HILTON ARTS FESTIVAL AND ELECTROSONIC KZN

The Hilton Arts Festival, held in September at Hilton College near Pietermaritzburg, is a miniature Grahamstown Arts Festival, boasting some of South Africa's most popular theatre productions as well as music events and craft markets. After discussions with the festival coordinator, it was decided that instead of sponsoring technical gear for the festival, Electrosonic KZN would have a stand aimed at creating awareness among scholars and students about the technology, providing information about the products, as well as offering hands-on technical training.

Electrosonic KZN's show room consisted of 8 x MAC101s, 2 x MX10s, a Magnum 1800 smoke machine, a K1 Hazer, a Maxxyz Compact, a Maxedia compact, a Martin LightJockey, a screen and a projector, and was manned by Ben Buckwalter and Nick Barnes. "Although attendance was slow to begin with, the numbers grew rapidly after a few sessions," said Nick.

"The format of our workshop was to first introduce Electrosonic, then talk about the products and the importance of technical equipment and training, followed by demonstrations and ending with a Q&A session."

The demonstration used the Maxxyz, LightJockey and time coding to present a lighting show running to a selected song while showing off the effects of the Martin lights. "It proved to be quite a day!" said Nick. "We introduced a lot of young people to the technical side of life, and probably gained some new clients from among the older generation. "I hope the next step will be for Electrosonic to get involved in the National Schools Arts Festival in Grahamstown next year."