Hux Electronics : Gallery 3

Bobcat Magic

The following photos are from Bobcat Magic, Mount Isa, Northwest Queensland, late July 2005. Bobcat Magic was part of the Queensland Festival of Music, it was an outdoor musical theater event with nine actors, hundreds of extra's (adults and kids) and about 25 machines (big and small) whizzing about. It is based on a love story that goes wrong but all comes good in the end. The stage was large and was made of earth, it incorporated ramps and jumps for bicycles, motorbikes and all kinds of other machines. A very funny show with great music and a great band. I was hired as systems engineer and trouble shooter. We used a 42,000 watt QSC powered Martin Audio system for FOH with about 10,000 watts for foldback, there was headroom to burn even when the show rocked out a bit. The following photos show only show a very small part and are from an audio point of view, they cant hope to capture the scale or quality of the event

Machines working out

Above are a pair of the backhoe's practicing getting their wheels up off the ground, during the show the bobcat, called Rolly, zooms about around and under these backhoe's.

The audience arrive

Showtime, the band area is tiny in comparison to the rest of the stage (where the actors and machines are), you cant see them all but there are ten musicians up there including a spoons player and three brass players.

The opening scene as seen across the band, Bobcat Barb (the principal character) is in the cherry-picker at the top of the photo singing while Rolly (the bobcat) spins around the place below.

Rolly (the bobcat), backhoe's and big diggers cutting loose.

Part of the fight scene, the song here was called "Totally Creamed" and it rocked.

Bobcat Barb sitting in Rolly's bucket during the fight scene

The view from the foldback position to the band. The foldback position was in the left front of house speaker scaffold, the right front of house speaker scaffold is about 50-60 metres away (in a straight line). The band are protected from the machines on stage by water filled barriers and water filled oil drums. The foldback console was only used for the bands local foldback, the actors "in-ear" monitors and stage foldback came from the front of house console.

The view from the foldback position to the front of house mix position. The front of house position was about 45 metres back from the foldback position and offset from the middle. The show ran for three nights and was free to the public, about three thousand people (or more) watched the show each night, seating was tight but good, most of the audience would have had an excellent view of the stage.

Brett dialing in an effect.

Brett having a nervous breakdown at the front of house mix position.

Looking out from the earth stage to the front of house tower.