HSL Moves In Style

The stages - Main, Freestyle, Arena & Flawless - were dotted all around Olympia, and a production lighting design for all of them was created by HSL's project manager Dave Singleton. Singleton has designed this show before but this was his first time working for HSL who have been lighting equipment suppliers for the last 2 years.
Challenged by a high daylight factor courtesy of the venue's arched glass roof, HSL supplied 16 lighting techs, crew chief Simon "Piggy" Lynch and rigger Ian Stevens, plus 4 students from technical courses at the Brit School of Performing Arts who were completing work experience. They were also joined by another 14 local crew as well as rigger Steve Belfield.

The Main stage was a 13.5 diameter circular construction, with a catwalk emanating from the backstage area. HSL installed a 20 metre square mother grid in the roof, below which were flown 3 circular trusses, decreasing in diameter and all at staggered heights - in a reverse wedding cake effect - which was the basis of the lighting rig.

Across all the circles were a selection of moving lights -  22 x Vari*Lite 3500 washes, 12 x V*L3500 Spots and 12 x Robe ColorBeam 700E ATs. Lining the edge of each circle were a total of 184 Chroma-Q ColorBlock DB4s. Twenty four ETC Source Four profiles were utilised for key light and 4 x drop bars spanned between each of the circles, each rigged with 3 x PixelLine LED battens and 3 x 2-lite moles.
On the floor 6 x lighting positions were used to cover the dancers in the round. Each position featured 2 x Robe ColorWash 750AT Tungstens and a Robe ColorBeam 700E AT.
For rear light upstage of the catwalk, there were 3 x Robe ROBIN 600 Washes on a truss that was ground supported on genie towers.
Lighting was programmed and operated by Simon Horn using a Chamsys MagicQ MQ100 Pro console with 2 x fader wings.
Each day saw different showcase performances every 30 minutes, amounting 200 different artists across over a 3 day period. The rig had to be very flexible to be able to cover the range of styles and genres of dance and to keep each show looking different and a bit unique. Two days pre-programming in HSL's WYSIWYG suite in Blackburn proved invaluable due to the restricted load-in and technical time frame on site.

The Arena stage was used for the auditions and heats for Channel 4's next series of Street Dance XXL Championships on the Saturday and Sunday of Move It, which were filmed during the exhibition for the forthcoming TV show.
This stage was a 12 x 6 metre stage over which HSL rigged a 15 metre wide by 10 metre deep ground support structure on 8 metre legs, complete with 2 x 10 metre drape wings to the stage right and left sides.
The lighting fixtures were all Robe ROBIN 600 Spots & Washes.

Twelve ROBIN 600 Washes and 8 x 600 ROBIN Spots were joined by 12 of the new ROBIN LEDWash 600s. The LEDWash 600s were specifically requested due to their ability to make pure whites in a range of colour temperatures from 2700 - 8000°K, which makes them an ideal fixture for anything being filmed. On the floor were 6 x ROBIN 600 Spots.

All the lighting on the Arena stage was used highly effectively to create plenty of high def TV quality looks. Mark Jones was the operator, using an Avolites D4 console.

In the centre of the action, this 6 x 6 metre stage was sponsored by Moaom sweets. The whole idea was that aspiring dance performers could show up with their mobile music device/soundtrack and sign up to perform as part of a competition - so freestyle in every sense of the word.

Lighting was run by Iain Keightley using another MagicQ MQ100, and on the rig were 8 x Robe ROBIN 600 Spots and 8 x ROBIN 600 Washes, together with a pair of Robe DigitalSpot 7000DTs. They again needed a powerful lightsource to cut through the daylight, and the DigitalSpots were an ideal solution.


The Chase The Dream stage saw Britain's Got Talent and StreetDance 3D stars Flawless and their management team become the judges of potential new dance talent, who signed up to perform their 1 minute pieces.

HSL built a scaffolding frame structure behind the stage that held 8 PixelLines and 6 x GLP Impression 120 RZ Zooms. Across the floor, they positioned 5 x Robe REDWash 3●192s used for creating fabulous low level colour streaks and patterns on the deck. Mark Jones programmed the Avolites Pearl Tiger console, which was then operated by one of the stage's organisational team.

In addition to lighting the 4 stages, HSL supplied Robe ROBIN 300 Spots for corporate sponsor branding in 2 of the classrooms, and 4 of the larger classrooms had the addition of 6 GDS wireless LED up-lighters.
HSL supplied the 79 points of rigging to facilitate their 4 stages, including motors and rigging for the audio systems on all stages. For another section of the show, Dave Singleton designed a 50m semi-circular drape to cover the window above the main stage, which was suspended on 4 additional points.