Since its inaugural event in New York in 2004, the AFROPUNK Festival has become a global phenomenon, associated not only with alternative punk music but also with its audience’s eclectic ‘African-born’ styling and eye-catching fashion statements in Atlanta, Paris and London.

The AFROPUNK movement emerged as a rebellious alternative to mainstream white punk/rock culture, and is promoted as ‘a blank space to freak out in, to construct a new reality, to live your life as you see fit, while making sense of the world around you,’ while celebrating alternative black culture and spirit.  Its South African debut, at Johannesburg’s historically significant Constitution Hill on 30th and 31st December was welcomed by many as a ‘homecoming’ to the continent.  Technical solutions provider, Gearhouse Group provided the Staging, Lighting, Audio Visual, LED Screens, Power and Rigging to the festival and Show Sync’s Clinton Seery took on Production Direction for the South African iteration. The event featured South African musicians as well as a spread of local poets, artists and activists performing alongside international stars such as British artist Laura Mvula and the American singer Anderson .Paak.

Gearhouse’ Audio Engineer Jako de Wit estimates that around 40 acts were featured, with artists performing in relays over both days of the Festival. “The stage was divided into three performance areas - each with its own audio setup and each manned independently by its allocated technical team.” It made the changeovers very slick allowing the carefully curated collection of house, kwaito, punk, hip-hop, soul, reggae, roots and pop performances to flow smoothly and dynamically. The arrangement dictated an LCR setup with Meyer Milo for the main hangs and Mica for front-fills and delays to provide a continuous music experience for the audience, as well as excellent sound coverage across the space.The central Gold stage featured more than a dozen DJ’s each day using a Yamaha LS9-32, while the Red and Green Stages each deployed an AVID Profile and a Yamaha PM5DRH at monitors. All inputs were controlled by Lake LM44’s and a couple of Meyer Galileo units handled the signal out on the stage side for PA distribution.

The lighting configurations were also distinct from one another, with every stage working with a dozen each of Robe 700 colour washes, 700 colour spots and Mac 101’s plus six Martin Atomic strobes and four lamp bars for key light and additional punch during the evening sessions. The rigs were individually controlled through Grand MA2 desks. LEDVision provided a cohesive LED screen set up which drew the two outer stages together visually to read as one. The two outer and single rear delay screens ran mostly camera content with a centre screen in between the two stages running content, as well as camera-work and artists information. A design comprised of ROE LED strips enhanced the stage wings and provided colour indication as to which stage would go live next. Onstage LED screens (Lighthouse R16 and DuoLED 18) were used to augment the lighting and enhance the daytime performances. A complex control setup was installed to run graphics playback using Resolume servers as well switching a 4 camera mix. “For us, clear and continuous communication between Stage and Front of House show call was absolutely key to the event’s success and it was testimony to our tight teamwork that it ran so smoothly” explains Gearhouse Project Manager, Nickolas Chapman.  Whilst Production Director Seery and technical suppliers Gearhouse are long accustomed to working together; delivering for the AFROPUNK organisers was a first for both.

“Technically speaking, it is always more interesting to work between three stages, bringing them alive individually but while we enjoyed the fresh approach, it was obviously much more demanding on the technical team,” comments Seery. “Lighting, LED Screens, Audio and Cameras took on the challenge with open arms however and we managed to paint what we believe to be an ‘inaugural-perfect’ picture! Of course, in situations like this, when you haven’t a second to waste, you need to be able to trust your supplier’s understanding of the client’s vision and the Gearhouse team was there with me every step of the way, even through those inevitable last-minute problem-solving moments. These guys go above and beyond to keep their client happy.”  While the event was smooth sailing on a technical level, the weather was not. One of the notorious Highveld thunderstorms complete with bucketing rain, heavy wind and extreme hail hit the event on Saturday; but even that failed to dampen the spirits of everyone involved.

“The weather came, shook us, shook the sound, shook the screens, shook the lights, shook the camera’s, even shook the crew but NOTHING stopped the show technically!” adds Seery.  

Splitbeam purchases 14 additional ETC Source Four Revolutions for the South African tour of Annie.

Gearhouse Splitbeam is a long-term professional Theatre equipment rental company which, according to its Managing Director Alistair Kilbee, prides itself on being one of only a handful of true theatre lighting specialists able to supply the requirements of international touring productions from West End, Broadway or anywhere else in the world.  As such, the company goes out of its way to ensure that they meet or exceed the service delivery expectations of each of their clients. So when there was an element they were unable to supply on the technical rider for the Pieter Toerien /Hazel Feldman version of Annie earlier this year, the company moved to purchase the missing stockholding for the show without missing a beat.  

“The RFP for the supply of lighting came in in March this year, so we had a bit of time to ensure that we could fully meet the requirement” says Alistair Kilbee, Managing Director at Gearhouse Splitbeam. “The rider specification is an exact duplicate of the UK tour design by Lighting Designer Ben Cracknell. While the touring team were happy to substitute VL3500 for the Mac Viper Performances; the bank of ETC Source 4 Revolutions for FOH front light and side light on the booms are an integral part of the design. “Annie is a true musical classic – a part of the canon of theatre productions” he says “and likewise, the ETC Source Four Revolution with its tungsten lamp, embodies all that is best in classic Theatrical lighting. We absolutely understood that this was the correct fixture for this particular show. As a matter of fact, the Revolution is the fixture of choice for many acclaimed Lighting designers because of the Tungsten source and its versatility and because of these specific attributes, it is not readily substituted.”  

Needless to say, the Splitbeam team was delighted to take delivery of the new product on 8th September. “This acquisition fills a key area that we feel has been lacking. ETC Revolutions are a standard requirement on Lighting Specifications for Musicals and Theatre productions internationally and are widely used on Theatrical stages and touring productions across the globe. Having these units on Annie means that there is no need to rig dozens of ETC Source 4 to achieve the requisite specials and general cover and the colour-changing facility further reduces the need for fixtures. Together with the existing stockholding, we now have sufficient ETC Revolution fixtures to replace and entire generic Front of House rig and we will be able to supply more theatre jobs with less fixture substitutions going forward” concludes Alistair.  

Annie runs in Johannesburg the TEATRO at Montecasino:  12 October 2016 to 27 November 2016 and in Cape Town at the ARTSCAPE Opera:  02 December 2016 to 8 January 2017. Splitbeam will be providing all the Lighting, Audio and Rigging for the show.