While Lebanon has been in the global headlines for all the wrong reasons recently, if there’s one thing that the Lebanese people are famous for, it’s their unrivalled capacity to party at any given opportunity. One such opportunity that was grabbed with both hands by locals and international visitors alike was the Aegis Festival, which saw crowds of music lovers descend on the ancient northern coastal city of Batroun in July for three nights of back-to-back revelry featuring a packed roster of DJs including Agents of Time, Hiroko Yamamura, Seth Troxler, and Frankey & Sandrino.
Taking place in the usually serene surroundings of Arnaoon village on the outskirts of the city, Aegis Festival was described as “a sanctuary” and “a transformational experience providing an opportunity for self-discovery through music”. Yara Temsah, Managing Partner at Beirut-based artist collective and event promoter, Retrogroove, who was responsible for designing the complete on-ground experience, was tasked with an interesting brief.
“It was quite a challenge,” Temsah reflected, recalling the conceptual stages of the design. “Arnaoon is such a beautiful piece of land, so my goal was to create structures and in between experiences that blended in with the surrounding nature and elements instead of overpowering them.”
The main stage design was inspired by the natural landscape around it. “It was important to minimise the use of trusses or other generic metal elements, as they would have looked out of place in that landscape,” Temsah explained. “With that being said, we came up with the nine-leaf concept that creates an ensemble of curvatures and organic shapes, giving it a smooth, soft look but on a scale so big that it still gives you that grandiose, overwhelming feeling.”
She added: “We wanted this structure to encompass the space, but also to engage and foster the people, whether they are in the front row, in the lounges, in the backstage, around the DJ, or even at the back, and create that feeling of shelter and unity.”
With 2024 being the second year of the festival, it was important to the organisers that the spirit of the first edition was maintained while technical elements were updated and reimagined. “We integrated a lot of new elements this year; between the addition of greenery, the light design and sound towers, the structure came to life,” Temsah told TPiMEA. “Looking from afar, they all puzzled up to create a cohesive and unified look. I think the most interesting aspect is the way you would feel and experience the stage differently, all depending on where you stood in the space and which angle you looked at it from.”
Having worked with Aegis on the first year of the festival, Julien Yammine was once again entrusted with the lighting design. “The first edition was a great success, and it’s always a pleasure working with the team to create something beautiful and mesmerising in this exceptional venue,” Yammine commented.
The Lighting Designer’s main aims were to accentuate Temsah’s stage design with lighting elements that would augment rather than overpower the organic look of the stage structure and the feel of the environment around it. “I wanted lighting elements to blend in with the architecture of the stage to create a seamless and cohesive feel when looking at it,” he explained.
“It was very important to keep the balance between the architecture of the stage and the technical elements added to it so that no part overcame the other. Our focus together was to create an immersive feeling on the dancefloor where we have something happening for people looking from every different perspective.”
Yammine’s design merged LED screen panels placed on the centre line of scenic leaves, with a total of 110 LED tubes accentuating the shapes around the structure. “We mapped the LED screen panels and LED tubes through Resolume Arena, sending one output on both to create a uniform movement, which delivered a unified feeling from both lighting elements,” he recalled. “We also used the LED screen in an unconventional way to simulate the same animation and movement, thus the same feel, throughout the stage.”
Having worked with Yammine for the past year on several shows including Black Coffee and a project for the Egyptian government, Alex Douglas was once again assigned to bring his creative design to life. “My role was to program the lights on the Avolites Arena console running Version 17, video on Resolume and lasers on Pangolin Quickshow, then operate all three in beautiful synchronisation,” he quipped.
“Thankfully from my days in the clubs and experience in festivals, I already had good knowledge of all three platforms. The Avo software is perfect for creating palettes quickly and effects using the keyframe engine. I find the Playback Groups window particularly helpful to trigger between effects in groups smoothly.”
Looking back on his first ever trip to Lebanon, Douglas was full of praise for the festival and its attendees. “The festival is very down-to-earth with nature playing a big part. The crowd were incredibly genuine and enjoyed the moments in person rather than through their Instagram. Overall, being a part of this festival was a wonderful experience which I very much hope to be a part of again.”
Beirut-based Wicked Solutions provided a turnkey technical solution for the festival, supplying not only the lighting and video equipment but also extensive d&b Audiotechnik audio systems for the main stage and Funktion-One systems for the smaller stages.
The main stage comprised discrete black array towers accommodating a total of 12 J8 loudspeakers running with ArrayProcessing on D80 amplifiers, as well as eight J-SUBs, with 24S-D and 12S-D loudspeakers, V-SUBs deployed for front fill, back fill and out fill, and Q1 and Q-SUBs handling monitors duties.
The Funktion-One system for the alternative stage comprised six Res 2 tops and 10 F121 subwoofers, while the afterparty stage was covered by four Res 2 tops and six F121subs, all running through Full Fat Audio amplifiers.
For Wicked’s Woody Naufal, the project was a source of pride. “To see the area turned from what it usually is into a full-blown rave was very impressive,” he reflected. “We worked hard on the pre-production side to ensure that the load-in was smooth without any drama. Overall, we were very pleased with the delivery, and we look forward to working with the client again.”
Photo: Eyedia Production
