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    EPIX 2.0 Lights the Coors Light Bird’s Nest

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    PHOENIX – Scottsdale is some 260 miles from Las Vegas, but for four nights in early February, visitors to this Phoenix suburb could have thought they were on the Vegas Strip; at least if they were among the 8,000 fans who turned out for The Coors Light Birds Nest. A four day festival held in conjunction with the Waste Management Open, Birds Nest is one of the most eagerly anticipated 19th hole events on the PGA tour. This year’s edition didn’t disappoint, bringing in acts like Kid Rock, Capital Cities, Darius Rucker and Afrojack who performed in a 50,000 square foot tent shipped in from Germany that resembled a hot new Vegas club thanks in part to a dynamic lighting design from Creative Backstage using gear provided by Valley Production Services.

    Creative Backstage set off the event’s DJ stage with a unique cross- hatched “birds nest” design made with pixel mapped EPIX 2.0 series fixtures from CHAUVET Professional. The one meter RGB LED linear fixtures flanked either side of the DJ stage and were pixel mapped to tie into other lights as well as a center stage video wall in front of and behind the DJ booth. Having pixel mapped images run through fixtures and video panels in the center and on the sides of the stage created a unified flowing look that extended the visual impact of the lightshow.

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    “The stage really made a powerful statement with the pixel mapping,” said Chris Brodman of Creative Backstage, who was the L1 programmer and operator at the event. “We created some tremendous looks. Jim Meredith from Valley Production Services, who was the L2 for show made a lot of great contributions. We were all really happy with the end result.”

    Brodman says that the Birds Nest rig included 30 EPIX 2.0 Bars and 16 EPIX 2.0 strips. The EPIX units were run the throughout the entire four day program, which featured performances by Afrojack, Ronnie G and Aaron Taylor. “The bars and strips performed flawlessly throughout the show,” he said. “We drove content to the EPIX gear using the Avolites Titan pixel mapper on the Tiger Touch. The wiring of the EPIX gear was done one to one full control of each fixture over ArtNet. We used nine of the EPIX drive 642 node PSU’s; eight ran the 30 bars and the 16 strips ran off the ninth.”

    Graphical patterns, such moving bars, dots, swirls and spirals were pixel mapped on the EPIX 2.0 bars and strips. Brodman used the layers within the pixel mapper to create varied colors and layered effects on the EPIX units. This added an extra level of depth to the temporary DJ stage, engendering great audience engagement inside the Birds Nest tent.

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    “We varied the pixel mapping to keep it interesting,” said Brodman. “Overall we used the EPIX products to give a sticks and nest feel to the stage design in keeping with the name of the event. The impact of the EPIX units was amazing! We utilized their shape to create an overlapping design as if it were sticks being used to build a bird’s nest. The intense output, vivid colors, pixel mapping and shape of the EPIX all worked in our favor, allowing us to create a design that reflected the theme of the show and captivated the audience at the same time.”

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    For more information on Creative Backstage visit www.creativebackstage.com

    CSD Goes CHAUVET Professional!

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    McAllen, TX – The Baptist Temple of McAllen opens its doors and hearts to all. This much is evident in the welcoming section of its website, which declares, “We are teachers, lawyers, bookbinders, skateboarders, painters, musicians, and bikers…” It’s also plain to see on the church’s large stage, which bustles with energy during services, thanks in part to its dynamic band and singers, as well as the vivid light from a plethora of CHAUVET Professional fixtures, including six Rogue R1 Spot moving heads.

    “This is a very contemporary and dynamic house of worship,” said Doug Hood, president of Custom Sound Designs (Fort Wayne, IN), which designed and installed the church’s all-Chauvet lighting rig. “There’s a lot happening on the stage at this church, such as line array speakers, environmental projection, and video projection – so we had to work the lighting plan around this activity level. Moving heads work great in this type of church because of the dynamic visual element they bring to services. We needed a cost-effective moving light that was still a “real” mover. The Rogue fit the bill perfectly.”

    According to Hood, the key to integrating moving fixtures successfully into a house of worship design is to understand the character of the church. “You have to know your church, its style of worship and its congregation, then take all of that into consideration when programming. Can moving lights be a distraction? YES! Can they be used as an effective tool to create an environment for worship? YES! It all hinges on the person creating the vision for the visual worship space. You must know your congregation and you must plan visuals that are appropriate to speak to that congregation.”

