Into The Madness is a new outdoor festival organized by well-established German hardstyle promotor Musical Madness. It debuted as the country’s biggest outdoor event dedicated to hardstyle music and featured an open-air main stage alongside the Raw stage, which was housed within a large “big top” festival tent. Hosted Sept. 3 at the lakeside Seepark Zülpich, near Cologne,the event attracted thousands of hardstyle fans who enjoyed DJ sets and live performances running from midday through late evening.
LaserFrame and Creative Sounds Veranstaltungstechnik have a long history of working with Musical Madness. The companies’ involvement with the festival began more than a year in advance when they provided the lighting for a live-steamed launch event at the same venue in July 2021. For the festival itself, they provided the full lighting, effect, and video production for the Raw stage, while another partner company, Rent – Audio Veranstalungstechnik OHG, provided the audio system.
Creative Sounds’ principal Patrick Hirt served as the lighting designer for the stage, while pre-event visualization was taken care of by Yannik Richarz who, alongside Christian Sudhop, provided additional ideas and finishing touches for the design. The stage’s layout featured a grid truss structure which wrapped around the central DJ position, with LED video panels mounted within each grid segment. ADJ’s Jolt 300 LED-powered zone strobe/wash fixtures were then mounted horizontally between each screen segment, while the new ADJ Jolt Bar FX units were rigged to each vertical truss section between the LED screens.
The Jolt Bar FX is a linear wash fixture that features a central strip of 112 x 5-Watt cool white SMD LEDs, surrounded on both sides by a total of 672 x 0.3W RGB color mixing SMD LEDs. This allows the same fixture to generate intense white strobing and multi-colored chase effects. Both types of LED are also grouped into independently controllable zones (16 white and 32 color), which means the unit can also be used to generate strobe chases and other eye candy effects.
“We have been fans of the Jolt 300 since day one and as soon as the Jolt Bar FX was announced we had ideas for how we could incorporate it into our designs,” explains LaserFrame’s owner Guido Schütz. “As soon as we saw a demo it was clear that we needed it and decided to invest in 32 fixtures. We really like the variety it offers – as a wash, strobe, or effect – as well as its design: it is not too big or heavy but is long enough to make a statement on stage. This was our first major event using the fixtures and they performed even better than we expected. The brightness of both the RGB LEDs and the power of the strobe bar should not be underestimated!”
At each cross point of the truss lattice, an ADJ Vizi Beam RXONE moving head fixture was mounted, which created a 7 x 3 grid of beams filling the back of the stage. A well-established best-selling fixture in the ADJ catalog, the RXONE is a dedicated beam luminaire that is incredibly powerful, surprisingly compact, and impressively agile. Powered by a potent Osram® Sirius HRI 1R discharge lamp, it produces a sharp 3-degree beam that travels up to 100 meters. With a brilliant-white color temperature of 8,000K and illuminance measurements of 99,250 lux at 10m and 70,030 lux at 15m, the fixture is able to generate immense beams that will cut through ambient light to create eye-catching aerial effects.
“We have been using ADJ fixtures for a number of years now and continue to find them reliable and effective,” states Guido. “This project once again proved that they are more than suitable for even large stages. All of the fixtures worked and looked great, but time and time again we are always impressed by the Vizi Beam RXONE. It is very small, but incredibly powerful, and when we use them in large quantities, like we did for Into The Madness, the beam effects are truly stunning.”
Across the top of the rear truss structure, Patrick’s design used ADJ’s Encore Burst 200 LED-powered warm white twin cell blinders. Each of these fixtures feature a pair of 110W 2700K CREE LEDs and specially developed electronics that replicate a traditional halogen lamp dimming profile. Additional blinders were positioned on the top of PA towers standing at either side of the stage, which were also used to rig further beam moving head fixtures. In this case, ADJ’s recently released Vizi Beam 12RX luminaire was chosen, which incorporates a 260W Philips® Platinum 12R LL MSD discharge lamp and generates an incredibly crisp 2-degree beam.
Completing the lighting system, Rayzor 360Z compact LED beam/wash fixtures from ADJ’s sister company Elation Professional lined the sides of the rear truss structure, while ADJ’s Hydro Wash X7 LED wash fixtures were used to illuminate the performers on stage as well as the festival’s logo, which was printed on scrims covering the PA towers. A pair of these fixtures were rigged to each of the two large roof support pillars, which allowed the four units to cover the entire stage or to spotlight specific areas using their motorized zoom function.
The setup was completed using ADJ’s Fog Fury Jett Pro LED-illuminated vertical fog machines, which were lined across the front of the stage. These were used to generate CO2-style blasts of fog to add extra emphasis to musical drops and also served to fill the tent with a beam-enhancing mist.
Into The Madness proved to be a resounding success, cementing the position of Musical Madness as leaders of the hardstyle dance scene in Germany. The Raw Stage arena attracted healthy crowds throughout the day and evening who were treated to incredible lighting and effects courtesy of the hard work put in by the LaserFrame and Creative Sounds Veranstaltungstechnik teams. Attention was drawn to the stage by the concentration of fixtures arranged behind the DJ position, while the larger moving heads rigged farther out ensured that the whole tent was filled with immersive aerial effects. Featuring ADJ fixtures almost exclusively, the production also provided a perfect showcase of the creative potential for large events offered by ADJ’s versatile portfolio of professional lighting and effects fixtures.
Event
Into The Madness Festival – Raw Stage
www.intothemadness.de
Lighting Production
LaserFrame and Creative Sounds Veranstaltungstechnik
www.laserframe.net | www.creative-sounds.net
Lighting Designer
Patrick Hirt
Visualization
Yannik Richarz
Assistant Lighting Designer
Christian Sudhop
Lighting Gear List
12 ADJ Vizi Beam 12RX
28 ADJ Vizi Beam RXONE
24 ADJ Jolt 300
27 ADJ Jolt Bar FX
12 ADJ Encore Burst 200
4 ADJ Hydro Wash X7
6 ADJ Fog Fury Jett Pro
12 Elation Professional Rayzor 360Z
