TEL AVIV – Light architects Cochavi & Klein produced another of their show-stopping lighting designs for a huge event staged in Pavilion 2, Tel Aviv, Israel’s biggest venue. They were working for production company MPLive who delivered the event for financial services giant, Isracard.
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The format was a gala dinner for around 2500 people, a live show featuring a star-studded line up of popular Israeli talent onstage including Infected Mushroom and others, culminating in a party. Eran Klein operated the lights working closely with stage designer Omer Israeli, Cochavi & Klein’s project manager Dor Aichner and video designer Rubi Saati of Studio Vega.
Omer and Eran chose Robe moving lights to deliver serious impact and effects, with 12 x Mega Pointes – used for the first time live in Israel – plus 30 x Pointes, six Spiiders, eight BMFL Blades, eight 8 x BMFL Spots and three Patt 2013s on the rig.
Cochavi & Klein was asked on-board on the strength of their impressive portfolio and reputation for bringing fresh creativity and innovation to visual stage and performance concepts. MPLive approached them after consulting with the event’s technical producer, Itamar Bar Shavit.
The vast Pavilion 2 venue is 120 meters long, 60 meters wide and has a 19 meter throw distance from the roof – great news for LDs, but also meaning that only the most powerful fixtures will make an impact. This was reason number one for Omer and Eran’s choice of Robe.
The stage was set up along the long side of the room to help make the space more intimate, with the furthest away tables on raised platforms for improved site lines from the far reaches.
Omer’s idea was to have a futuristic ‘digital city’ stage design, complete with video skyline comprising 10 different height and width towers, each part-filled with video panels for a more random appearance. To compliment this, the lighting needed to be amplified to fill the vast areas, reaching out and ensuring that guests felt the energy and a connection to the stage action … rather than sitting isolated in a cavernous room.
Upstage and downstage trusses were rigged above the stage, primarily to light the bands.
A major special feature was a spectacular 60 meter long S-shaped gold chandelier, a piece of light art central to lighting the environment and constructed from two 10 metre diameter half-circles connected by a 30 meter run of straight truss, populated with a run of gold tubes and XXL squirrel-cage bulbs.
The eight BMFL Spots were used upstage at the back for beam work and effects behind the bands, with the eight BMFL Blades downstage providing tight and accurate key lighting utilizing the shutters.
The Spiiders were positioned for doing cross and side lighting onstage from the two most downstage ‘city’ towers.
Pointes were rigged on top of the ‘city’ towers, with the MegaPointes deployed in a line behind the musicians.
The Pointes and MegaPointes were the workhorse fixtures of the show.
They created all the bold, raucous, ‘in-the-face’ looks, huge dynamic scenes and fluid movements filling the air with a lively mix of aerial effects and beam-tastic WOW factors, often receiving audible gasps from the audience as the lightshow ramped up!
The MegaPointes created great ambience and atmosphere for the different acts appearing onstage, they brought added depth and dimension and they were so bright, reports Eran … that they had to tweak the intensity down!!
These were the first – and at the time the only – MegaPointes in Israel, so Eran fully enjoyed being the first LD to be able to give them a serious road test! They were positioned at three different heights to add maximum drama to the performance space and were also the only lights on the stage deck, facilitating multiple bold, beautiful looks that ensured each of the different artists stood out.
Eran took a little while to get used to the sheer scope of functionality available with the MegaPointes, but once a bit familiar with the fixtures, he really optimized!
“I think it’s the first ‘hybrid’ fixture with no compromise in any of the three modes – spot, beam and wash” he stated, adding “the spot capabilities of the MegaPointe are finally what all designers have been anticipating! It’s like the hybrid concept has suddenly jumped into HD!”
After this initial show experience, he’s thoroughly looking forward to using and exploring MegaPointes in much more depth.
Other lighting fixtures included sun strips, strobes, magic blades, and blinders. Lighting, sound and rigging for the event was supplied by one of the leading Israeli rental companies, Simul Argaman.
The biggest challenge from a lighting perspective was in delivering an interesting contemporary design that was larger than life to fill the space, yet cosy and glamorous enough to make a 250 table gala dinner feel comfortable for the guests.
With only 24 hours in which to get in and set up, everyone in all departments had to work super-fast and as a tight team onsite.
Eran, Omer and Rubi worked hard on bringing the ‘future city’ concept to life onstage, and when it came to the show, both Eran and Rubi’s experience of improvisational operating shone through with lighting and video. They actually had a lot of fun in co-ordinating and energizing this for the bands and ensuring the music was vibrantly showcased by the technology.
“It’s a great way to work” enthused Eran, “we follow each other on-the-fly with colors, intensity, shapes, speed, etc. … it’s all about bringing the right vibes into the space”.
Assisting in that vibe engineering were technical producer Itamar Bar Shavit and lighting crew chief Haim Makim.
LED screens were supplied by ScreenLED, staging by Irgunei Bamot and the bespoke chandelier was constructed by Sami Chandelier to Omer & Eran’s specification.
Photos : Tomer Foltyn
