Spencer Lavoie, founder of 4Life Entertainment and Technology Solutions:
“4Life Entertainment is really excited to share the summer with SummerStage. Central Park approached me as a potential vendor for this site approximately half a year ago. They were looking to expand their arsenal of equipment while providing the versatility of weatherproofing.”
“We were also tasked with bringing out some more color and engagement for folks to feel a vibrant party atmosphere and setting. The CHAUVET Professional equipment was able to offer that flawlessly.”
“We built out our rig with a Maverick Storm base. The great thing about Maverick Storm is that I don’t have to think about anything. I leave it up, hanging, for multiple months, and it’s a great opportunity to not have to worry about the elements.”
“Color STRIKE M brings eye candy and intensity, all in one piece of equipment.”
“We have about 70 fixtures behind us ranging from hybrids to profiles to beams from the Maverick Storm line,some STRIKE arrays, along with COLORado Panel Q40, quite a bit of uplighting around the venue,and distribution networking from CHAUVET Professional as well.”
“The CHAUVET Professional equipment gave us both power efficiency, channel efficiency,and a great price point to be able to supply everything they were looking for, all within that umbrella.As you can see, it all worked out, because here we are.”
SummerStage 2024 was also home to Dreamland Pride’s epic party.
Photo credits: Bryan Kwon
Meet the gear:
Color STRIKE M: IP65 rated motorized strobe/wash with two ultra-bright, white light tube elements surrounded by an electrifying, color-mixing, and pixel-mappable face. This versatile strobe light can double as a wash fixture with 180° tilt range to throw bright saturated color wherever you need.
The UK’s biggest festival stretches across 900 acres and draws 200,000 revellers over the course of five days. Glastonbury impresses with its sheer size and well-earned reputation for offering something for everybody. For lighting designers, programmers, operators, and everyone involved in the world of professional lighting, Glasto’s scale and diversity offers an opportunity to feast our eyes on an extraordinary number of stages and designs.
Our team from CHAUVET Professional UK made the trek to Worthy Farm to document this year’s edition and returned with their report of multiple COLORado, STRIKE, Maverick and Rogue family sightings.
COLORado PXL Curve 12 makes its Pyramid Stage debut with headliner Dua Lipa
The Pyramid Stage is Glasto’s main stage and where you’ll find the festival’s biggest names. It’s also where the newest member of the COLORado family of IP65-rated tour-grade LED bars, panels and PARs performed with headliner Dua Lipa in a design that took full advantage of COLORado PXL Curve 12’s ability to create seamless volumetric looks with a batten featuring twelve independent motorized heads with individual control of zoom, tilt and color.
Supplier: LCR LD: Matt Pitman and the Pixelmappers team
Another COLORado PXL Curve 12 debut spotted at The Glade. This Glasto stage dedicated to electronic music featured a COLORado family double billing with a rig that leaned into tight beams and long throws with COLORado PXL Bar 16. Supplier: Colour Sound Experiment Ltd LD/Operator: Leggy
Color STRIKE M and Coldplay combine to wow the largest crowd in Glastonbury’s history
Saturday night marked a return to the Pyramid Stage to witness the massive output and versatility of Color STRIKE M as the motorized strobe/wash contributed to Coldplay’s stunning lightshow with saturated colors casting a glow over the entire performance area along with a brilliant series of dynamic pixel-mapped looks.
Supplier: Neg Earth LD: Shaheem Litchmore
Coldplay’s Pyramid Stage audience was not the only crowd bathed in deep color from Color STRIKE M at Glastonbury. West Holts and Lonely Hearts Club stages were both seen glowing to similar effect.
Supplier (West Holts): DPL Production Lighting Limited Supplier (Lonely Hearts Club): SR Production Services
STRIKE Arrays warmed Glastonbury stages both night and day
Before sunfall back at the Pyramid Stage, Michael Kiwanuku performed in front of a stage-spanning wall of over 170 interconnected STRIKE Array 1 blinders.
Supplier: GLS Lighting LD: Ed Warren Op: Amy Barnett
As night fell, Shangri-La’s Peace Stage was seen glowing with the familiar warmth of STRIKE Array 2.
Supplier: PF Events LD: Harry Merrison
Rogue warriors were everywhere at Glastonbury 2024
As with so many stages at this year’s Glasto, the Peace Stage also featured a member of the Rogue family in its rig. Two of the most frequently spotted models were Rogue Outcast 1L Beam and Rogue Outcast 1 BeamWash. Lightweight, IP65-rated and punchy, this pair of Rogue Outcast movers rocked the San Remo stage with sharp bright beams and stunning eye candy rings.