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    As important as the Rogue moving heads are, however, the foundation of Hood’s design is the warm white light from 16 Ovation fixtures. “We love the Ovation fixtures for key light; they give us an excellent natural white light at a great price point, and the motorized zoom on the Fresnel version is an added plus,” he said. “We started our design with them, and since that was our foundation it made sense to supplement the warm white light from the Ovations with other Chauvet fixtures for color and movement.

    Hood used six Ovation F-165WW Fresnel’s for warm wash lighting and 10 Ovation E-190WW ellipsoidal fixtures for beam lighting. His design also included six COLORdash Accent compact washes, which he positioned in some of the church’s tight spaces, and six Legend 412 beams to coordinate with the Rogue R1 Spot fixtures, as well as two CHAUVET DJ products: SlimPAR Pro Tri LED wash lights and COLORband PIX RGB linear fixtures.

    “The fixtures work well together to give the church a complete lighting package,” said Hood. “For example, the new Ovations give the church great key lighting; plus we work the Ovations with the RGB lighting to create some very attractive back lighting for video services. Ideas about what church lighting should do have come a long way. Churches want it to do more today, and with the right design and products we’re able to meet these expectations.”

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    For more information on Custom Sound Design visit www.CSDus.com

    Control and Color at MILLWOOD BAPTIST

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    AUSTIN, TX – Millwood Baptist is a church that emphasizes worshipper engagement. This much is evident in the live band that performs at its Sunday services, complete with piano, bass, drums, guitars and an occasional banjo. It’s also apparent in its many youth activities with names like “KidCity” and its variety of “Building Block” programs for adults.

    So, when it was time to add a new lighting system to their 29-year-old building as part of a renovation project, church leaders understandably wanted something that could create a colorful contemporary look. Being practical, however, they also were seeking a system that was affordable and easy to control. They got both, thanks to a carefully planned design by Digerati Audio Video Systems, which includes a variety of fixtures from CHAUVET Professional.

    “Millwood Baptist has been a client of ours for many years, so when the time came to renovate their worship center, they called us,” said Mark Tarbet, president of the Austin-based company. “The church wanted to update its look, and new theatrical lighting was certainly a big part the plan. At the same time, they also wanted lights that were easier to control, because their old fixtures kept hitting the projection screens with light at services. Of course, budget was an issue too.”

    Tarbet credits his local CHAUVET Professional representative Brandon Bishop with helping to put together a lighting rig that allowed Digerati to meet the church’s diverse lighting needs. “The Chauvet fixtures and our local rep Brandon Bishop helped make this happen,” he said.

    The Digerati team used eight COLORado 2-Quad Zoom VW Tour RGBW LED pars and 12 COLORado 1-Tri Tour RGB LED fixtures. “We used the 2-Quad ZOOM VWs for stage wash lighting in 3,000° color temperatures,” said Tarbet. “The Tri Tours were used for effects and color washes on the stage, walls and ceilings. Now the church is painting the room with these lights to create a mood that reflects different parts of a service.”

    Tarbet notes that four of the COLORado 1-Tri Tour fixtures were positioned on each side of the stage on vertical powder coated pipes that blended with the church’s décor. The four other Tri Tour fixtures were installed on overhead pipe upstage to be used as back lighting and ceiling washes.

    “Our goal was to provide Millwood Baptist with effective and controlled stage washes in zone coverage, with the ability to use color as additional highlight washes,” said Tarbet. “By using color on the ceilings, walls and stage, we increased the church’s creative options and have helped it engage worshippers on another level.”

    Along with adding an extra “theatrical lighting” element to the church, the new system installed by the Digerati team also increased Millwood Baptist’s control over house lighting. “We tied the architectural lighting system into the theatrical so that house lights can be controlled from the lighting console, and vice versa, “said Tarbet. “This allows us to install button panels on the walls so that a user can push a button and bring up various combinations of house and theatrical lighting cues.”

    Digerati designed the lighting system at Millwood Baptist and followed up with training for church volunteers. “The church is thrilled with the system,” said Tarbet. “They are using it in new ways as they learn more. At this point it’s only scratching the surface of what it will become.”

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    For information on Digerati Audio Video Systems visit www.digeratiAVS.com

    Come Get The Physiological Experience at PLASA FOCUS KC!

