” according to Campbell. “The asymmetry is a fun poke at the sloping dancefloor. It adds a touch of organic ‘grime’ into the space in keeping with its deep house and drum ’n’ bass nature. Personally, I just like a bit of asymmetry, it tends to creep into many of my designs.”

Sulat discussed some of the challenges faced by the crew this year, namely the weather. “The venue itself is on a steep hill which makes any build interesting,” he commented. Despite the changing conditions Sulat was pleased to report this year’s collaboration between screen supplier PRG and visual company Funktion Creep.

PRG Providing the complete video and rigging solution for all the stages on site, along with lighting for stage CF01, CF02 and the Steel Yard, was PRG. Starting off the conversation was Creamfields’ visual-veteran, Paul ‘Macca’ McCauley.

“Every year, this event continues to grow both in terms of kit and the number of crew it takes to pull all the pieces together,” began Macca. “Due to the number of years we have been involved we have got ourselves into somewhat of a routine but we always look at ways we can improve the production.”

This year one of these improvements came in the form of an extensive redesign of the CF01. “For the wings we have installed ROE CB5s. There are 430 tiles on both the left and right-side screens with just under 1,000sqm across the whole stage. We’ve used CB5 on the stage in previous year for the upstage wall but this is the first time we have been using it for the wings. The product itself looks stunning and this show is a case and point,” Macca explained.

The sheer size of the wings meant that the design incorporated 9 million pixels for each wing. Inevitably this was somewhat of a challenge for data management. The solution - a rack of Barco E2s at FOH combined with the Brompton SX40 processors . “We’ve setup a system to be incredibly flexible to cater for any touring production bringing their own servers in , to visiting VJ’s playing out from a laptop and FOH.”

Also provided on each screen was a Resolume Arena 7 media server. “Resolume was the natural choice for media serves as it’s the most common product used my most VJs,” said Macca. “We provide two servers on each stage - one main and backup.” It’s not only hardware that PRG provide but a selection of onsite VJs to produce and play out content for incoming artist. Over the years, both PRG and LarMac LIVE have developed an efficient system to both receive content and assets from artists and bringing in talented VJs to create new content for the stages. “Essentially both LarMac and us share an emails address where we ask artists to send in any logos of pieces of content which the VJs then take to produce looks for the various screens.”

On the second stage, the wings were made up of ROE Visual MC18 LED panels. The justification for this product came down to reducing the pixel size making it more manageable. Also making an appearance throughout out the site was ROE MC7 along within the tried and tested WinVision 9 LED panels. All backed up with a Resolume arena 7 server rack and fibre/

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