Clay Paky Illuminates the Rock the Lahn Festival

	Rock the Lahn Festival

The Rock the Lahn Festival in Italy celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. The stars of the 2015 edition were Limp Bizkit, led by the extrovert Fred Durst and champions of the nu metal and rapcore movements, along with the Broilers, a punk rock group active on the German music scene.

The Festival has become a must-see event in this region in just a few years. The recent editions have fully achieved the organizers' goal of attracting hundreds and thousands of young partying visitors to this summer event, which offers alternative music, fun, and a space for reflection on some social issues such as the co-existence of different language groups, migrations, and anti-fascism.

Norbert Hofer is the owner of Alpha Concept, the company that dealt with all the technical production aspects of the event. When asked what lighting equipment he relied on to illuminate the concerts of the groups on the program, he replied: "I am the owner of the company and the technical manager of the event. Hosting bands like Limp Bizkit was a big challenge for us. The technical specifications for the sound and lighting systems were not only demanding, but we also needed a lot of equipment and the size of the stage was quite limited. We had to offer and set up alternatives to the equipment in the original designs and specifications in order to take the specific needs of the bands and available stage structures into account, without sacrificing the high-profile result."

"We asked our in-house rental company Dry Hire to provide Clay Paky units especially for the moving spot and beam lights needed for the lighting system."

"One of the ideas we had to solve was the design issues and complying with the reasoning behind the choice of lights and the structural constraints was to use less bulky, more lightweight units than classic 1,200 or 1,500 discharge lights. However they had to be able to produce the same or better light output, despite significantly lower power consumption."

"We chose Clay Paky Mythos and Sharpy units. Sharpys have been our first-choice lights for years, since they are reliable and can be used to weave beams of light with spectacular results."

"This is however the first year we have used Mythos units at the Rock the Lahn Festival. Besides having an innovative design, they are powerful, reliable, and versatile lights. They work in different modes without compromise. They are fantastic spotlights with a wide range of visual effects and an electronically controlled zoom which is optimized for smooth, quick and silent focusing, but they are also extremely bright beam lights with an advanced optical unit."

"We hung 24 Sharpys and 24 Mythos units in pairs on the batten structure suspended over the stage. This gave us an enormous light output, which we brought under control during the programming stage and let explode during the live Rock the Lahn sessions!"

"The Mythos units are ideal for illuminating music contests and events open to the general public. They were a very good investment and solved all the issues we set about solving."

"That is why we have invested in Clay Paky equipment for years and why we stock a larger number of lights than we were able to use on this occasion. In particular, we have up to 300 Sharpys available, which we often use as beam lights. As concerns the Mythos units, after an initial order of 50 lights, we plan to increase our stock soon."