MONHEIM, GERMANY – Can anything be all things to all people? Probably not, but that hasn’t stopped Monheim am Rhine from trying. Situated between Cologne and Düsseldorf, this community of under 50,000, bills itself as the “town for everyone,” and backs up the claim by offering a combination of natural beauty and urban sophistication, ancient ruins, and a thriving modern art scene.
For three days this summer, the town’s commitment to diversity was on full display at the Monheim City Festival, a popular event that served up an enticing buffet of attractions, from art, to interactive activities and, of course, a wide range of music on three stages.
At the open-air stage in the Gartzenweg, fans gathered until late in the evening to enjoy an array of performances representing different musical genres. The Stadtkapelle Monheim played pop, rock, and musical tunes. Air Flik and Micha Deutz rocked the turntables. DJ Fedde Le Grand, known for hits such as ‘Let Me Think About It’ and ‘Put Your Hands Up For Detroit’, kept the party going with house music. El Flecha Negra opened one evening program. German singer-songwriter Joris performed too, as did DJ Tujamo and DJ Dhali.
Supporting the mix of acts and reflecting the personality and music of each one was a versatile light show by Guido Schütz of LaserFrame and Patrick Hirt of Creative Sounds Veranstaltungstechnik that drew on the many performance features of the CHAUVET Professional Rogue Outcast 1 BeamWash.
Positioned in straight horizontal lines on rows of over head truss, the high output IP65-rated fixtures contributed greatly to the party atmosphere on stage by increasing the intensity. The fixture’s precise color mixing made it easy for the designers to reflect many moods with a broad palette, which the BeamWash’s pixel mappable ring opened the way to multiple specials. Relying on the fixture’s wide zoom range, Hirt and Schütz we able to vary coverage areas throughout the evening.
This was the first time the designer used the Rogue Outcast BeamWash at a city festival. Like the city of Monheim am Rhine, this powerful compact fixture could not be everything to everyone, all the time, but on these three summer evenings, it certainly filled every imaginable need.
