Victoriaville, Quebec – John Lydgate was an English monk and poet who lived over 600 years ago. By all accounts he never attended a music festival, and certainly never one that had LED lighting fixtures. But he did pen words that any modern-day festival LD can relate to: “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”

Wise words… but not necessarily true Although it might seem close to impossible to make every visiting LD and band happy at a festival, it can be done, or at least you can come very, very close. Just ask Pierre E Roy.

This August, Roy was the LD for Rock La Cauze, the well-known festival that takes place over three days at Parc Terre des Jeunes. The main stage hosted 19 acts, mostly rock and metal artists, along with some reggae bands, like Atreyu, Thrice, Arch Enemy, and Sublime With Rome. When all was said and done, all involved with the festival went home happy thanks to Roy’s passion for absorbing the music and persona of every act, along with a versatile festival rig that featured the CHAUVET Professional Maverick MK1 Spot, seven Rogue Outcast BeamWashes, six Rogue R2 Beams, and 25 COLORado 2 Solo fixtures, all supplied by DGM Sonorisation.

“I only had 14 of the Mavericks, so good placement was important,” said Roy. “I studied all the light plots for each band programmed in our festival. I then introduced the light plan in a way that made it as easy for them to clone their show.

“Given how many acts we have to please, flexibility is important and a priority in the rig” continued Roy. “I like how I can use these Mavericks as a beam but also profiles with very nice gobos. This helps a lot with setting the right moods. The Outcast fixtures were very helpful in the FOH truss, I was using them to wash the stage and the musicians. During the daytime, I used them as eye-candy by focusing them in the public.

Roy tapped into the color rending power of his rig to create some eye-popping panoramas that sometimes blended some unique combinations of hues, such as greens, fuchsias and purples. He also used contrasting colors to create deeply textured patterns of light that almost made it look as if the stage had a video wall even though it didn’t!

“I got to be honest, most of the time, the choice of colors for the song the band play were pure instinct and luck,” said Roy, “I always do my homework when I know that I will mix an act’s show because they don’t have their own LD. So, in a way, I kind of know the mood of the band and I always ask to the sound engineer, who is pretty often also the Tour manager, what they like what they don’t like — and if I am lucky enough, I will have a pacing of the show. Some of them will propose me the color they want for each song and the mood, which I like very much.”

Although Rock La Cauze drew large crowds and visit LDs were more than pleased with Roy’s work, he acknowledges that running lights for the festival was not without its challenges. “Making every band’s LD happy was the main challenge, but it isn’t that hard if you contact them to be sure all is good for them,” he said. “I also was lucky to be helped by David and Martin Fortier, the two brothers who own DGM Sonorisation.”

Explaining the success of Rock La Cauze, Roy noted: “LDs should always remember that even though it’s your rig, it’s their show.” Following this formula, said Roy is the key to making everybody (or at least almost everybody!) happy at a festival.