Although the band has a standard risers-and-stairs setup on stage, the risers are covered with about 20sq.m of Versa TILE, supplied by Large Screen Video (with offices in San Francisco and Miami). "When designing the show, we entertained the idea of bringing LED video onto the stage and we decided that we wanted some sort of self-illuminating video," Swinford says. "We went with the Versa TILE system because it was much more cost-effective [than regular LED], it was lighter weight, it required less power and it was easily mounted into the set - without having to dismount it or mount it every day. It also offers a different look - something that was a little bit more unexpected."
Lighting programmer Mark Butts created the content for the TILEs using Combustion 3 effects software. "A lot of it is colour and colour/white looks and there are some animated effects, which were all done with the particle generator in Combustion 3," Swinford says.
Butts delivered the content on a CD, which was then run from the Versatility media server. "The band actually bought the media server - again, because it's a very cost-effective system, over a [High End Systems] Catalyst or anything similar," Swinford says. "Then they just interfaced it with the Wholehog II, so the LD can just run the video effects with the lighting. In the fall, Rascal Flatts will be out on its own headlining tour, and our tentative plans right now are to add to the current design, so I hope to add more Versa TILEs then."
(Lee Baldock)
