"It always helps if you have the artist in on the final decision," said Scovill. "So I brought Brad in, and as soon as he walked into the room he pointed at one of the screens and said, 'That's the 18.' I told him, 'No, that's the Elation 20mm.'" Paisley thus confirmed the decision that Scovill had arrived at after extensive testing - to go with the Elation Professional EVLED 1024SMD panel.
"I made it clear to all three companies that I was going to take their products to the limits and beyond. Surprisingly to me, because I had never used Elation before, their EVLED panel turned out to be the toughest and most reliable product, as well as the best looking. The Elation had no pixel failures, while the other two screens both had pixel problems of some sort."
Scovill went ahead and placed an initial order for 330 EVLED 1024SMD panels. Then, just four days after they arrived, tragedy struck. Torrential downpours caused the Cumberland River to overflow, drowning Nashville in one of the worst floods in US history. About $4m worth of Moo TV's gear was destroyed, including the EVLED panels. "The flood came during the middle of the busiest five weeks of our history. We had seven tours going out and one huge corporate show," Scovill related. "Miraculously, all of the tours, including Paisley's, were launched on schedule using replacement gear and everybody was happy."
The irony of the devastating flood coming at the outset of Paisley's tour was not lost on many. The show is called the H2O Tour, and the artist's current big hit single is titled Water. If that's not enough, Scovill named a documentary he is shooting on the making of the tour Under Water.
(Jim Evans)