Supplier: Wolf Lighting |Programmers: Ed and Diggers
The Rogue Outcast roll call continues at the Sensation Seekers stage with a look made possible by the tight to wide zoom range delivered by Rogue Outcast 2X Wash.
Supplier: Enlightened Programmer: Ella Ritchie-Purdie
Enlightened also supplied the Outside Circus and Glasto Latino stages with Rogue Outcast 1 BeamWash and Outcast 2X Wash.
GLX Productions supplied Rogue Outcast 1L Beam and Outcast 1 BeamWash for a Flying Bus stage that effectively demo’d their impressive reach.
Fineline Lighting supplied both the Astrolabe and Acoustic stages with kit that combined Rogue movers with COLORado Panel Q40 to very different effect.
Maverick moving heads in the mix across a multitude of Glasto stages
The Hive: Maverick Force S Spot • Rogue Outcast 1 BeamWash • Rogue R2X Wash • Ovation Rêve E-3 Profile • STRIKE Array 2
Maverick Storm 1 Hybrid made its Bonnaroo debut on two identically rigged stages that both took full advantage of its CMY color mixing system capable of delivering the boldest saturated primary colors (and a truly fantastic red).
The aptly named This Tent and That Tent stages, with their triangular tent ceilings, provided the geometry, while the combination of Storm and STRIKE fixtures provided the ability to alternate complementary color changes and create dramatic moments of blinding white light and dark silhouetted looks.
Hybrid versatility was on full display as Maverick Storm 1 Hybrid served up a variety of beam, spot and wash looks, shifting deftly between its beam and spot modes to deliver focused beams, crisp spots and deep heavy frost color fills.
The 180° tilt range of Color STRIKE M helped to shape bright saturated color washes that provided a sense of visual depth to the relatively narrow tent configurations of these two Bonnaroo stages.
STRIKE Array 2 audience blinders delivered peak drama with intense warm white chases and emulated tungsten dimming effects across the front of the truss topping the rig with a vertex that matched the pitched roof.
Production for This Tent and That Tent provided by Harford Sound and Rock The House Entertainment, who once again brought their production know-how and creative artistry to Bonnaroo.
This year’s Las Vegas edition of Electric Daisy Carnival once again featured lighting designs from the mind of legendary LD Steve Lieberman and his team at SJ Lighting, who have brought their trademark creative impact to music festivals around the US for over fifteen years.
“Scenery has its place in stage design. When it is a part of what we are doing, it is treated like art and we make sure it is lit. There are fixtures that are designed with one purpose: to light the scenery.”
––Steve Lieberman
“I’ve been working in festivals for a lifetime. I close my eyes and I can see it. Creativity is something that stirs inside of you. I can’t speak for every creative person in the world, but for me, I am always on the lookout for ideas, concepts, and inspiration. It can be from reading a magazine, going on a walk, just a thought, sketching on a pad: there is no right or wrong answer.”
––Steve Lieberman
““If I were to describe my look it would be: edgy, unique, atypical, appropriate, and emotional. At the end of the day, I design what feels good to me. That has been a formula that has worked well and translated into an experience that the audience has enjoyed.”
––Steve Lieberman
“Every stage has a unique set of requirements, be it different artists performing, indoor or outdoor venues, different genres of music, budgets, timeframes; the list goes on. And while all of the previously mentioned items are critical to the design and execution of the environment, there is a creative element that still needs to grow from something inspirational. Where that comes from is different for everything we do. The best advice I can give for coming up with a design would be to maintain an open mind and a clear perspective of your environment, and be observant. Anything from the shape and geometry of architecture, to a piece of artwork in a museum or even a cloud in the sky.”
––Steve Lieberman
Over 130 Color STRIKE M IP65 motorized strobe/wash fixtures played a key role in Steve’s design for EDC 2024’s Wasteland stage, saturating the industrial scenic elements in bright whites and deep colors.
The Wasteland stage also played home to the newly-launched STRIKE Array 2C full-color audience blinder, wrapping festival headliners in warm color.
See past EDC stage designs and read more from Steve Lieberman:
“This year, for Peso, as a reggaeton artist, we wanted to create different moments throughout the show to make it special. Being able to use our Color STRIKE M strobes in both our grid and our floor package created a great complement.
“I was definitely looking for a hybrid fixture to start with to go along with this design. Maverick Storm 1 Hybrid has great output and I really enjoy the color mixing it provides. We wanted something super punchy and super bright for the fifty dancers we have on stage.