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    CHAUVET Professional’s Customer Engagement and Education Manager Jim Hutchison will be bringing his popular seminar, LED COLOR: The Physiological Experience, to the PLASA Focus Kansas City audience! Check it out!

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    The human eye contains millions of cone cells for detecting color — and Jim Hutchison hopes to tingle each and every one of them in his upcoming “LED Color: The Physiological Experience” seminar at PLASA Focus: Kansas City from 2-3pm, Wednesday, May 20. Hutchison, the customer engagement manager at Chauvet Professional and Iluminarc, will take visitors on a colorful tour showing the effect that different colors and combinations of colors have on human thought and emotion. Along the way, he will share some insights on ways lighting designers can utilize the influential power of color to create more impactful designs.

    “I’ve geared this course to show lighting designers what it means to be able to use color on a level that gives their designs even more depth and a greater ability to convey the story they want to tell,” said Hutchison. “It’s obviously very important that, as designers, we spend time talking about the pixel pitch and batching of LED fixtures and look at their mathematical data and photo metrics, but that’s still only part of the equation. What we also need to do is put ourselves in the audience’s seat to see how we can better tell a story to them and suspend their disbelief more effectively. This course will offer advice on how you can do that by having your audience experience different colors of light.”

    Some of the examples of color influence that the seminar will explore include the power of red to increase breathing and digestion rates, how heavy yellow hues evoke “an almost a blissful confusion,” and how blues and greens engender states of calmness. “Individual colors are potent influencers,” said Hutchison. “Then, when you use them in combination with one another, you pump up their power even further. Our seminar will cover some proven examples of this color synergy.”

    Hutchison will be relying on a collection of Chauvet Professional COLORado Batten Quad-9 fixtures to provide vivid examples of LED rendered colors in action during the seminar. “We’re going to fill that room with heavy hues and induce some color fatigue in everyone’s cone cells for the sake of art,” he said. “It should be fun and I promise that anyone who attends will never see color in quite the same way.”

    See Chauvet Professional at PLASA Focus: Kansas City, May 20 – 21.

    NXT1, Legend 330SR Spot ROCK The Secret Warehouse in Brooklyn

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    BROOKLYN – The “Secret Warehouse” on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn is really not that secret. In fact it’s one of the epicenters of the borough’s bustling nightlife. Surrounded by chic sushi restaurants and tapas bars, it hosts concerts by some of the hottest names in EDM. It’s not surprising that sick beat masters Dada Life and special guest Grammy winner Paul van Dyk kicked off the start of their Compound Tour with a concert at this evocative urban venue.

    Holding an EDM concert at an abandoned warehouse in the borough that brought us Jay-Z has undeniable street cachet. However, it can also present power draw issues when trying to create a high impact lightshow. Kevin Mignone of KM Productions met this challenge at the Dada Life concert, which was produced by RPM Presents, with some help from Next NXT-1 moving LED panels and Legend 330SR Spot moving fixtures from CHAUVET Professional.

    “The warehouse is a very cool venue for an EDM concert, but no doubt there were challenges,” said Mignone. “We had only 400 amps for the entire show. This made it necessary to utilize as many low-power but high-output fixtures as we could. The NXT-1 provided an excellent wash across the entire space. We used them for eye candy effects above the crowd, utilizing the preset macros. Being LED, they were very energy friendly, so they gave us great visuals without sucking up a lot of power.”

    Mignone used six Next NXT-1 panels and 12 Legend 330SR moving spots in his Secret Warehouse rig. The fixtures were hung on overhead truss in groups of six – two LED panels and four moving heads. Together they provided a sweeping, intense and colorful effect over the crowd of 3,000 EDM fans, despite the historic venue’s low ceilings.

    “This building is very typical of your old-style New York area warehouse, so it wasn’t set up to be a concert center,” said Mignone, who constructed a 16’ by 24’ temporary stage for the Dada Life and Paul Van Dyk concert. “There are a lot of old architectural elements here like large support beams located throughout the entire area, low ceilings and different nooks and crannies.”

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    With a zoom range of 5°-24° and a powerful output from its OSRAM Sirius lamp, the Legend 330SR Spot was ideally equipped to handle the sometimes challenging angles Mignone had to navigate at the warehouse. The rapid movements and abundant output of the Legend fixture allowed Mignone to create aerial effects over the crowd without consuming an inordinate amount of power.

