The Idols South Africa franchise is a massive phenomenon that has grown in production value from strength to strength over the years, giving budding artists from around the country a dazzling platform to showcase their talents and compete for the title of the number one spot.

Staying at last years’ venue, the eighth season of Idols South Africa was held at the Mosaiek Teatro in Fairland, Johannesburg; a 3 000 seat venue that is equipped with state of the art audio, video and multimedia capabilities and boasts a large 278 square metre stage. Its sheer size and advanced AV integration makes it perfect for the needs of all involved, from the performers, to the stage and production crew.
While being produced by local screen entertainment production company [sic] entertainment for M-Net and directed by acclaimed director Gavin Wratten, the technical handling of the show was contracted to Johannesburg-based production company Dream Sets, headed by technical manager Eben Peltz.

Peltz’s responsibility included the negotiation of all things technical including the set itself, sound, lighting, video and broadcast. This entailed bringing on board a number of other companies and independent contractors to assist in bringing the production to fruition; all falling under the Dream Sets umbrella. Audio Logic and Alphacam were contracted by [sic] entertainment themselves and they all worked in collaboration to ensure the success of the event .All negotiations regarding sound and broadcast were done by Audio Logic and Alphacam themselves.


The set

Season 8 set is just as impressive in real life as it is on television. Designed in a collaborative effort by Eben, lighting designer Joshua Cutts, director Gavin Wrattle and set designer Dewet Meyer, it was designed to be dynamic, interactive and encompassing. Incorporating such elements as HD screen arrays, low-res LED panels, metres and metres of LED strip lighting and Chameleon Star Cloth, the goal was to draw the audience in and wrap them up in the performances.

The first features that you immediately notice are five wave-like frames in a staggered configuration above the audience that incorporate LED-strip lighting. These could change colour at will to match the theme of the rest of the set and were a particular challenge to rig, as expressed by Eben. Flanking the stage on each side are four internally lit fabric pillars which, combined with the wave structures above the audience, draw the viewer into the stage.
Speaking of the stage, the first noticeable structure is an arch spanning the entire width of the performance area, with 22 LED strip lights attached at regular intervals. On either side of the LED arch there is an array of twelve HD flat panels, arranged in an irregular fashion to break up the otherwise symmetrical configuration of the stage set.

To the rear of the stage we see a wall of low-res LED panels – which opens and closes for entering and exiting performers – surrounded by several more hung above and to the side of the wall. All of these video panels are incorporated into the set and are a large part of how the set stays dynamic and evolving. Finally a star cloth was hung above and to the rear of the performance area, adding to the overall ethereal atmosphere of the set.

Lighting and video

Award-winning independent lighting designer Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier was commissioned for the third season in a row to handle lighting the set and, to some degree, the audience.

In addition Cutts had a big hand in the overall look and feel of the set, as many elements besides standard lighting were incorporated, namely video, which was fundamental to the overall set design.
Cutts’ rig incorporates a total of 104 moving lights, excluding LED fixtures, which is a big part of keeping the show interesting and energetic. There are also another “60 or so’ LED par cans and strip lights situated in various areas of the venue, such as the arch at the front of the stage and above the audience.

Cutts’ lighting desk of choice for the production was a GrandMA II full size with a (NPU) Network Processing Unit that can be controlled via his laptop in the event of a system failure. All video is controlled by Cutts and is stored backstage on three Coolux Pandoras Box media servers and configured with Coolux Manager software.
He explains: “This year at Idols we focussed more on the video element and created specific backgrounds for presenter links, the dimmer lights, the amber looks, and I control it all from my lighting desk. It runs through my network and we patch it as a normal DMX fixture so, to me, it’s as if I’m controlling a moving light. The awesome thing about having control of the video from the lighting desk is that I can change the colour of the clips, I can add flash effects, I can change the speed of the clips, depend on the song. The PC configures it and my desk controls the PC as if it was a light.’

Lasers were also a big part of the show, incorporating five in total comprising a 20W and four 5W varieties. These brought a 3D element to the show, seemingly to emanating from the stage and enhanced by the smooth performance of a high spec MDG hazer.


Audio

Audio was handled by Marius Marais and his company, Audiologic, which provided the FOH, monitoring and audio network for the production. Cristo Hattingh of Sound GP was also contracted by Audiologic to handle the broadcast audio side of things from his OB trailor where the show is mixed and recorded to multi-track for broadcast.
Marais used a Soundcraft Vi6 digital mixer to mix the show which was networked via fibre optic to the remote stage boxes where three splits were made for FOH, on-stage monitoring and outside broadcast.

Monitoring duties were handled by Willem Bronkhorst on cascaded Soundcraft Si1 and a Si3 consoles. Since the set did not allow for on stage wedges, everyone utilised Aviom in-ear monitoring systems with the exception of the backing vocalists, who were hidden behind the keyboard players and were therefore able to use wedges. For the final two weeks, the backing vocalists switched to the Aviom systems as well.

The FOH loudspeaker system utilised was a JBL Vertec 4889 line array, which was brought in by Marius. Since Shure was the primary microphone sponsor of the show, on-stage microphones included an assortment from the ubiquitous manufacturer, including all the wireless hand-helds. Models used included Beta 91 and Beta 52A for kick, Beta 56A and Beta 57A for snare, Beta 98Ds on all the toms, congas and bongos, and either SM81s either SM94s on overheads. SM81s were also used on timbales and percussion overheads.

Electric guitars were miked with Beta 57As and acoustic guitars were taken direct albeit with Shure UR series beltpacks with jack inputs. As far as vocals go all contestants and the MC were miked with Shure Beta 58A wireless mikes (20 in total) and the backing vocalists were miked with wired Beta 58As. Lastely, the judges were all miked with Shure Lecturn microphones.

For the outside broadcast side, Cristo handled the mix of the show on an Avid Profile 96 channel system, fitted with two MADI cards to interface with an SSL MADIxtreme128 in a Mac Pro tower. A MADI stream was linked to the OB trailor with and AES/EBU backup and everything was clocked together with an Apogee Big Ben master clock, locked to Backburst from the camera OB.

Monitoring was handled by JBL LSP2328s with a sub. Reference video was recorded on an iMac using a Blackmagic USB capture card. A TVone quad scaler was used to receive two video feeds along with the console and Mac screen onto a single 51′ Samsung plasma screen. Audio-Technica microphones were used to capture the audience.

Tech Box

Audio

• Soundcraft Vi6 FOH console
• JBL Vertec 4889 Line Array & JBL wedges
• Soundcraft Si6 & Si3 monitor consoles
• Kick: Shure Beta 91 & Beta 52A
• Snare Top: Shure Beta 56A
• Snare Bottom: Shure Beta 57A
• Toms: Shure Beta 98A
• Overheads: Shure SM81s or SM94s
• Congas and Bongos: Shure Beta 98A
• Timbales: Shure SM81
• Percussion Overheads: Shure SM81
• Electric Guitars: Shure Beta 57A
• Vocalists: Shure Beta 58A
• Judges: Shure lecturns
• Aviom MyMix systems

Lighting

• GrandMA II Full size & NPU
• Robe Colorspot 700
• Robe Colorwash 2500 & 700
• Robe ColorBeam 700
• Robe Robin 600 Ledwash
• Robe Robin Ledbeam 100
• Longman LED Batton & LED Par64s
• 1000w Par64 Parcans
• 10deg Source Four profiles
• MDG Atmosphere
• MDG Heavy Fog machine

Video

• Coolux Pandoras Box media players
• Martin LC panels
• Robe StageQube LED panels
• Samsung Seamless LCD wall
• Samsung 42′ LED screens
By Greg Bester