ELC Buddies Head to the Tomorrowland Dance Festival

	ELC Buddy nodes

Tomorrowland is a renowned electronic music festival held in Belgium and this year's event, which took place in the town of Boom, marked its tenth anniversary. Now recognized as one of the most notable global music festivals, Tomorrowland was held over two weekends in July, with MTV promising a two hour long feature and a documentary surrounding the event's anniversary.

Therefore, with the eyes of millions around the world watching, it was vital that the event's organizers, the Creative Factory, pulled off a festival to remember that was technically seamless both on- and back-stage. Getting in touch with Luc Buytaert at AVL Lighting, an order was placed for 10 ELC Buddy nodes.

Buytaert said: "Patrick Bellens and David Smeets at the Creative Factory were keen to have one interface connected to each console on the DMX output at the festival. This way they would be guaranteed to have no network problems between all the stages. Budget was a factor due to the quantity of consoles at the event and also the timescale between order and delivery needed to be short."

The ELC Buddy is the latest product in the ELC Lighting range. Launched in June this year, the Ethernet to DMX node has all the functions required to enable a user to get DMX out of their laptop but with an entry level price tag. Designed with students and newcomers to the market in mind, the Buddy has already proven itself to be much more than a budget tool, with established lighting designers and industry experts hailing it as a must-have product which gives them access to DMX and the ability to unexpectedly test a network.

Buytaert continued: "The team at the Creative Factory immediately recognized that the Buddy was the right tool for the job, having read about it a few weeks previously. Price and size were the two big factors initially but they were soon convinced that such a small piece of kit could do so much yet cost so little."

He continued: "Everything about the Buddy makes it a perfect device for an event like Tomorrowland. Freelancers and technicians all want one in their tool box because you can use it for everything. It's perfect for testing the rig without having the console, testing the outputs of the console, expanding the outputs of a console, or using it as a small controller with the free ChamSys MagicQ software. Since we started stocking the Buddy just a couple of months ago, they've been flying off the shelves and we don't envisage the demand to lessen any time soon. As more people hear about Buddy, demand to have one in their back pockets will continue."