grandMA3 for Hypersonic Fest

Hypersonic Fest was a one-day experimental event organized by Hypersonic Lab in Hong Kong, aimed at inviting people to enjoy the talents of 37 diverse Christian artists and music bands from Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia and to explore the possibilities of Christian music. The festival was staged at Kowloon Bay International Trade & Exhibition Centre and featured four action-packed stages of live music performance.

Production equipment for the Main Stage including lighting was supplied by the MPHK Group and project managed by Raymond Wong, working closely with LD Kei Lui who utilized a grandMA3 full-size console, a decision taken jointly between the LD and Raymond.

Kei is based in Macau and is technical manager of the famous Para Club, as well as running his own company in Hong Kong / Macau for freelance lighting design projects like this.

His task at Hypersonic Fest was to light all the bands on the Main stage, many of whom he was seeing live for the first time, give them the best possible shows, and make each one stand out and look different … all of which had to be achieved in a highly compressed timescale of only four hours for get in, set up, prep and programming!

Using grandMA3 in this context really helped a demanding process and saved time.

Kei had 43 moving lights in the space on overhead trusses with around 1200 parameters of control, so it was not a large rig, but ideal for the space, and he worked it hard!

He commented that the MA Startshow file is “great” and saves a lot of preparation time in presenting a bunch of predefined effects, groups, layouts, Phasers, etc., that can be applied to the fixtures.

Other timesaving grandMA3 features he mentioned include Selection Grid, MAtricks and again Phasers, which together with others “are very intuitive, easy to understand, and have no limit on quantities.”

He notes that the grandMA3 Phasers are seriously more powerful than the previous generation effects and come with additional adaptable features like multi-step loops. He thinks the Recipe function can save serious time, even when preparation work has not been possible.

He has been a grandMA user for many years including in the club, having recently switched to grandMA3.

Attended by around 2000 people, in addition to being able to enjoy some great music, Hypersonic Fest provided a platform for the artists to find new fans. Making the most of a general festive atmosphere in the venue, the event also offered market stalls and other interactive and fun activities.

Photos: © HYPERSONIC FEST