Page 99 - Protec PR Book Volume 2

However, the weather provided another unexpected challenge. “There were so many wet days during the set-up and the night before the opening we had wind speeds of 33 metres a second which provided a number of challenges site wide in the hours before the doors opened to the public,” explained Lakin.
To overcome the conditions they needed to bag all equipment every night and then unbag prior to the show.
“This meant the projectors had to be realigned up every day, giving us only 20 minutes of darkness to do so before the event opened.”
And audio was not spared either. On the morning of the opening day some kit was damaged by water when the covering was ripped off by freak winds. Fortunately they were prepared, and had spares on site.
However, worst hit was the Happiness Zone as all equipment was exposed. Daniel Ivanovski, Protec’s Lighting Engineer, underlined the scale of the challenge in protecting the equipment from the driving rain — which penetrated far inside the roofed stage area — and buffeting winds. “Front of house and dimming/distro area had been covered with tarps held down with stage weights and ropes and the lighting fixtures that weren't under the roof were individually covered with plastic bags every night during the setup and first show days although the weather improved for the festival itself.”
The same plastic bag procedure was applied for all lighting fixtures.
Summing up the event, James Lakin said, “All in all the team delivered a seamless show over some fairly difficult and unpredictable days. We managed to deliver on all fronts, which given the size of the site, and challenging weather conditions during the build-up, was no mean feat.”
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