Australia - The Footy Show, an award-winning Australian sports television programme shown on the Nine Network, is dedicated to the Australian Football League (AFL). The Grand Final edition of the show is broadcast live from Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena annually on the Thursday night before the AFL Grand Final, in front of a crowd of 12,000.
This year, the show saw The Good Charlotte, Grinspoon and Ricki-Lee perform live whilst also including the AFL Players Revue, where players dress up and dance to themes.
Lighting designer for the event was Rohan Thornton who had no qualms about using a full range of LSC Lighting's Clarity for control of such a prestigious and totally live television event. His control package comprised of a LX600 console, two LX300 consoles, a LSC Clarity for Mac, a LSC VX20 Wing and two Nexus 5 Nodes for control merging.
"I have been a very happy, long time user of Clarity for PC-Mac and I was delighted when the LX range of consoles became available," commented THornton. "Finally the search for a replacement for our faithful Compulite Vector consoles was at an end! Apart from my own personal use, Channel 9 has been using Clarity at their Docklands facility for nearly two years with 100% reliability."
LSC Lighting supplied two LX300 and one LX600 consoles for use on this year's Grand Final Footy Show; the first time Channel 9 had an entire suite of Clarity products running.
The LX600, operated by Megan McGann, utilized 6774 Channels over 19 Universes via Artnet and controlled the moving lights over the stage area. The first LX300 was operated by Shane O'Dwyer and ran 6482 Channels over 19 Universes. This console operated all of the conventional fixtures and the automated fixtures over the audience. The second LX300 console, operated by Lynden Gare, had control of 3746 channels over nine universes. This console operated the seven Pandora's Box Media Servers and back up. The Clarity for Mac and the VX20 ran a ten universe merge controlling some of the elements of Shane's console.
Clarity was in control of over 500 moving lights from Martin, Clay Paky and Vari-Lite as well as heaps of LED fixtures and over 100 conventional fixtures.
"The consoles worked flawlessly during the show and as it was a learning process for all of us, hardly fifteen minutes went by without the discovery of a fabulous new feature in the already extensive list of features," remarked Rohan. "The experience certainly solidified my long term commitment to the console. I'd like to thank all at LSC and in particular Richie Mickan, who provide extensive support both pre-show and in venue as we made the successful leap of faith into the world of LSC Clarity."