    “We got a lot of bang for the power drawn from the Legend 330s,” said Mignone. “The 330s provided a nice textured effect through the fog and haze in the venue. We used them throughout the area and we had intense light all over the place. As far as the crowd was concerned, the lighting made them feel like they were at a modern concert venue even as they enjoyed the ambience of this historic warehouse. RPM Presents put on an excellent event and I was happy the lighting contributed.”

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    For more information on KM Productions visit http://www.km-productions.com/

    LEGEND Fixtures Play with the Legends – The Isley Brothers

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    ATLANTA – The creative force that drives The Isley Brothers never rests. It’s why these Rock and Roll Hall of Famers can still shake the house after six decades of touring. It’s also why they’ve never flinched at abandoning comfortable familiarity in favor of new forms of musical expression; the way they did in the mid-1960s when they took on a young and then unknown sideman named Jimi Hendrix and blended his heavy guitar riffs with their own extended R&B inspired vamps to kick off an original funk sound that would influence the direction of rock music.

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    The Isley Brothers’ penchant for new ideas remains as strong today as it was back then – and not just with music, but with lighting too. This was very much in evidence recently when the multi-Grammy winners’ design team changed its plans to use some familiar lights after it heard Brad McWhorter of Atlanta Audio Visual talk about how they could create a more powerful show with a collection of Legend fixtures from CHAUVET Professional.

    “They were going to use some well-known halogen ellipsoidals over the stage along with a an expensive moving wash, but we convinced them they would get a more dynamic show by moving Legend 230SR Beams across the stage and using the Legend 412 as a wash,” said McWhorter. “Our plan must have made sense, because they listened and in the end everyone was thrilled with the final result.”

    McWhorter positioned 20 of the Legend 230SR moving beams over the stage on trussing to “create a special look over Ronald Isley and the band.” Featuring a 230-watt Osram Sirius lamp and an intense 96,000 lux at 15 meters output, the Legend fixture created a level of movement and energy in the lightshow that would have been difficult to duplicate with the ellipsoidal fixtures.

    “The fast movement and dynamic color transitions during the set made this the perfect light for The Isley Brothers music,” said McWhorter. “It makes the kind of statement you want to make in the touring industry. In addition to giving us good looks on stage, the Legend 230SR Beam worked well as an audience light. We ran them across the whole venue (Philips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia) to engage the crowd.”

    McWhorter also used 24 Legend 412 moving wash fixtures in The Isley Brothers rig, which he controlled using a grandMA2- Full (1) grandMA NPU. The richly saturated colors from the RGBW wash created an elegant effect on stage. “We had soft lavender and the natural white contrasting with blue on stage,” said the Atlanta Audio Visual CEO. “It created a nice blend of style and sophistication with intensity.”

    Although asking an iconic act like The Isley Brothers to depart from its original lighting rig plan may seem somewhat daring, McWhorter was confident that the Legend fixtures were up to the task. ““We use these lights in corporate and touring and no matter the application, we can count on their dependability,” he said, noting that the Legend Series “sets a standard that stands the test of time” – just like The Isley Brothers.”

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    For more on Atlanta Audio Visual visit: www.atlanta-audiovisual.com

    Calibash Goes NEXUS 4×4!!

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    LOS ANGELES – Ten of Latin music’s most glittering stars were shining on the Staples Center Stage for Calibash recently, and a dozen Nexus 4 x 4 panels from CHAUVET Professional were there to support them step by glittering step. Production manager William Cortes of Link Productions and LD Brandon Dunning of Visions Lighting used the intensely bright LED panels to create bands of dazzling light on massive circular downstage truss at one of North America’s premier Latin music festivals.

    Pixel mapped to display graphical and video images that support the performances on stage by artists like Pitbull, Don Omar, Carlos Vives, Wisin, Becky G and others, the Nexus panels served as kind of a crown jewel for the massive lighting array, which was anchored by circular truss set ups of 100’, 60’, 40’ and 20’. “This was without a doubt a powerful display for a powerful show,” said Todd Roberts, president of Visions Lighting. “The level of excitement and anticipation that you see at Calibash is intense, so you want a lightshow that matches that mood.”

