WOMADelaide
Novatech helps WOMADelaide celebrate 25 years of World Music and Dance.
WOMADelaide, the four-day Festival of world music, dance and culture and a firm favourite on the Australian festival calendar, celebrated its 25th Anniversary in Adelaide in 2017. 90,000 people flocked to the Festival that is nestled in the beautiful Adelaide’s Botanic Gardens.
With over 400 artists from 30 countries, this is a significant line-up in anyone’s language, and Novatech was called upon to deliver the full suite of audio, lighting and video production for every stage and event space.
With six main stages, featuring artists from all over the world, performing over 4 days and nights, WOMADelaide is a huge undertaking.
Novatech thrives on events of this scale and complexity and it’s the one Festival all Novatech crew want to work on.
Every year has unique trials and tribulations, every artist has different requirements, and sometimes communication with all the various nationalities can be challenging.
In addition, most artists do not tour with their own crew, so it’s up to Novatech’s technicians to set up stages and sound for 400 acts and then bring their performances to life with the full array of sound, vision and lighting.
Novatech is committed to constant training and professional development of its people and this year, it extended that training to the next generation of Production Technicians at WOMADelaide, by taking on nine TAFE students during the event.
Six students worked with the audio crew and three were assigned to the lighting crew, and they worked across the six main stages. In a tradition that has continued for several years, the Novatech team were joined by two visitors from Tenant Creek in the Northern Territory, who assisted with preparation and builds before the Festival, and worked as backline techs during the event.
The 25th anniversary of WOMADelaide was a box-office smash, and once the patrons arrived, it was Novatech’s job to deliver the best staging, lighting and sound experiences for both artists and audiences to ensure that WOMADelaide continued the tradition as one of the stand out WOMAD Festivals around the world.