Martin LED panels play key role for Natalia

9 May 2008

Belgium - Earlier this year, Belgian singer Natalia invited En Vogue and Shaggy on stage for six shows that took the roof off the Antwerp Sportpaleis. More than 80,000 people attended the performances.

Produced by PSE-Belgium with lighting design by Luc Peumans of digital lighting specialists Painting with Light, Martin's LC Series of LED panels played a prominent role in the set design as video screen and set piece, both in the rig and on stage.

Painting with Light, one of Belgium's leading design companies for live television, chose the Martin LC Series for its semi-transparent design, which made it possible to place moving lights and Martin Atomic 3000 strobes behind the panels. The LC panels integrated with the large amount of projection screens used on the show and the panels' fast and simple assembly was a much applauded feature due to a very short load in and load out time (36 hrs).

Rigging, lighting and sound was handled by EML Productions, who were happy to find large quantities of the LC Series in stock at AED Display of Belgium. Hung horizontally in the upstage rig and on the band riser, the show required 120sq.m of the panels which had a reported fall out rate of zero after the six shows. EML Productions rent their truss and video gear from AED RENT and AED Display.

The set comprised three large screens that could be used separately or combined as one huge background. The 39m wide and 13m high curved proscenium was soft-edged together and serviced by seven HD Pandoras Box media servers.

The horizontal LC panels backdrop ran images from another Pandoras Box while yet another provided a mix of generated content and live images for the central projection screen.

The lighting rig consisted of 60 x VL2500 spots, 60 x VL2500 washes, 30 x VL3500 washes, 24 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes, and 120 One-Cell DWE blinders. Lighting and video were controlled by a GrandMA console programmed and operated by Dimi Theuwissen.

(Jim Evans)