Last October 28 000 fans descended on Moreleta Park Auditorium, a reformed Dutch Church in Pretoria, for Afrikaans is Groot – a four-night feast of live entertainment which, in true South African spirit, brought together the creme de la creme of Afrikaans artists, writes Paul Watson.

Afrikaans is Groot is no ordinary event – in fact, it’s much more than that. In 2008, the brand was born by record company, Coleske Artists. Think the Now series of compilation albums, but with an Afrikaans twist and several hit records in succession was enough to raise a proverbial eyebrow or two, and for Coleske to take Afrikaans is Groot to a live arena.

The event has quickly evolved into one of the biggest musical properties of its kind in South Africa with a growing presence in TV, radio, print and online. Last year’s event warranted a sizeable 400-strong cast and crew.
The main technical supplier for Afrikaans is Groot was AV Systems, which, according to company owner Alvaro Rodrigues, had to provide “a visually intense’ LED setup. AV Systems subcontracted rental company Gearhouse SA to supply all the lighting gear, and SDS (a division of Gearhouse) provided power and rigging, as well as the stage and set, which was built on top of the church’s original concrete stage.

AV Systems handled the video side of things, which led to the deployment of some serious kit: 36 square metres of digiLED 6mm indoor LED screen; 50 square metres of LED Vision Lighthouse 6mm indoor LED screen; four Christie Roadster S+16k projectors; and two 8m x 4.5m front projector screens.
“We brought in some nice big 16k Christie projectors for the side screens and the five columns at the back of the stage also had to be brightly lit,’ he explains, “so we integrated (LED Vision) Lighthouse screen into each of the five pillars and illuminated the two side screens with some of our own digiLED 6mm kit, which gave a particularly nice effect.’

Throughout the show, content was constantly running on all seven columns, courtesy of five Dataton Watchout servers and a Watchout production PC. The full breakdown for image processing and show control included seven Folsom Encore HD video processors (with Folsom Encore control desk), one 16 x 16 HD/SDI matrix switcher, one Calibre HD Premier view processor, three Folsom HD Image Pros, two Kramer DVI DAs and a couple of Acer 23-inch HD Preview screens.

“We use Watchout exclusively to run show control and content management at all the major live events we work on, it’s definitely the most widely used product of its kind, and it’s excellent.’ Rodrigues continues: “For this show, we didn’t actually provide the content, but because a number of the acts required backing tracks for additional percussion and instrumentation, we implemented standard time code throughout, which Watchout was then able to read and work from; all signal transmission was carried via fibre optic DVI send/receive systems.’

Stage Audio Works supplied the PA for the event – a sizeable d&b system – and everything else audio was supplied by Audiologic which included two Soundcraft Vi6 digital mixing consoles; one for FOH and one for monitors. FOH duties were performed by Johan Griesel and monitors by Revel Baselga. Marius Marais from Audiologic was the system architect for the production.

“The main PA system consisted of 12 J-Series enclosures per side, hung in a L/R configuration, with the right ratio of J-Sub to complement it and there was an additional eight boxes per side of d&b Q-Series for the outfills,’ Marais explains. “We ran active splits – all XTA DS800s – to supply the outside broadcast team who also worked from a Vi6.’
Marais also specced the show’s microphone package, which included a number of Shure, Audio-Technica, Beyerdynamic and AKG elements and for playback he opted for an RME system interface, which was played out of Logic.

“Because it’s the first Afrikaans is Groot, there was always going to be challenges along the way,’ he says. “We sent the local suppliers of the d&b system to do their plots, and they got it approved by d&b in Germany, so the system sounded great. Overall, it was a very enjoyable show to be a part of.’
At monitor position, Baselga used all 32 groups and 96 inputs (including the effects) on his Vi6 and had to build the whole show as scenes, though this isn’t unusual given the circumstances, he says.

“It’s quite common building a show that involves so many artists in this way, the only thing that can be a bit of a challenge is the amount of groups you have to use, but I’ve worked on a Vi6 many times before – it’s very versatile and always does the job very well,’ he reveals. “I had the whole band on myMix personal monitoring systems (also supplied by Audiologic) which meant I only had to feed a few mixes out to the wedges, and the singers were using a mix of in-ear monitoring systems: Sennheiser G2s and G3s and Shure PSM 900s.

“I think all in all everyone was pretty happy – thankfully enough, no artists threw anything at me, so that’s always a good sign! It also helped that Johan (Griesel) has a great ear – he’s mixed FOH for Steve Winwood, Jeff Beck and Johnny Clegg, so he really knows his stuff.’

Gearhouse provided lighting designer, Sean Rosig, with a plethora of fixtures, the bulk of which were by Martin Professional. The core setup comprised 36 Martin MAC 2000 Profiles, 18 Martin MAC 2000 Washes, 60 Martin MAC 101s, and six Martin MAC 300s. In addition, 24 Clay Paky Sharpy elements were deployed, along with 16 Vari-Lite VL 3500 Spots, 24 ETC Source Four Profiles (36-degree), seven 1KW Fresnels, 22 PAR 64s, six 8 Lite Molefays and six 4 Lite Molefays.
Rosig was also the lighting operator for the show and used a Martin M1 console along with two Martin Ether2DMX8 processing units.

“My thought process behind the lighting design was to completely enhance the visual dynamics of the show; every performance number had to look completely unique and visually interesting, supporting the meaning behind each song,’ Rosig explains. “I decided to go with a kind of theatrical rock approach – nothing too crazy. I also had to consider the type of audience mix that we were entertaining and I ended up using a lot of back, floor and side effects orientations which enabled the beams to cut through and stand out from the LED video panel backdrop.’

The two-and-a-half hour show was choreographed by Willie Venter and directed by Paolo Acevedo, and featured a massive 38 songs from a string of notable Afrikaans artists including Theuns Jordaan, Bobby and Karlien van Jaarsveld, Steve Hofmeyr, Juanita du Plessis, Arno Jordan, Corlea Botha and Dr Victor.
All artists were backed by the five-piece house band, though some of the acts were treated to some extra-special accompaniment in the form of a 100-piece choir, six dancers, four violinists and even a bagpipe player!

And if that’s not exciting enough next year’s event promises to be even bigger, with six shows already planned for two South African cities: Pretoria will again play host to four in September (6,7, 13 and 14); and two additional performances will commence on 15 and 16 November in Kaapstad.
The evolution continues then, for the Afrikaans is Groot brand.