    The Nexus panels were essential to setting an appropriately bold tone at the concert, according to Roberts. “We used the Nexus panels as audience blinders and they were plenty bright,” he said. “Most of the time we ran them at 100% brightness and if you know the Nexus, you know how intense that is! The 12 panels we had on the downstage truss lit up the entire Staples Center. It was quite impressive.”

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    A grandMA console was used to control the Nexus panel, and ArKaos MediaMaster Pro was used to pixel map the units. The images on the panels were part of a general pixel mapped theme that covered the entire stage to deepen audience engagement.

    Creating this pixel mapped presentation in a short setup time period was the main challenge with this project, noted Roberts. “The only big issue we had to contend with was the time frame for setup,” he said. “We had to load in at 4:00 am and be ready for rehearsal at 10:00 am, and we had 37 different video surfaces to map. This required a lot of teamwork on our crew’s part, but we finished everything for rehearsal and were able to put the stage in place at 9:45. We were actually fifteen minutes early!”

    Of course, anyone who saw this amazing concert had no idea about the frantic rush to set up 37 mapped video surfaces, a combined 220’ of circular truss and a large array of lighting fixtures. “We got a lot of great comments on the lighting rig,” said Roberts. “William Cortes, who was responsible for hiring us, gave a lot of great props to our team. We all wanted to make a big statement on stage, and certainly Nexus helped us turn up the lighting volume.”

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    For more information on Visions Lighting visit: www.visionslighting.com

    Pigeons Playing Ping Pong Goes ROGUE!

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    Taking FLIGHT!  Eight ROGUE R1 Spot fixtures help Aaron Kovelman make awesome music with Pigeons Playing Ping Pong — check it out!!

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    BALTIMORE, MD – Back in the 1950s, noted psychologist BF Skinner grabbed headlines by using controversial behavioral modification techniques to teach pigeons to play ping pong. Today Pigeons Playing Ping Pong is making waves again, not with psychology, but with psychedelic riffs along with some funky rock and extended jams that are attracting an ever-expanding flock, as their fans like to call themselves, to this up-and-coming band.

    Lighting designer Aaron Kovelman (aka Ronny RedRocks) is having fun keeping pace with Pigeons Playing Ping Pong’s improvisational performances with the help of eight Rogue R1 Spot fixtures from CHAUVET Professional.

    Kovelman worked with 4Wall Entertainment Lighting to include the powerful LED spots on his client’s national tour for reasons both practical and passionate. “For sure, there are a lot of things about the Rogues to like, and 4Wall helped connect me to them,” said the LD. “Scott Church runs an awesome operation at 4Wall’s DC location, and he’s been really great at connecting me to fixtures that fit my vision and fall within my budget. I decided to use the R1s for Pigeons’ tour for many reasons. For one thing, I like that they are lightweight, because it makes setup and breakdown easier on tour.

    “The Rogues are also easy to place in various positions and orientations as a result of their light weight,” continued Kovelman. “This is important because the band plays on stages that differ widely in size. You can wind up rigging them differently just about every night. Sometime they will be hung from truss, on cases on the floor, mounted on top of vertical truss towers. My ideal setup is four flown high and four low to get a full-depth look.”

    It is the performance of the Rogue R1 Spot, however, that trumps the fixture’s practical benefits for Kovelman. “Practicality aside, this one powerful light,” he says. “At 140 watts it will be able to hold up to some of the larger size/lamp fixtures that we encounter on big festival rigs. The two gobo wheels are exciting for me, as they have many looks to choose from. I was limited to one wheel fixtures and varying types of fixtures before, so I was unable to get clean gobo looks. Also, being able to have a motorized focus between the two allows for some cool psychedelic morphing.”

    Keeping pace with the free-flowing jangle-tinged flight that is Pigeons Playing Ping Pong music presents a wonderfully unpredictable challenge for any LD. It’s one that Kovelman, who uses a grandMA2 and Luke Stratton APC Midi setup, meets with enthusiasm. “Lighting Pigeons is in many ways unique and very gratifying,” he said. “Keeping the band illuminated with a good wash is super important with Pigeons, because they are extremely theatrical, and are almost always doing something visually that shouldn’t be missed.

