Every September Defqon.1 Festival takes place at the Sydney International Regatta Centre, transforming this breathtaking venue into the ultimate party island.
This year Chromatic designed the stage and lighting, using thirty-four Clay Paky Sharpy and sixteen Mythos to full effect.
The theme was Dragon Blood but as the 2012 stage had been a dragon, inspiration was taken from another mythical creature – the Fire Phoenix. Naturally that inspired a colour choice of flame colours resulting in a vibrant red, orange and yellow stage.
The wings of the Phoenix gave rise to obvious fixture placement with the light beams used to extend the wings further. The Clay Paky Mythos and Sharpy beams made the whole Phoenix stage look like it was rising from the ashes about to take flight.
The top of the wings held Sharpys, the mid run Mythos and bottom run, two metres above crowd height, also had Sharpys. This resulted in a beam, gobo, beam effect with two more Mythos to internally light up the eyes. The Mythos were particularly good for this as they have a good pan which meant they only had to be placed 1.5m back to be able to get a nice spill across the 1.2m acrylic eyes. Obviously being such a powerful fixture with nice animated gobos meant the team could get some really cool effects. If the fixtures that couldn’t spill as wide had been placed further back, there would be more of a chance of getting a scaffold beam in front resulting in a shadow across the eye.
This is the first time that Mythos had been used on a Defqon.1 show and the crew were impressed by their brightness and performance. They were particularly impressed by the ability to achieve a broad beam whilst keeping the light powerful. Chromatic have been a fan of the Sharpy for quite a while now especially for dance parties, saying that they’re great for outdoor concerts where they may have trouble keeping fog levels up. The Sharpy’s compact size means it is ideal for hiding in the stage set.
The top of the Phoenix wing also held Martin Professional Atomic scrollers each positioned directly above a Sharpy so that the source of the Sharpy beam was hidden. The result was a strong blinding strobe effect straight on with a beam coming out of it, plus there were enough Atomics in a row to do a nice chase effect too.”
Control was an MA Lighting International MA2 fullsize + MA2 light
