For the past 17 years, the tranquil rural corner of Downholland near Ormskirk in Lancashire has been disturbed when Farmaggedon’s October Fear Fest returns to its theme park. For 2023, this ghoulish entertainment is being triggered by recently launched show control hardware from Nemesis Research’s OSCA Range.
Combining a truly immersive experience with sound, lighting, lasers and flame effects to create the total experience for a Zombie War Zone relies on perfect and tight control. For the technical team involved in helping to create Farmaggedon, Infinity Technical & Production Services, a core element of this year’s brief was to find a new way to deliver complete control via a simple system, with the daily programme involving performances every 20 minutes.
Farmaggedon Scare is the brainchild of farmer and expert scare attraction designer Mark Edwards, who opens his fiery gates each year to a new set of ever more horrible experiences, designed to terrify and tantalise visitors with a unique combination of scare attractions. For 2023, part of the new line-up includes the Zombie War Zone, hosting 60 visitors at a time to a 12-minute arena horror experience.
‘Having discussed the new theatrical paintball concept with Infinity Technical & Production Services’ Sam Robinson-Davies, it became apparent that having the correct show controls in place to enable reliable continuity for every show was first and foremost,’ says Edwards. ‘Sam went to market and came across Nemesis OSCA. Through research and discussion with them the decision was made to install Nemesis OSCA GPO Relay Boxes, and OSCA R5 button boxes for simple show control. Once installed the triggering systems have been flawless, and I would happily recommend Nemesis OSCA.’
The Infinity Technical & Production Services team has been involved in the annual horror-ganza for the past three years, as the sole provider of technical kit and product management for the event. Project Manager and engineer Robinson-Davies, together with Dave Murray worked closely on this year’s project and decided very early on to utilise Figure 53’s QLab as the core system, providing the level of control needed for this complex immersive show.
‘The ability to use OSC to provide all the control around the arena was a major attraction, coupled with OSCA, which is a very carefully thought-out and packaged product,’ Robinson-Davies says. ‘With OSCA-R5 5-way OSC programmable button boxes in the control room, and seven OSCA-O4 4-channel OSC GPO output boxes located around the arena, the show technician can run the entire production single-handed, including operating all the contact closures required to operate the pyro elements that are a key feature of the attraction. We were really impressed with everything, and importantly the OSCA units worked first time out of the box’.
The design principle behind the OSCA range is to deliver easy-to-use options for controlling multiple devices across all entertainment applications. From lighting consoles and rigging motors, to sound desks, QLab or video software, OSCA removes the need for high-cost central servers or complex show control infrastructures. In addition, it adds the ability to manually trigger events from multiple locations and control non-OSC devices via contact closure.
The Farmageddon installation is a prime example of OSCA’s versatility, illustrating its suitability for providing cost-effective, simple to operate control for theme parks and immersive attractions.
The Zombie War Zone formally opened in September, alongside eight other new shows arranged in four ‘scare houses’ at the location.
