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In March 2008 French music duo, Air, toured Australia for the first time with the V Festival. They then followed up the V Festival with their own concerts in April. Novatech Production Services supplied the production for four of the concerts working with Michael Coppel Presents and Production and Tour Manager Ian ‘Spider’ Digance. It was Novatech’s first time collaborating with Ian and they enjoyed the experience, providing the production for two concerts at the Sydney Opera House and
one each at the Melbourne Palais and Thebarton Theatre in Adelaide.
The production was focused on high quality audio and mood building lighting. Unusually the shows were free of visual (video) production, with the intention of keeping the audience focused on the musical performance. As the band plays all of the music live and does not rely on sequencing or backing tracks, audiences seemed very content to just sit back and listen to the band play different versions of the tracks that they all know.
The concert’s lighting design was minimal with a dark feel to the looks and programs. The aim was to produce an emotive lighting show to match the bands individual style of music. The looks were achieved with a mix of 30 MAC700’s and MAC600’s, 10 Duet Blinders and 20 bars of Par 64 and Ray cans. A full colour LED drape backdrop completed the stage look and a MA lighting GrandMA console (with a redundant PC version in parallel) supplied the control for the system.
The concerts were enjoyed by the audiences, the band and the crew. There was always a joke being played by the band directed at the production
crew, they cheekily relabelled desks and equipment at random and generally joked around during set ups and sound checks. It’s always a good sign that things are running smoothly if there’s time to waste during checks. Our crew even managed to learn some valuable French phrases for use in future tours, although it’s anyone guess what the band was really teaching them to say.
www.novatechproductions.com.au
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