Beautiful Days - Main Stage LD Nic Ayres

Beautiful Days is a unique festival - hosted by the Levellers,  there any few other festivals that are run purely by one musical group with such a loyal following.  A policy of no commercial sponsors, a large family entertainment field, bars run by the Otter Brewery with sensible priced beer and cider, and frequent cleaning of toilets marks this festival apart from its more mainstream peers.  Add to that a varied program of music and the picturesque location of Escot Park and you have all the ingredients for a perfect weekend.  ChamSys MagicQ consoles were used on all three of the stages.

Lighting Designer Nic Ayres as in charge of the main stage.  Despite having to work with a relatively small stage (only one bay on the orbit structure) Nic put together a design which made the most of the limited space and provided a depth to the lighting.  Eight sub hung trusses each with three moving lights and alternating strobes and moles provided the backdrop to the stage - all provided by GLS Lighting of Southampton.

This design proved its worth during the daytime where the "in your face" lighting enabled use of the rig where the all too often used straight trusses with spot/wash, spot/wash combinations fails.  Nic used a MagicQ MQ200 with dual external touch screens.  The positioning of the fixtures on the stage was mapped onto the MagicQ Plan View which then made it really simple to pick fixtures, make groups and create palettes.

Nic loves the live offseting abilities of the MagicQ.  Nic commented "I can set the crossfader to be a 'Busking Master' and then use this to control the fade times every time I select a Palette.  If I go into FAN mode then every time I select a Palette it automatically offsets - this really is genius".

Alan King was operating lights for Dreadzone. He was really happy to find a ChamSys MagicQ as the control desk - he already owns a MagicQ PC MaxiWing control system - and moving from one to the other is straightforward as they both run exactly the same software and are entirely compatible.  Alan has been using MagicQ for over a year now and has found it really easy to learn - he hasn't yet needed to resort to any formal training even though ChamSys are always happy to offer free training courses.