Lighting a live music show is a very different affair from lighting a televised event, but at the Radio 1 Big Weekend the challenge was to combine the two.

Lily Allen

Billed as the first major music festival of the British season, the Big Weekend took place at Lydiard Park in Swindon on 9 and 10 May with headline acts including Snow Patrol, Prodigy, Basement Jacks and Enemy. And with 40,000people attending the gigs, there would be plenty of views on the atmosphere at the event.

The Siyan team was called in to light three stage areas, with the brief that each had to have sufficient impact for the live audience, while still being acceptable for cameras televising the event.

Alesha Dixon

Designers Bryan Leitch and Steve Finch had to craft the lighting around the bespoke stage design and ensure it suited the variety of acts, each having their own wish list in terms of the look and feel of their set. The result was a careful balancing act, with Jamie Thompson operating main stage and Yenz Nyholm on the second stage.

Helped no doubt by great weather, the Radio 1 Big Weekend 2009 will go down as the best yet. And the lighting? Positive feedback from the bands themselves and the producers at the BBC suggests the Siyan team struck the right balance all weekend.

Ne-Yo