Chauvet supports Jason Aldean summer tour
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From Hoagland’s perspective, the tour represented a welcome opportunity to roll out some big, bold looks with new tools, such as the Chauvet Professional Color STRIKE M motorised strobe/wash and STRIKE Array, which like the rest of the lighting rig, were supplied by Bandit Lites.
“We really wanted to come at this tour from a new direction,” said Hoagland of CKP Lighting. “The Luz Studio team did a great job developing this scenic concept mainly driven by video. Manager Chris Parr, project manager Donnie Lockridge, and my crew chief Cody Cheatum, as well as Kelly Fields all contributed to making this special. Being asked by Chris Parr to be the lighting designer was a great honour. I had more say in the creative direction than I ever had in the past, so I ran with it.”
Working with Luz’s asymmetrical truss configurations gave Hoagland the opportunity to arrange his lighting fixtures in more impactful positions. This layout has also enhanced the rig’s flexibility making it easier to keep pace with the wide sweep of Aldean’s music. Contributing to this versatility are the rig’s 37 Color STRIKE M fixtures, which are flown at different heights in asymmetrical columns over the entire width of the stage.
“I use the Color STRIKE as a wash unit, and get the bonus of having it as my strobe as well,” said Hoagland. “Creating a broad palette of colours is important in this show, so this fixture helps in that regard. Plus, it is so bright and powerful on the strobe side of things. Then you get the bonus of movement with tilt and brightness, which is awesome.”
For Hoagland, the power of colour is vividly demonstrated in the introduction to Hicktown, the last song of the show. “This is one of my favourite moments in the show,” he said. “I use rear light only and light the band in Green and then do hits in Red. This is imagery that I have taken away from years past Nine Inch Nails tour that a very talented friend Brian Jenkins programmed.”
“We have the STRIKE Arrays scattered about within the design, using them for side lighting and audience abuse,” he said. “I can say it has been nice to use only 12 of these fixtures to light the whole seating area as well as feed into the lawn area from our downstage truss in amphitheatre shows. Then when I turn on the rest of them, it is a WOW moment with punches and accents of the music rolling in throughout the evening.”
Among the more intriguing looks in the show are those created when the rig’s 45 Maverick MK Pyxis fixtures shine through the blow-through video wall (supplied by Moo TV). The blow through video wall with lighting behind was the main element of this new design.
