IGNITE! Music Festival 2008

This is the only thing I was looking forward to this year. Frankly speaking, nothing else matters. Although the ride wasn’t smooth at all, but it was a dream come true. Thankfully, I did have a great team to work with. Myself, I jumped at the 1st chance to suit up in berms and workbelt, and get down right dirty! Hell yeah, bring it on!



During the planning stages, things looked damn plain on paper. The location sucked. A small little slope right next to a toxic lake for my ambitions, not evil enough. But after walking through the whole campus, it’s the only choice. Alternatives were either too far north into oblivion, or lacking in ‘fengshui’.


Now my preferred line-up would actually be one night of straight-up hardcore punk bands tearing up the stage and fans ripping the whole venue. Then second night will be set in the disaster area resulted from previous night, loud aggressive gothic-industrial stuffs with full theatrics and pyros. Too bad I had to cater to the mainstream to attract as much crowd as possible, to make this music festival a success. As some would say, I had to sell out. Oh well, since I’m not the one that’s paying 5-figures to do this music festival, I better do what I’m paid for.

Dreams aside, I had to sacrifice even during the planning stages. This includes drinking with one of the big boss man and ended up sending him home. Well, looking on the bright side, I didn’t pay for the drinks on all occasions. Woohoo!



Once CSP started on the tentage, the sense of excitement started to escalate. The tentage looks very promising. Although it has got its shortcomings, they were easily solved by alternatives. With the usual changes for Barco’s Mipix in terms of scale, since LED panels are the least of priority when compared to audio and lighting. Not before long, the stage was ready for audio and lighting to kick some ass.

Even with all preparations done, there’s nothing we can do to plan for weather. Since it’s a rain or shine event, this applies to setup as well. Rain caused us to lose 9 hours of effective work, spent some good time staring at the bare stage and some bonding with the mud and trusses. Thanks to the spirits of the setup crew, nothing’s stopping the event from going on.



Gritting through the teeth and mud, it was D-day and soundcheck began before I can remember how many times I’d stoned out. Bands came and went after soundcheck. Some didn’t even turn up. Oh well, at least we have more time to play with Soundcraft’s Vi4 which we loaned from E&E. Time was precious as we need to fine tune our d&b Q-series line array.
We were also fighting for time for troubleshooting the Coolux’s Pandora’s box. This media server kept giving us problems. Other than the usual displaying its usual PMS fits and refuse to communicate with Avolite’s Diamond 4, the media manager keeps hanging itself up. Damn windows. Damn Pandora’s box.

Quiz: How much coffee is needed to make your eyebags smaller than your eyes?

After all the rain
After all the sweat and mud
After all the truss climbing
After all the hype and tension

We cleared the grounds as if nothing happened there before.