Supplied by Sacramento Production & Lighting, the Elation lighting package was chosen for several reasons including durability and price point, a major consideration these days for the touring market, according to Dion Cook, Sacramento Production & Lighting's CEO.
Dion explains the concept behind the show. "The concept for the past five years has been to give the audience more than just a run-of-the-mill comedy show with a guy in front of a curtain," he says. "And by that I mean it needed to be an experience. Gabriel's show has a mini rock show feel where we incorporate live Twitter feeds, videos, and lighting to bring the audience into our world for a couple of hours."
Dion, who together with production and touring manager Ryan Cornelius designed the set and lighting package for the tour, admits that the Satura Spot was not his first choice as he had not seen any LED spot fixture on the market that had the punch they required, and without a proven track record they knew there could be some bugs to work out.
"We were looking for a more 'green,' power-friendly solution to go along with the rest of the rig so we did a comparison with other discharge lamp spots and LED spots," he explains. "In the end, the Satura's were the best choice and we can now say it was the correct one. We are averaging 2- 3 one offs each week and the fixtures are performing great! The additional benefit of the low power consumption and built-in wireless allows us the freedom to move the in-house fixtures to locations that would have been much more difficult with traditional spot movers."
On the Gabriel Iglesias tour they are outfitted with 48 custom hi-res glass gobos to rear project 'graffiti' onto brick scrims below two large video screens. Additional fixtures are placed on the downstage edge left and right to project logo's, posters and social media tags onto the ceiling and venue walls. More Satura fixtures are hung midstage for a painted floor look.
The Satura Spots are just the start of an Elation rig that is all LED. Also included are Platinum Wash ZFX Pro RGBW moving heads, Design LED Strip RGBAWs, Protron LED Strobes, ELAR 72UV PARs and SPL LED Flat pars along with custom built LED 'barn lights'. The Platinum Wash ZFX's are used for area lighting while the Design LED Strips and ELAR 72UV PARs are used for soft goods lighting.
The Protron LED Strobes are used to give the comedian a grand entrance. The show was pre-visualized using Elation's Capture Polar lighting design software. Out on tour with the show as road LD and lighting operator is Hunter Pipes who controls the rig from a HedgeHog 4 console, the newest and smallest controller in the High End Systems Hog family, and a console that is distributed by Elation Professional.
(Jim Evans)
