Manchester company dbn Lighting supplied lighting, LED screens and crew to the main stage and four other performance spaces at the 2016 Lost Village Festival, plus site-wide scenic and environmental illumination highlighting hundreds of organic artworks made with natural materials found on the site.
It was the second year of the unique festival staged by Lost Ventures, with site and production management co-ordinated by Andy George, Jay Jameson and Ben Atkins. dbn Lighitng’s Nick Buckley project managed for them, commenting: “A huge increase in production values this year underlined Andy, Jay and Ben’s commitment to the event, and making it among the best alternative festivals of the UK season.” This year’s Lost Village saw Fatboy Slim play Friday night on the main stage, with a host of other prominent live acts and DJs appearing across the three days, including Floating Points, Ben UFO and Jack Garratt.
The festival’s main stage featured lighting and video production design by Nick Buckley to maximise the elegant architecture of the roof system, while the installed trussing included two V-shapes either side (stage left and right) with the middle and lower elements attached to ground support towers, and a three-quarter circle truss curving around the full over-stage area and going out above the audience. Another two dbn Lighting trusses were used to fly Manchester event production company Audile’s PA arrays. Three horizontal strips of dbn Lighting’s proprietary 12.5mm Eastar LED were used to extend the stage sideways; careful positioning – and clamping to the trusses – of the panels allowed the gentle curve of the metalwork to be replicated with no gaps in the pixels. In the centre, the Lost Village logo was reproduced using 18mm LED panels.
dbn’s design also took into account some specific requests from Fatboy Slim’s Production and Lighting Designer Abbiss – who was “extremely accommodating,” explained Buckley. The moving lights comprised 20 Clay Paky Sharpys – 16 in the air and four on the floor; 20 Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K10’s – 10 on the back wall, four on the floor and the other six over the dancefloor; six Clay Paky Alpha 575’s on the back wall and another six on the dancefloor truss. 16 Atomic strobes from Martin by Harman were rigged on the back wall, with two more on the floor, and 20 molefays were also on the back wall – a mix of 4- and 2-lite DWEs.
Four ETC Source Four profiles provided the DJ booth/band key light with two PAR 64’s on the V-trusses for additional keys on Fatboy Slim, while four dbn Lighting ADB F101 1.2K fresnels created a basic stage wash. All video content and control was supplied by video artists and VJ Tom Bartley, and the lighting was operated and run for the weekend by dbn’s Edwin Croft.
Lighting design for second stage The Cabin took advantage of its structural ladder beams which were utilized as hanging points. The fixtures included 12 of the Clay Paky Mythos and six Showtec Sunstrips positioned around the DJ booth with six strobe lights filling up the open stage immediately to the left and right. Control Programmer/Operator Steve Barnett used an Avolites Tiger Touch II, utilising a BPM app to sync chases being run through the desk to the BPM of the DJ.
Ruthie Ford from Cloud Nine Décor commissioned and oversaw the making and installation of hundreds of pieces of natural and organic art dotted around the site, including mirror people and tree wrapping, all of which were lit by the environmental lighting for which dbn supplied around 32 SGM P-5’s and 60 Spectral LED PARs.
Site wide power was provided by SWG and sound for all areas by Audile.
“It was fantastic to be back at the Lost Village again this year and to see it develop without losing any of the unique and friendly vibes making it so different and special,” said Project Manager Buckley. “It’s always great working with Andy, Jay and Ben – their approach to creating great entertainment environments is truly innovative.”