Lighthouse R7’s summer hots up with Creative Technology

23 July 2009 16.46 BST

Summer 2009 sees one of the world’s leading video services companies, Creative Technology, as busy as ever, with a raft of festivals and tours on its itinerary, all of which feature its stock of Lighthouse Technologies’ R7 7mm pixel pitch LED screen.

Events include London’s Hyde Park events, Glastonbury Festival and tours from Rod Stewart and Elton John.

In Hyde Park, Hard Rock Calling saw The Killers, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen headline, whilst Blur re-formed to play two sold out dates and the Wireless Festival completed another successful year with Basement Jaxx and KanYe West top of the bill. All three events made good use of two R7 stage wing IMAG screens, each measuring 7.11m wide by 4.57m high (7 x 6 panels), with processing via a Lighthouse LIP XGA unit. Images were provided from a live camera feed supplied by XL Video.

“The screens were loaded in on June 24 and stayed there until Sunday, July 5 to be used for all three events,” explains CT project manager Stuart Young. “We used our R7 for this particular job because we needed to have a screen that has excellent image quality, and R7 fits the bill.”

At Glastonbury Festival, meanwhile, two 23.2m2 (6 x 5 panels) R7 screens, mounted back-to-back on a goalpost structure, formed the Village Screen. This was funded by the Arts Council, Glastonbury and London 2012 and was used to provide non-commercial content for the enjoyment of the festival-goers. As well as the LED panels, CT also provided content control for the screens.

“Throughout the festival, the screens showed a multimedia program that was devised by the Arts Council,” said CT project manager Steve Purkess. “It supplied an interactive element – people could wave at the screen and see their image on there – as well as live action from The Queens Head, a Sky broadcast of the second rugby test match against South Africa and short films collected by the Arts Council from around the UK.”

Rod Stewart’s tour, which ended in Luxembourg on July 14, featured a 10.16m wide by 6.1m high (8 x 10 panels) R7 screen. Cameras were supplied by CT sister company CT Touring with screen content a combination of bespoke background footage, historical archive footage and live camera feeds.

The tour then moved to the US, where Creative Technology Los Angeles takes over screen duties, using its own stock of R7.

“CT has been working with Rod since the mid 90s and understands what is required, part of which is consistency,” said Young. “This is why our bases in both Europe and the US stock R7, which we use for its picture quality, light weight and compact truck pack, using CT’s custom made packing system. CT Touring also provides cameras on a global basis.”

CT’s R7 has also just finished touring with Elton John, another artist the company has been working with since the mid 90s, where two 5.08m high by 5.33m wide screens were deployed. R7 can also be seen on the 2 many DJs tour, which started at the beginning of June and continues until September 7, LoveBox in London’s Victoria Park, T4 on the Beach, V2009, Red Bull X-Fighters at Battersea Power Station and Reading Festival.

“We are very happy with our Lighthouse R7 screen both here and in the US,” said CT managing director Dave Crump. “It’s extremely important to us that we are able to provide our clients with consistent quality in the products we use throughout every part of a project and R7 helps us to do that.”

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