Brings Rock May Day Polka Party in Cologne with Elation Lighting

	Brings May Day Polka Party concert. Photo: Jan Voth

Countless parties take place on May Day in Germany and this year one of the best took place in Cologne as hometown band Brings rocked Lanxess Arena with a high-energy Polka Party. TSL Production of Cologne supported the event as the full-service technical provider and used a full complement of Elation Professional lighting gear to support the howling rock 'n' roll show.

Brings has been performing for over 25 years and the evening proved a nostalgic journey through the band's long list of hits. Some 13,000 guests attended the 4.5 hour concert, which took place in combination with an after-show party. Lighting design was by Dominik Schmid, head of lighting for Brings, along with Frank Schmitz, technical supervisor and owner of TSL Production.

TSL Production supports Brings as technical provider at all their concerts and developed the entire technical concept (lighting, video, and sound) for the May Day Polka Party show. The lighting rig was large and included some of Elation's newest stage lighting luminaires, namely 20 Artiste DaVinci LED moving spots and 16 DARTZ 360 narrow-beam LED beam/spot moving heads, as well as 30 Platinum HFX moving heads, 24 ACL 360 Bar LED moving battens, and 16 ACL 360 Matrix moving head effect panels.

"The DaVinci and DARTZ were solid and gave us some unique looks," stated TSL Production's Schmitz. "We used pixelmapping between the large LED screen strips and the ACL 360 Matrix and ACL 360 Bar fixtures, which made for some nice visual looks as well. We then interspersed effects from the Platinum HFX fixtures and it looked great."

From an upstage position came color and visual effects from the Artiste DaVinci luminaires, as well as beam looks from more Platinum HFXs. Additional DaVinci fixtures worked from the B-stage to surround and highlight performers in color and effect.

The DARTZ 360 LED fixtures provided backlight effects from an upstage position and were also used to provide dynamic lighting from the DJ Booth B-stage at the after-show party. The compact beam/spot DARTZ projects a powerful three-degree beam that is comparable to larger discharge lamp fixtures but also houses two prisms and has gobo projection capability.

"It was an important concert for Brings and it was fantastic to be a part of it," Schmitz says, adding that it was also a very good show from a technical perspective. "We love the easy handling of the Elation products and their powerful output. They are very reliable products and our experience is that they hold up well over their lifetime," he concludes.