Anthony Hazelden evokes high dynamics from GLP’s hybrid strobes and impression X4 Bar 20s

Experienced lighting designer Anthony Hazelden has made the journey from classic theatre to high-octane dance raves effortlessly, his generic stage lighting of yesteryear now replaced by next generation hybrid LED strobes, including GLP’s new JDC Line 1000.

For a recent EDM concert within Cardiff Castle he not only provided a cutting-edge floor package for headliner Fisher, for whom he was LD, but the generic house rig for the support acts. This included Luther star Idris Elba and Arielle Free.

Hazelden had known most of these artists from working with them on other projects around the world and had known the production manager for the Cardiff Castle show, James Dutton, from High Scream Productions in Ibiza.

Mindful of the high-speed approach of Australian dance DJ Fisher within a historic venue, Dutton and Hazelden conceived their design for the show accordingly.

“Originally I had planned 128 impression X4 Bar 20s, set vertically,” he says. “But I had worked with JDC Lines previously on a stadium show with Burna Boy – and knew they would be perfect, with better strobing.” He also knew that Coloursound Experiment had them in rental. And so he ended up with two rows of 64 each of the Bar 20s and the JDC Lines, mounted on two Litec truss towers under the canopied roof, firing off each other. TSL weas the main lighting supplier (including the X4 Bar 20s), and the generic house tech came from dance event specialist Music Mann.

Anthony Hazelden describes the JDC Line as “a very big fixture” creating a super dynamic effect. This is because it combines a powerful strobe line with a unique and powerful LED pixel mapping device, with each pixel segment split into upper and lower parts. The second part of the fixture is a powerful strobe tube, and the strobe LEDs emit into the same lens tube as the RGB pixel mapping LEDs for stunning dynamic effects.

Programming took place in the highest Mode 5 Multipix from a ChamSys MQ500M desk for full individual mapping ability, and the impression X4 Bar 20s were also in single pixel mode.

“The JDC Lines were unreal and worked really well,” he summarises, describing his layered approach. “I pixel mapped the RGB and treated this and the white cell as two different entities. For example, to get the ‘twinkle’ effect I needed to back off the strobe to 10% but at the same time could zoom out the X4 Bar 20 into the crowd to get the eye candy.

“I didn’t use 5-pin DMX but preferred linking the lighting to Cat5 over ArtNet. Every fixture had its own IP address – and that really speeds up time.”

Audience and production crew alike were wowed by the stage extravaganza these hybrid battens created.