Idols SA season 10 finale

By Thuli Mlambo

Previous Idols SA shows during season 10 were held at the State Theatre in Pretoria, but the finale, which took place on Sunday 23 November 2014, called for a bigger audience and was moved to the 3 000 seated capacity of Carnival City’s theatre in the east of Johannesburg. Carnival City’s theatre is designed for ease of use for contestants and technical teams alike, as there aren’t many limitations.

This season’s set was monumental with Gavin Wratten as show director and the entire set, lighting and AV elements handled by Dreamsets. The lighting project-managed by Eben Peltz, whose other role entailed managing all the elements from site layout to power infrastructure and all general challenges that cropped up during all the stages of the production. Audiologic was sub-contracted by [SIC] Entertainment to handle audio, which was managed by Marius Marais for the tenth season.

“Having done 10 seasons of Idols SA, I can easily say it’s never the same every year, interesting challenges, also it’s good for my CV and any company that has a gig running for more than 10 years in a row, I can easily say it means they are doing something right,’ expresses Marais.

The set

Season 10’s set was very exciting to watch as there were few new technical changes as compared to previous seasons. The set was packed up at the State Theatre and setup at Carnival City in the space of a few days and rehearsals began just two days before the finale.

22 x Martin LC panels were incorporated as part of the set lighting. Samsung LCD 46-inch Seamless panels were used for the tracking back wall and there were numerous Samsung LED panels integrated in the set. The set design was done expertly by lighting designer Josh Cutts, Peltz and Wratten.

Lighting

Idols SA is a show which requires lighting that is both exciting and functional at the same time, as each song needs to have its own look and feel so the fixtures need to be multi-purpose and offer variety. There were different lighting fixtures used on the show, all working together to excite the audience with a different light parade for each performance. Cutts says Carnival City was a pleasure to light because the arena is designed for this type of show. This year they went for a cleaner look with curved LED light boxes suspended from the grid. These light boxes were also used as light fixtures internally, which gave very vibrant and dynamic objects in the air.

“I wanted to create a dynamic space that had good design lines and layers of effects. The space needed to be full and vibrant. All camera angles needed to have their own background with great effects and depth,’ he explains.
The lighting console used by Cutts, was the GrandMA2 full size with an OnPC command wing as backup. These were connected to an eight-port node and two four-port nodes allowing him access to a full 16 universe of DMX control. The MA network allowed a full backup system in place for the live broadcast which allows for peace of mind when operating the show.

Cutts made use of the Robe Robin 800 LED as the main backwash on the stage due to the rich colours available from the LED range. The Robe Colorwash 2500 was used on the front truss for main front light for its brightness and for its colour temperature which is tremendous for camera.

Cutts had the privilege of trying out the new Robe Robin BMFL, which he used to texture the audience, and for presenter links in the audience, for which they did the job brilliantly, says Cutts. The Clay Paky Sharpy was used for the effect lighting and, as always, they were spectacular. To add sparkle around the band and on the floor, Cutts made use of the Elation Cuepix panels in front of the band on the floor with the Robin Parfect as the band and audience wash, which were super punchy and offered great colour options on the audience.

He explains: “With the show being live it doesn’t really affect my choice of lights, it just adds a ton of pressure, which I can handle and with that in mind we make sure that all major control gear has a back-up and is on UPS so that the system is strong and stable.’ His best moments were while watching his design come to life and work better than anticipated.

All the video was controlled by Cutts himself using four Coolux players controlled by the grandMA2 lighting desk, these players run all the different screen elements, which allowed him full control over what was played on the screens and he could choose different textured video to assist the lighting look that he created.

To add spark to the show, a little pyrotechnics were added sporadically for a few performances. These were handled by a pyrotechnic technician, but controlled by Cutts: “I run the flames and CO2 jets from my lighting desk so that I have more control over when they fire.’

Audio

A couple of things had changed for the better this year, including an upgrade to a new sound mixing console. The show’s FOH was operated using a Vista 1 with a built-in DSP fixed rank console. Audio was operated by Marais, who is very experienced with Idols SA. The show’s FOH was operated on a Vista 1 which can be easily configured, and channels could be moved around the console, making it easier to switch between the different audio needs of the show, especially with Idols SA’s random, different music genres, with different bands, and talking presenter and judges, so this vital equipment made Marais’ work a pleasure.

Julius Dreyer handled the monitoring, using a Vi6 sound card fitted with a new Dante sound card that was launched in 2013 and it allowed communication with any equipment that uses Dante. The Allen & Heath ME1 system was also used as it is a Dante-based personal monitoring system. This allowed every musician control using their own control pad, where they could mix and build their own mix into their own preference without having to constantly communicate their changes with a monitor engineer.

For the backbone they used the 64-channel Klark Technique square 1 active splitters, which splits signal between FOH, monitor and broadcast sound. The big trick, according to Marais, was to provide a good, clean audio platform for everyone, for the musicians and singers on stage and to feed to broadcast for the viewers at home. Fortunately there were technicians responsible for each different audio function.
“The challenge with such a large audience venue is combatting house noise. For this I used a massive PA. The 12–a-side new JBL VTX V25s, with sub-complements worked very well for this,’ explains Marais.

Another pleasant and unique change for the finale was the elimination of on-stage monitors to the introduction of in-ear pieces, which are specifically designed and moulded according to musicians’ ear shape and these were supplied by Noiseclipper. The choice for in-ear pieces was to cut the loud crowd sound out for the musicians and singers. From the broadcast point of view, this made the stage completely quiet and gave a clean sound signal for broadcast purposes. The outside broadcast side was handled by Cristo Hatting from Sound GP.

The in-house sound technical team who made Idols SA Season 10 a success comprised of Johan Griesel, who controlled the sound during the first five weeks of the show at the State Theatre in Pretoria. Dreyer was on monitors, Kenson Makhekhe as senior stage deck, and Gert Watson and Sims Jacob on stage deck.

The wrap

Idols SA has become the longest running interactive reality television show this country has ever seen, where the viewers at home can vote for their favourite artist, driving the ratings higher each season. South Africa’s undying love for a show that excites and brings new musical talent to the market will surely keep the show going for many more seasons. The technical teams are already working on season 11 with pre-production having begun at the end of January 2015 and auditions in February. With lighting and audio technical expertise in the likes of Marais and Cutts, the show is certain to become more spectacular.

Kit List:

Control
1 x Grand MA 2 Full Size
1 x MA 2 Command Wing
1 x Grand MA 2 4-port node
1 x Grand MA 2 8-port node
1 x GrandMA2 on PC
16 x Universes of DMX on the show

Lighting
1 x GrandMA2 on PC4 x Robe BMFL
48 x Robe Robin Parfect RGBW
8 x Robe Robin MMX profile
4 x Robe Robin 600 LED wash
16 x Robe Robin 800 LED wash
30 x Robe Robin LedBeam 100
16 x Robe Colorwash 2500 EAT
12 x Robe Colorspot 700 EAT
36 x Clay Paky Sharpy
6 x Robe Robin Pointe
12 x Beam lights
12 x Philips Nitro LED strobe
24 x Elation Cue Pix panels
22 x Martin LC panels
Seamless LCD wall
4 x Pandora Box Coolux players