"Throughout the whole design process, I wanted to create an upstage grid of fixtures but I found myself having to choose between quality or quantity," Chmielewski explains. "As with most festivals, we had a limited budget and we had some weight restrictions on the stage. The 101s were the perfect match of both quality and quantity. They only weigh 8lbs each so weight was not an issue and they were really bright.
"Every part of the fixture helped create an interesting effect from the beam angles to the exceptionally fast colors, and we were able to hit effects at 180BPM on the pan/tilt. The best part is that they were very inexpensive so I was able to put 96 of them on the show."
The free festival, sponsored by Virgin Mobile, was held at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland on Saturday, 25 September with top acts Ludacris, Thievery Corp., Joan Jett, Jimmy Eat World and many more.
The MAC 101 is an LED moving head wash light that recently launched at the PLASA exhibition in London and debuted on the MTV Video Music Awards. "Martin really put some thought into the design of a low wattage fixture by incorporating the same power system they use on the Stagebars, which were also used in the design. This allowed us to daisy-chain the fixtures and made our build process very quick and saved a lot of cable and circuiting," Chmielewski says.
(Jim Evans)