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    “This has been a fun challenge; it makes me hold back a little on going crazy with my lights, and keeps my show more focused on the music,” continued Kovelman. “However, due to the nature of Pigeons’ psychedelic-funk, there are large improvisation sections that really allow me to dig deep, and open up as a lighting designer. These long jams are the moments where I am really not only trying to build individual looks, but going through all my special chases, effects, and fun stuff. I definitely like to be more aggressive visually in these sections.”

    Although the inspiration of these aggressive looks comes from his own creative sources, Kovelman praises tools like the Rogue R1 Spot fixture for helping him express this vision. “As a designer, I start with a direction in mind,” he said. “I’m grateful that the R1s can help me achieve this direction because of their fast pan/tilt speed, ultra-crisp beams, and smooth gobos. They’re versatile fixtures that can do many things. Plus, for anyone interested in creating some cool psychedelic looks, they’re spot on. ”

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    For more information on 4Wall Entertainment visit www.4wall.com

    REND COLLECTIVE ROCKING THE NEXUS

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    REND COLLECTIVE, rocking with NEXUS 4x4s!  Check it out!

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    SUNRISE, FL – When lighting designer Tyler Santangelo decided that floating diamonds would look better than squares on the stage for the Irish Christian experimental group Rend Collective, he simply adjusted the Nexus panels on his rig and created a new look. This was the first (but certainly not the last) time that Santangelo got to appreciate the versatility of the intense COB LED panels from CHAUVET Professional.

    As the LD on the Rend Collective tour, which has crisscrossed the globe from Sioux Falls to West Sussex and Manhattan to Budapest, Santangelo has frequently called on the Nexus panels to create new looks to fit different venues and keep pace with spontaneous flow of the group’s performance.

    Rend Collective, which reached the top of the Billboard Christian Album charts (and number 13 overall) in 2014, has played in venues ranging from small churches to large arenas. “At the start of the tour, I knew that given the wide variety of stage sizes we’d be dealing with, we would need a lighting rig that was not only road worthy, but also very flexible,” said Santangelo. “The Nashville office at 4Wall Entertainment worked closely with me to put together a rig that was simple, easy to transport and very flexible. Nexus panels were at its center from day one.”

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    Santangelo makes frequent use of his rig’s flexibility as the tour stops at its widely varied mix of venues. “At most stops we use 10 Nexus 4×4 panels on four towers, which really fills out the stage nicely,” said the LD. “However, we’re often in a position where we have to use only half or fewer of the Nexus panels. Yet we’re still able to create an interesting looking show, because of the output and versatility of the Nexus panels make the stage look full – plus we have full 53-channel control, which gives us the capability to match our design to Rend’s songs. We use a Martin M1 Console, and other additions included TMB 4-lite Punch Lites, Leprecon ULD-360 Dimmers, and Lex Distros with the ability to switch between single and three phase to program the rig.”

    The color rendering capabilities of the Nexus panels also create an engaging look on stage through various venues. “We’ve used the full spectrum of colors, but we’ve tried to stick mainly with warm colors such as amber and CTC,” said Santangelo. “I’ve been amazed by the colors from the Nexus. None of the colors were off from some of my other LED fixtures on stage. It was nice to have matching reds and blues.”

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    The low power draw of the Nexus was also critical to the versatility of the touring rig. “I had to make sure the show could go on whether we had lots of power or were plugging into a couple of sockets in a wall,” said Santangelo. “The Nexus panels allowed me to fill a lot of space on stage using low amounts of power — not to mention, they can get so bright! It was nice to have so much color on stage.”

    A dynamic six-member group that seems to be constantly moving on stage, changing positions relative to one another and engaging the audience with unexpected actions, Rend Collective also created a special set of demands that called for a flexible lighting rig. As anyone who’s ever been to one of the group’s concerts will attest, these are artists who believe in their message and relish the opportunity to engage the audience with spontaneous actions.

    This exuberant spontaneity provides audiences with a memorable experience, but it also creates challenges for a lighting designer. “It’s incredibly fun and rewarding to be involved in this tour, and part of the reason is that it does present some cool creative challenges,” said Santangelo. “Right from the start, I knew we needed a lot of versatility on this tour. This is where the Nexus panels came in handy. Whether I used a single light on a panel or all 16 lights, I was able to do so many different things with the Nexus. I could make the fixture look identical to a blinder in one of Rend’s songs, then turn it into a vertical LED strip for another number.”

