DJ and music producer, Martin Jensen recently embarked a series of livestream concerts in unexpected locations throughout Denmark – from Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium, aboard Royal Danish Navy frigate HDMS Niels Juhl to aboard historic paddle-steamer Hjejlen, atop the Camp Adventure nature reserve forest tower in Rønnede and inside of a Copenhagen Illum department store – broadcast live on Twitch.
At the heart the visual design of each performance was Lighting Designer, Mathias Skall Hansen of Frontsound. During five of the seven livestream sets, the LD deployed Robe moving lights – MegaPointes, Spiiders, BMFLs – supplied by Nordic Rentals.
Skall specified Robe lighting fixtures, particularly MegaPointes, to add colour to a range camera angles, including overhead drone shots. “They are very powerful with good colour mixing and gobo selection, very fast, easy to programme and above all reliable and well-engineered,” he explained.
During the Parken show, Jensen was positioned right in the middle of the pitch, his DJ booth was set up on a 10m by 10m video floor surrounded by three concentric circles of moving lights, the first and second comprising 42 Robe BMFL Spots with the outer ring boasting 56 MegaPointes, chosen for their intensity and impact.
Skall created a series of kaleidoscopic looks and geometric shapes to blend with video content and SFX, along with multiple high-impact pyro cues and ground-based cameras directed by Marco Villarroel. SFX included flames and gas jets, and Jensen’s ‘trademark’ show fireworks, rigged on barges positioned around the ship, captured on the night by a wide-shot panorama.
The 139m-long Niels Juhl – a fully working Navy frigate – was anchored at the Navy base in Korsør at the time of the concert. Jensen’s DJ decks were set up on the helipad with the 24 MegaPointes arranged in a V-shape behind him, used to create assorted patterns, looks, and camera candy effects, while the FOH area was set up in a helicopter hangar. The unique space provided a series of challenges for the crew, including craning the kit on the ship. Due to the weather, multiple strategically positioned smoke machines also had their work cut out.
As one of the world’s oldest operational paddle-steamers, Hjejlen was built in 1861 and is now used to ferry tourists between Silkeborg, Jensen’s hometown. The ship is considerably smaller than the Niels Juhl, so there was room only for the DJ booth and battery powered wireless LED key lights on the deck. A smoke machine was secreted in the boiler room and atmosphere fed in from behind a large seat, with all the major lighting and effects elements – including 24 Robe MegaPointes – deployed on pontoons rigged around the boat in the harbour, with the FOH control situated separately.
Elsewhere, Jensen took his show and music to the top of Camp Adventure Tower’s 45m high hour-glass shaped observation tower, which allows visitors a bird’s eye view across beech forests. The technical crew pushed all the DJ equipment and flightcases of MegaPointes – which were positioned right on the top level of the tower – up its 800m ramped access route. Lighting fixtures were spaced around the top loop with patterns programmed in sequences to match the shape and form of the tower.
Copenhagen’s ILLUM luxury department store was the pop-up location for the final show of this series thus far. DJ decks were set up on a platform flown in the middle of the space, 16m off the floor. To accentuate the interior, Skall used 86 Robe Spiider LED wash beams positioned on flightcases deployed around the ground and first three floors. A total of 16 MegaPointes were set up in a circle on the floor below the flown DJ riser. A pair of Robe BMFL Spots situated below were used to shoot gobos all around the atrium.
“Each show was completely unique, and while you might have had an initial idea in your head about how everything would work, the design had to be flexible enough to be changed and adapted to find the best solution once on site,” the LD explained.
Skall programmed and operated lighting using an MA Lighting grandMA3 light console. Frontsound co-ordinated audio and supplied the pyro, fireworks and SFX. The LD production managed the series of shows, while Trust Rental provided video for the ILLUM and Parken performances, while the drone footage was supplied by Book1drone and cameras by Mike Sønderby at Rafnpv.