Since Touring Industries’ first event with HSU back in 2016, the Sydney based hardstyle promoters have been setting the standard for production quality in the industry with the size and quality of every show evolving immensely at each of their events.
Finally, after an almost 2-year long pandemic filled with lockdowns, travel restrictions, and no parties, hardstyle lovers partied properly again at Karnival Outdoor Festival in Melbourne. Thirty international and local artists performed on two custom stages at Flemington Race Course.
“Production manager Arian Yeganeh from Integratd, took us on board the production team for Karnival,” explained Danyon McCue of Touring Industries. “Arian called me quite early into the pre-production period, knowing that we have many years of experience with DefQon.1 Australia and many other decorative stage festivals similar to Karnival’s concept.
“Finally, there is a promoter willing to spend money on a visually creative stage design. Even pre-Covid, there were so many events just doing the ‘standard’ three overhead trusses with an upstage video wall, not to mention the AS/NZS standard lighting floor package consisting of JDC-1s on vertical pipes for some reason.”
HSU wanted to stand out from that, and showcase a little more of what production companies can achieve here in Australia. A giant 15m tall, cantilevered butterfly, angled 20 degrees over the DJ booth was the focal point of the stage. Stagekings fabricated a series of angled brackets to attach the butterfly to HD44 Euro Truss needles which were then craned into the scaffolding.
Two large spans of rectangular TTS Eurotruss was mounted on top of the scaffolding to rig the 12 x 2t video motors. According to the team, there’s not really another product as versatile as the TTS truss for large bridging spans. The TTS webbing is also a 50mm diameter tube, which makes attaching lighting fixtures and decorative elements to the truss really easy and efficient.
Stagekings also provided and installed all the decor elements to the stage, turning a big structure of steel into a beautifully themed jungle stage. So many tiny elements were executed with such detail, including all the digital printing and painting inside the butterfly wings.
From the theming in the DJ booth to the small details of vines and greenery decorating the audio chain motors, Stagekings are not only great at their attention to detail, but they are also very good at installing large amounts of concrete ballast to secure giant butterflies from blowing away.
JPJ Audio supplied just over 8500 Kgs of L-Acoustics PA that was also outrigged from the scaffold structure. Subwoofers dominated the downstage edge with 24 x KS28s and 32 x SB28s scattered cardioid mode along the 60m wide Mojo barrier.
The main hang consisted of 4 x K1SB, 6 x K1, 10 x K2, the side hang 2 x K1SB, 6 x K1, 8 x K2 and the delay hang 24 x K2s. This was all driven by LA12X Amps with LAKE controllers.
“Not only are JPJ good at making a loud noise they also handle Stage comms using a wireless Bolero package,” added Danyon.
Brian the Butterfly had two huge LED screens on either side of him, with Big Picture installing 84 x 3×2 frames of ROE MC7-H. The screens came in weighing a little under 10,000 Kgs.
“JB from Big Picture was incredibly happy with his wind bracing method used to secure the bright LED wind sails,” said Danyon. “He used 60m of F34 truss braced to the ACASS frames which stopped the screens blowing around in the wind.”
The lighting was provided from MPH in Melbourne with the fearless leader Zach Saleh and his team of four, managing to hang and tech over 250 fixtures in two days. Unfortunately, projects like these are not as easy as just hanging lights on a truss, and the team spent hours each day hanging from EWPs and climbing the scaffolding structure to cable and hang all the fixtures.
30 x Robe Pointe
28 x MegaPointe
54 x ShowPRO Collider
27 x Atomic 3000 (not led, wow, they still work)
46 x Single 110v DWE Molefay
20 x Duet
4 x 4-Lite
8 x BMFL Blade
12 x PixPAR12
Control was two MA Lighting grandMA2 full size with a Luminex Network backbone.
Foti Fireworks supplied a special effects package to assist decorate the stage: 6 x C02 jets, 10 x Flame Jets and 12 x Spark machines rigged through the structure. Three scissor lifts were also loaded with a fireworks package for the final 15-minute show to finish the event.
Lumina Visual Productions installed 4 x 25-watt, 8 x 12-watt and 8 x 10-watt lasers. With this many laser heads, it’s important to have an atmospheric package that can handle a windy outdoor show, so Lumina also provided 3 x MDG 5000s and 2 x Concept Vulcan 5000 hazers.
“Lastly, a big shout out to the Sims Events team who looked after the entire festival site,” said Danyon. “They are the most helpful and reliable site team in the game, and having that kind of support on site is such a big part of having a production of this size come together.”
Photographer: Leash Leon
