Claypaky hits the road with OneRepublic
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The Honda Civic Tour kicked off in Kansas City, Missouri in July and will wrap after Labour Day in The Woodlands, Texas. The pop rock band will play 34 dates nationwide primarily in amphitheaters. It’s OneRepublic’s first tour since releasing the album, Oh My My last October.
Production and lighting designer Mark Butts of LA’s Preset Productions partnered with director and co-production designer Raj Kapoor of LA’s Raj Kapoor Productions to create a signature look for the band. OneRepublic gave the creatives a lot of latitude to devise a “very clean, sophisticated, architectural look with a limited colour palette,” says Butts. Video plays a supporting role with two triangular screens framing lighting trusses in a forced perspective pyramid shape.
“The lighting rig was designed to look bigger than it is,” notes Butts. “The choice of fixtures and the way we’ve hung the trusses make the rig look pretty substantial.” VER is the tour’s lighting, video and sound vendor.
Butts was one of the first to use Claypaky Mythos, for country music star Kenny Chesney, when the fixtures were introduced to the US market. “I have a long history with the product,” he says. “Mythos has become one of my favourites because it’s small, lightweight and does a ton of great stuff.”
For OneRepublic Butts is using 62 Mythos2 in the truss as back lights and cross lights. They also deliver big, dynamic effects and some ballyhoos.
He added about 28 Sharpy Washes, mounted in pre-rigged truss turned upside down and quickly deployed on the upstage floor, for back lights and silhouette looks.
“We’re really happy with the performance of the fixtures on the tour,” he reports. “We wanted to specify the best equipment we could for challenging outdoor venues, and everything is very solid.”
A.C.T Lighitng is the exclusive distributor of Claypaky products in North America.
Francesco Romagnoli, Claypaky area manager for North and Latin America, added, “Mark Butts has been a proponent of our products for a long time and has created some very impressive designs with them. We’re thrilled that he has taken our Mythos and Sharpy Wash fixtures on the OneRepublic tour.”
(Jim Evans)