“I’m very happy with the fixture selection and look forward to using them again in the future.”
“When we were programming this show, the idea was to be quite theatrical. We’re telling quite a story with this.
“Color STRIKE M strobes are in big rows along the side trusses and in the ring of the set as well, which creates a really great feature piece – we can pop a lot of cool effects with their pixels. They’re my new favorite strobe. Super bright and I love the depth and hit we get from their white cells. Their color mixing is incredible as well.
“Maverick Storm 1 Hybrid moving heads line both sides of the stage. We’ve got them in a huge upstage truss as well which gives a great backlight look. They’re super punchy on the ground. The color mixing was great. I really enjoyed programming the strobe and gobo rotating effects we pulled out of them.”
Meet the gear:
Color STRIKE M: IP65 rated motorized strobe/wash with two ultra-bright, white light tube elements surrounded by an electrifying, color-mixing, and pixel-mappable face. This versatile strobe light can double as a wash fixture with 180° tilt range to throw bright saturated color wherever you need.
Maverick Storm 1 Hybrid: The latest Maverick series IP65 technology comes together with an advanced optical system designed to optimize output from an Osram 420W 7700K source. This combination Beam/Spot/Wash fixture delivers stadium-scale output and CMY color mixing that produces the boldest reds, greens and blues while perfectly matching its fellow Mavericks in the rig.
Gore valves are what enable our IP65-rated fixtures to maintain their seal against the elements while also allowing them to breathe in order to equalize pressure and reduce condensation.
Product Resource & Experience Manager Brad Haynes explains the importance (and ease) of removing the Gore valve to inspect for signs of debris or clogging, allowing them to breathe in order to equalize pressure and reduce condensation.
For maintenance that goes beyond visual inspection, we have developed a purpose-built portable tool capable of testing the vacuum and pressure parameters of IP rated products.
In a future Light Snacks, we will cover the complete features and operation of our IP Tester, but here is an overview of this important tool for testing and maintenance of IP-rated products fitted with Gore valves:
Compatible with all IP rated products with Gore valves.
Pre-loaded testing personality files for CHAUVET Professional IP rated fixtures as well as offering the ability to easily create custom testing profiles.
Built-in web server allows for easily connecting to PC computers for creating fixture profiles and storing information collected from tests.
Housed in a compact and impact resistant ABS plastic case designed with touring in mind and able to fit in tool and road cases.
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) dimming changes LED brightness by altering the pulse width of the electrical current.
PWM dimming offers important advantages for LED lighting systems, including a wide range of dimming levels without compromising color accuracy, and the ability to be adjusted to suit the requirements of sensors, cameras and displays.
CHAUVET Professional fixture menus include the option to specify the frequency that LED currents switch on and off.
To prevent a flickering effect, the on/off frequency must be faster than what the human eye can see (typically over 100Hz).
As with any technology, PWM dimming has drawbacks that must be taken into consideration, most importantly the potential for detectable flicker and noise.
In a recent episode of Light Snacks, Product Manager Michael Graham explained how to get the best PWM settings for your LED fixtures. If you have too much hiss coming from your LED fixture, it’s an easy fix using the tips in this video tutorial:
Since all camera settings are different, it’s impossible to say which setting will work best for you. Your best option is to scroll through the settings as you watch through your camera or monitor to see when the rolling stops.
How to change the settings:
• Hit MENU
• Select LED FREQUENCY
• Select Hz
For purely live applications that do not require adjustment for the camera’s eye, the human eye will usually see better dimming when the fixture is set to the lowest LED frequency option. As a general rule, the lower the Hz, the better the dimming performance.
Get the best out of your fixtures when they’re on camera or live by paying attention to your fixture’s PWM settings.
Three important tips for prolonging the life of your fogger or hazer that uses water-based fluids:
After each use, blow or wipe off any debris or residue on the unit
Do NOT store empty. Top up fluids before storing. This often ignored piece of advice has created more maintenance headaches with atmospheric effects machines than all other issues combined.
DO flush out the system every 40 hours.
To optimize flushing both fog and haze machines, we recommend FCQ ready-to-use cleaner fluid.
Add one cup of FCQ to your machine’s liquid reservoir and cycle it through the system (by operating and activating output in normal fashion). Adding FCQ to your maintenance routine will:
Clean heater cores, increasing fog machine life and performance
Increase output and life expectancy of any fog machine when used regularly
Safely remove residues with a formula specifically designed for water-based machines
