This new festival is a collaboration between leading South African festival organizers Innibos and Afrikaans superstar singer Kurt Darren, and was staged at Darren’s farm outside Naboomspruit, 180Km from state capital Pretoria. It was attended by over 25,000 enthusiastic music fans.

The 4 hour long concert featured a line up of South African artists who could each choose their favourite song to perform, plus a duet with Darren. Forty-eight of the songs were chosen 'live' by the audience from a pre-selection of numbered songs detailed on a flyer they were handed at the gate.

A triangular shaped truss was rigged over the stage. The 24 Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 700E ATs and the 6 ColorBeam 700s were positioned on this and on the deck. They were used for a variety of effects along with more practical tasks like washing the stage and highlighting key performers onstage.

It was the first time that Ferreira had used ColorBeam 700E ATs, so he was eagerly anticipating yet not quite sure what to expect! His mind was made up as soon as they were fired up and he started realizing exactly what they could do!

“I could not believe the power,” he declares. “They are a perfect light for an open air stage”. He used 4 at the back of the stage and 2 further onstage, sitting on the band risers, and once he started programming the show, changed many of his original lighting ideas due to the quality and intensity of the ColorBeam’s light output.

He adds that the ColorBeams “outperformed” all the other units onstage - which also included other types of moving lights - in terms of brightness and visual impact.

His overall lighting concept was based on an essentially layered theatrical design so that different and specific areas of the stage could be lit and highlighted separately but simultaneously. With no set list and the random audience selection elements involved, it was vital to ensure that the design was completely flexible, buskable and that it could deal with any situation onstage – no matter how unexpected – plus a wide variety of different musical styles.

Ferreira programmed and controlled all the lighting from an Avolites Pearl desk. MGG’s crew chief was Herman Wessels.