THE PRODIGY ROCKS CAPE TOWN AND JOHANNESBURG

UK electronic dance band The Prodigy are famous for their loud, bright and in your face shows and on their tour to South Africa they showed no signs of stopping. The tour at the beginning of December was on a smaller scale than usual, but they made full use of the equipment they had at their disposal.

The prodigy headlined the Synergy Festival 2012 with the first of two legs set at the picturesque Theewaterskloof Dam just outside Franschoek in the Western Cape. Before the event two days of gale force winds wreaked havoc on the load in, but Costa Champanis, Yasheen Abdullah and the Ultra Events Crew pulled through and delivered a fantastic platform for the festival and for the main act.

The Main stage rig was based on 40 x Martin MAC 101s, 6 x Martin Atomic strobes (with Atomic Colors), 6 x Audience Blinders, 18 x 1k Par Cans, 2 x Jem ZR33 Smoke machines, 16 x Robin 600 Wash and 8 x Robe 575 Spots. Everything was controlled off a Hog Desk. For the capacity crowd rocking away under the stars it was an experience of a lifetime. If you've never done a Cape Town Festival, then put it on your bucket list!

The second leg of the Synergy Festival was a one night show at the Riversands Farm north of Johannesburg. All lighting kit was supplied by Theo Papenfuss of Stage Effects, with Ni-Lou Breytenbach operating the local acts. This time the rig consisted of 40 x Martin MAC 101s, 22 x Martin MAC 600 Washes, 12 x Martin Atomic strobes (with Atomic Colors). Theo also added 8 of his newly acquired Martin Viper Profiles and 12 x Robin 600E Beams. As before everything was controlled off a Hog Desk. The result was an explosion of light and sound that energized the Johannesburg crowd.

With South Africa drawing more and more top acts to our shores it is great to see the effort and professionalism that local lighting companies inject into productions to allow these big names to shine.

[Contributors: Costa Champanis & Theo Papenfuss]