WSAF 2024

WSAF (Warwick Student Arts Festival) 2024 was held from the Sat 8th - Mon 10th June 2024, as the attempt to revive the old annual WSAF event that ran from 2004-2015. You can find out more about the event on the WSAF website.

Venues

Piazza Stage

The biggest venue for WSAF24 was the stage on Benfactors' Place. The stage itself was a ST45 tailer stage from Stage Tech, on which we rolled out some vinyl dance floor for a smoother, cleaner surface (which was required by some of the dance acts).

On the stage, we used the SU's L-Acoustics PA, Chauvet Rogue R2 Wash movers, and some ClayPaky Sharpys, in addition to a pair of Tech Crew StudioCob FCs.

Tech was controlled from a FoH position in a gazebo (cables run in a ramp hired from the SU), which housed the SQ-5, FLX, and a streaming setup.

FAB Terrace and Curiositea

Across the 3 days, we had a "pop-up" venue in one location per evening - Curiositea on Friday and Monday, and the FAB Terrace on Sunday.

As we don't have an infinite supply of equipment, the setup was fairly similar for both, with the music centre's M32R used in conjunction with an iPad for mixing, and ETC Nomad on someone's laptop for lighting.

We used a combination of Tech Crew's lights and the SU's ColorSource PARs on stands and as uplighters for vibes (it didn't really get dark during the slots). The PA was the Tech Crew LVX8s.

Additional cosy vibes were provided with fairy lights from Warwick Presents and lots of festoon from the SU.

Unfortunately it rained the one night we had the terrace, and was sunny (straight into the audience's faces) on the Curio nights, so if I have any recommendation then it would be to invert the weather!!!

FAB Studios

We used FAB0.19 as a drama studio for a programme of plays, using all the lovely tech already in the space. FAB0.21 was used as an art gallery showcasing people's work (also using the lighting in the space, with the help of the SCAPVC technicians to set it up).

Lessons learned

• Big stages are fun and worth having for events.
• Bring all the cables from the DC cupboard (could be in Boris) so you don't have to keep running back and forth
• Make sure someone who is going to be there to set up knows exactly what's happening with the tech in each venue (particularly the pop-up ones)