    The intense output of the Nexus panel added to its versatility, according to Santangelo.
    “At full output, this fixture is stunning,” said the LD. “I saved 100% as a cool effect such as when there were sudden pops or a Capella blinder type moment. If the band was in a standalone calm moment, I ran the fixture anywhere from 5%-20%. This allowed me to keep the focus off of the fixtures but still wash the stage with some amazing colors.

    “Then, when the band did a more upbeat song, I ran the panels anywhere from 40%-75%, which still kept them in background, but delivered a powerful impact to the stage,” continued Santangelo. “If you ask me to describe what the Nexus does, I couldn’t give you a simple answer, because it does so much – it’s as limitless as your creativity. When you want a small rig for a band that has a large personality and an extensive musical repertoire, the Nexus can be your best friend.”

    For more information on 4Wall Entertainment visit www.4wall.com
    For more information on Tyler Santangelo visit www.tylersantangelo.com
    For more information on Rend Collective visit www.rendcollective.com

    Rider University and ProSho ROCK the PVP S5!

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    LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ – Ask a Rider University student how the school’s football team is doing, and you’re likely to get the response, “We haven’t lost a game since 1951!” Of course this small liberal arts university in the shadows of New York City hasn’t fielded a team on the gridiron since 1951 either — but such is the free flowing sense of humor that characterizes life at Rider. This wry spirit was very much on display recently at Rider’s annual pre-spring break party, which this year featured a flamboyant cast of characters on stilts, some popular New York DJs and an eye-popping lighting design by LD Jason Ayala of ProSho Inc. (Staten Island, NY).

    Ayala created staggered video walls using 48 PVP S5 LED panels from CHAUVET Professional and inter spliced them with Chauvet’s Q-Wash 419Z-LED RGBW moving washes. “This is a big annual event that draws a lot of people and some local celebrities like DJ Mike G and DJ Yonny from 92.3 NOW, the former flagship station of Howard Stern,” said the LD. “The energy level is pretty high. My goal and ProSho’s goal was to create an ambience in the venue that matched that energy level people expect from the Rider party.”

    The first step in creating that ambience was to lend an extra level of color and depth to the prominent DJ booth by surrounding it with different sized video displays. Ayala built two tiers of video walls in front of the DJ booth, the first measuring 6’ x 4’ and the second 4’ x 4’. He then suspended a 4’x 2’ video panel from the ceiling behind the booth and added two vertically oriented video strips measuring 4’ x 2’ and 4’ x 1’ to either side of it with the thicker strip being closer to center stage.

    “We had the DJ basically floating in a sea of video walls, which really drew attention to the performance,” said Ayala. “This is a dynamic party, but it takes place in a plain institutional room that doesn’t have a real stage. Since there was no real stage setting, we had to build our own scenic elements to create depth and texture, which is what we did with the multiple layers of PVP S5 video panels.”

    To add to this texture and depth, Ayala ran various “geometrical graphical images” on the video walls. He gave his design even more depth by pixel mapping these images on the eight Q-Wash 419Z LED fixtures. These moving LED washes filled the spaces on the stage’s back wall that were not covered by the video panels.

    “The Q-Washes filled the breaks in the wall beautifully to create a very immersive look,” said Ayala. “We pixel mapped these washes to show the same content as the video panels. All the lights were run on a grandMA and I used ArKaos MediaMaster to run the video content, so the ArKaos fed the grandMa.”

    In addition to running video images on the Q-Wash fixtures, Ayala used them as audience lights, particularly when there were live performances on the stage area in front of the DJ. He also used the PVP S5 panels themselves as audience blinders and color fills at different points during the party. “The output of the panels is very impressive,” he said. “We ran them at 50 percent and they were plenty bright; and the 419Zs were bright enough to stand up to them.”

    Another CHAUVET Professional product in Ayala’s mix was the Legend 330SR Spot. The ProSho LD used 12 of these fixtures on a massive circular truss structure that surrounded the dance floor. “We did a lot of zooming and gobo projecting with the Legends,” he said. “They were bright and fast so they really created a good energy level. If you were on the dance floor, you were engaged by these movers. If you were looking at the stage, you were engaged by the video wall and pixel mapping. All in all, the lighting helped us turn an ordinary room into a club for this party.”

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    For more information on ProSho visit www.prosho.com