Darwin was struck by Disco Fever as Carl and Eric’s Mobile Disco rolled into town for a sell-out show at the Gardens Amphitheatre! Thousands partied the night away to eight hours of dancefloor fire from the legendary DJ duo, Carl Cox & Eric Powell.
E3 Productions provided lighting, laser and audio and PRLX the screens and video footage.
The PA was a ten per side d&b V-series with array processing and D80 amplification. As the venue is a natural amphitheatre, ten per side is required for full vertical coverage and it gives the required power. Array processing the system allowed E3 to keep the sound consistent throughout the day as temperature and humidity drastically changed from doors to close. Midas M32 controlled the show with a Lake LM44 and R1 doing system processing. A light touch of a multiband compressor on the DJ was also deployed.
Microphones were Shure Axient Digital with Beta 58 handhelds. For shows of this size, E3 believe it’s Axient or nothing!
Foldback was a front line of Nexo PS15’s for fill and DJ fill was a pair of PS15’s on EV QRX218 subs which were all powered from Powersoft T604 amps and run from FOH.
The lighting design was required to fill the 18m wide stage whilst not allowing the DJ to be feel lost and lonely in the centre of the stage. E3 achieved this by making the aerial rig full width and cutting the floor package in on an angle at staggered heights to frame the DJ.
Set pieces were gold drapes and lots of mirror balls – over 300kg of mirror balls from 8inch to 180inch and all spinning on motors!
The rig comprised of six Martin MAC Vipers on the rear flown truss for the big aerial looks and breakups. Ten Event Lighting LM7x30w moving head wash fixtures were on the front and rear truss. Eight Event Lighting M1s190w spots on the floor, four across the rear at staggered heights and four across the downstage edge. These had Event lighting LM6x15 moving head wash in between them on boom poles. Twelve Tourpro Storm1000A strobes and sixteen blinders on the front, rear and floor for punch and singalongs. Tourpro Zoom Par Juniors were used for front wash and DJ Keylight.
All control was a High End Roadhog 4 on 3.15 software with a Hog 3 wing. Atmospherics was an Antari HZ400, F2 and CH1. For lasers, E3 ran four KVANT Atom 12 RGB lasers.
“This was the first show we used the new 3.15 software of Hog which now has Tap BPM on FX and it made a huge difference!” commented Jeremy Lassemillante of E3. “I do not know how I ever programmed a busking show without it! The show was entirely busked and we rotated through operators to keep the lighting fresh as it was 8 hours of disco house music.”
For video, there were 24 panels of 5mm oversized LED at 800 x 900 creating a 7.2m x 2.4m screen behind the DJ. This was running off a VXS4 and never went over 10% brightness, even during the day.
As with most events in Darwin, weather and logistics were the main challenges. The pallet of mirror balls arrived in Darwin on the Friday afternoon after two weeks of freight delays and it rained on Day 1 of the bump-in. Thankfully, the sun came out and the weather was beautiful on show day.
“Overall it was an amazing show and one of the biggest we do as a company,” said Jeremy. “I cannot fault the work of my team or that of the promoter.”
Show team
Production Manager: Jeremy Lassemillante
Audio: Hayden Ineson and Asher Gregory
Lighting: Tiffany Jansen
Stage: John Barton
Video: Ashley Blenkinsop from PRLX
