The Grass is Greener Festival was a concept born and bred in Australia’s far north, a place where international tours seldom touch the shores. As a result, a genuine love for the home-grown music scene has flourished.
Last year’s event was cancelled due to Covid-19, this year it returned to Cairns with an all-star Aussie lineup including Crooked Colours, Ziggy Alberts and Peking Duk.
This year, the team behind the Festival launched a brand-new festival experience – The Backyard Series. Following on from the main Festival, this one-day rave is making stops at Townsville, Toowoomba, Mackay and Gladstone.
Production is supplied by Wild Gravity who only had a ten-day lead up to the event.
“Grass is Greener founder and director Oli Frost contacted me after hearing of a 12m x 15m structure we did in Mareeba two weeks prior,” explained Noel Anthony, managing director of Wild Gravity. “Basically, he was looking at saving transport costs out of Brisbane for full production.”
Getting staging, audio, lighting and screen systems loaded into a “B” double and 48ft drop deck whilst heavily committed to local events was challenging.
“I think the last time I prepped a light show into Pre Rig they were par cans!” laughed Noel. “First setup day was 34 degrees, 100% humidity and it wasn’t raining – in fact, most of the week was like that. Staffing at the moment is a huge issue in our industry.”
The PA was a Nexo GEOD with 12 top cabinets flown a side plus 16 GEOD cardioid subs and GEOD as infill as well.
Consoles were DiGiCo SD10 for bands and an SD9 for change over and DJs. Brendan Keane (Bloss) rigged and ran FOH. A DiGiCo SD9 was used for monitors and was controlled by Jamie (Bob) Muller.
“The stage was sorted by Scott West,” said Noel. “I gave Scott a hand on stage with changeovers i.e. did what I was told!”
The performance space was 12m x 7.5m so things were tight but the 48ft Pan served as a good area for excess. The trim height under the structure was 10m from the ground and stage height 1.4m.
Anthony Lee designed a three truss system using Wild Gravity’s Pre-rig which obviously sped up the install. A floor package came from Creative Productions for Ziggy Albert as well as 16 x GLP JDC1s for general use.
Wild Gravity supplied 18 x Colour Imagination Pro Spot, 8 x M45 LED Wash, 25 x M28 LED Wash, four LED Floods, 19 LED Blinders and both an MA2 light and a Road Hog 4 for control.
Creative’s floor package included 6 x Robe Patt 2013, 4 x GLP JDC1, 8 x Robe Spiider, 4 x Robe BMFL and a Hog 4 full size.
The two side screen were P6.9 portrait mode (2.5m x 4.5m) and the centre screen was 6m x 3m.
“Amazing VJ work done by Blake Hudson, systems done by Josh Moore and camera by Luke Robson,” added Noel.
