Slovenian promoters Black Pony Entertainment could relax in the reassurance that they were most certainly doing something right as their Red Christmas Party rocked a million smiles, dance moves and waves of anticipation at the Stozice Arena in Ljubljana.
12 000 excited dance music enthusiasts packed into the beautiful historic city of Ljubljana for the largest event of its type in Slovenia, all buoyed with additional festive spirit.

OK so the weather was somewhat less than beautiful – cold, grey and rainy with a layer of brown slush reminding everyone that it was December – but superfluous to the finest rave spirits pitching out to hear Armin Van Buuren, Ferry Corsten and a host of hot national and local talent rock the city of Ljubljana to its foundations!
Black Pony Entertainment spotted a gap in the Slovenian market and kickstarted a trend based on offering unique large scale events with the very highest production values – from the international line ups and dynamic music right through to all areas of “the experience’.

Black Pony’s Anja Rebek – her personality oozing enthusiasm for the work she loves – exudes the very essence of the event’s vibe.
Formed two years ago specifically to promote large scale (4 000 plus) electro-house events in Slovenia, the company wanted to start something “new and powerful,’ explains Rebek bubbling with positive energy.

Now with the fourth Red Party (all sold out) they seem to have hit a nerve.
Like much of Europe, Slovenia is still in the grip of a recession, but the average ticket price of 28 Euros is excellent value for eight hours of non-stop live performance and the highest standard of presentation.
Rebek and her colleagues put together a team of technical production suppliers, all handpicked from their experiences with running other parties and events informed by their passion and commitment to deliver the very best.

She also came up with a basic production and decor design concept to transform the venue into an intimate and cosy environment for the evening. This is a daunting task in any stadium, even this one which looks funkier than the average, designed by Sadar Vuga Architects with a distinctive shell-shaped dome, and opened in 2010.
The room dressing was executed with assistance from Igor Remeta and 12 crew from Remeta’s company Igra Izr utilising over 5kms of red cloth, 100 large balloons and about 15 large mirror balls of different sizes, which were dotted randomly around the auditorium.

Technical production is critical in Red Party world. “It’s around 75 per cent of the whole event in terms of people’s expectations and the creative process,’ confirms Rebek. “It makes the Red Party story a qualitative as well as a quantitive exercise,’ she insists with a mischievous flourish of her large smile.
That’s also the reason they choose suppliers and partners aligned with their Black Pony’s ethos.

Lighting and visuals

A versatile and flexible lighting and visual scheme is vital to any large scale event, and the challenges include sustaining atmosphere and ambience without obvious repetition for a long period. In the process also giving each DJ and artist, which included a group of aerialists who seemed completely at home engulfed by banging techno, an individual look.

The lighting design was based on a plot submitted by Van Buuren’s LD Andre Beekmans and operated on the night by Michael Seeverens, both from Dutch-based company The Art of Light.
In Ljubljana there were nearly 70 Robe moving lights, which were supplied together with the rest of the lighting kit by Slovenia’s largest lighting rental company, Event Lighting.

Event Lighting, owned by Jernej Guštin, is very firmly committed to the Robe brand and now has over 100 fixtures in stock.
The Robes were positioned all over a series of 12 trusses hanging below a mother grid and above the stage and wings. They comprised 25 x Robe ROBIN 600 LEDWashes, 20 x ROBIN 600 Spots and 24 x ColorSpot 1 200E ATs.
As well as forming a dynamic nucleus for Van Buuren’s high energy set, the Robes were the workhorse lights for all the other performers over eight hours, including Jaz von D, who worked the crowd to sizzling point ahead of Van Buuren’s 1 am incendiary slot. Ferry Corsten took the dex, caught the adrenaline rush and eased everyone into some more chilled spatiality from 3h00 to 5h00.

Lighting for all artists (apart from Van Buuren and Corsten) was operated by freelance LD/operator Uroš Vovk. Using a Chamsys MagicQ 100 Pro console, he evolved the long show with great panache, sparingly applied plenty of crowd pleasers with big, bold interactive beams in and out of the audience and bouncing boldly around the auditorium.
Joining the Robes were 20 x High End Studio Commander 1 200 Washes which were kept busy illuminating the audience.
Twenty-four Martin Professional Atomic strobes were dotted on the rig and used rave-style, together with around 40 x 4-lite blinders, six Studio Due City Colors and 20 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1200s.

Uroš comments that having a good quantity of Robes and other fixtures on the rig – although not massive for a stadium by any stretch of the imagination – helped enormously to vary the lighting moods and kept it fresh and constantly moving.
Sometimes less is so much more when applied with a bit of thought and imagination.
Uroš set up a number of basic presets on the Chamsys console and Playback Wing and then mixed live “improv’ style over the top, keeping it vibrant and changing with the peaks and shifts in the music and aura of the crowd.
The overall show visuals were further enhanced by an impressive video design created by the event’s technical director Jaka Meden, consisting of several large different shaped LED screen surfaces

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These were loosely based on Armin van Buuren’s classic arms outstretched pose, and vaguely reminiscent of a reversed pyramid. Jaka also took the room decor into consideration when planning the screens and the fact that it’s a Red Christmas Party – so plenty of variations on red when it came to content.
There was also a large red drape wrapping around the back of the stage, which aided specific 3D animations and effects on screen.

The video screens were all supplied by Ljubljana based Hurikan – about 132 square metres of 18mm pitch and 92 square metres of 32mm pitch LED – most of it above and to the sides of the stage area.
Any serious dance event relies heavily on well placed screen elements to help close and define the space and energise the audience. Without it there would have been a rather large gap.

The LED screens were all from China; very much a current sign of the times in terms of pricing options for those operating in emerging countries like Slovenia, but its origins are completely irrelevant when in action.
The video department also tied into the venue’s LED arena-wide info-ring and the scoreboard cube in the roof via their AV Stumfl Wings system, operated by Den Baruca and used for all the screen mapping and management.

Content was supplied by two VJs – stored on their laptops – for the majority of the event, and included some but subtle sections of sponsor’s logos and other animations.
Van Buuren’s team hooked into the “house’ video system and used their own materials and graphics, operated by Sander Reneman (also Van Buuren’s production manager). It was stored on his laptop and output via an Akai APC40 mixer fed into the Wings system for outputting to screen.

Audio

Achieving any sort of even sounding and smooth audio in the barn like environs of a stadium is interesting. While relatively straightforward in terms of a left and right mix, there was some definite sonic art involved … courtesy of Dejan Žura of DB Team. Like most of the companies involved they are also from Ljubljana.
Dejan has worked on the Red Parties since number two and he designed the system together with one of his technicians, Jernej Cernolog, choosing combined Martin Audio and d&b elements.

The main left and right hangs were12 x Martin W8LB speakers a side, augmented with plus side hangs of 12 additional W8LBs. For infills they used three Martin H3s a side.
The subs were eight ground-stacked d&b J-SUBS a side plus 40 x Martin WS218 subs ensconced under the stage to ensure that low end permeated every hidden corner and structural nuance of the building.
Dejan comments that he has found the Martin / d&b combination an excellent one, enhancing any sonic environment for dance and electronic music.

His familiarity with the venue was also an “enormous help’ in fine tuning and getting a nice smooth, clean image all around the arena, and he mixed the show using a DiGiCo D1; his current digital console of choice.
The 54 points of lighting, sound and video rigging were installed by lead Rigger Mitta Zupancic and his crew of 10 – six in the air and four on the ground. They started two days beforehand; their first task was to install the 30 x 16 metre mother grid – achieved with the help of cherry-pickers.

All the trussing and motors (a mix of CM and Chain Master hoists) came from Prozvok together with the staging.
As doors were about to open Van Buuren’s lighting operator Michael Seeverens and the rest of his crew were in a relaxed and happy mood – a testament to the smooth running and good organisation of the event.

The atmosphere kicked in right from the off – Slovenia was here – loud and clear and out to party!
Hitting the spot with an awesome line up, the highest standards of presentational excellence and an audience hungry for good dance music … Arena Stožice made-some-serious noise!

by Louise Stickland