The tour's star-studded line-up and non-stop action required hard-hitting lighting and video effects that could keep pace with its frenzied intensity. Yet as with any national concert tour, the gear also had to perform reliably night after night, stand up to rugged travel conditions, and be able to be assembled and torn down quickly.
To set a visual backdrop that would enhance Identity Festival's pulsating excitement, while meeting the tour's rigorous challenges, Charley Guest of Stage-Tech (Santa Fe Springs, CA) chose video and lighting products from Elation Professional. Guest, whose company also provided production services to last year's Identity Festival, created a spectacular second stage design at the event, using Elation's new EPV375 HO transparent LED display panel, along with the company's ultra-popular Platinum Beam 5R extreme ACL beam effect and Design Wash LED 60 RGBW moving head.
A total of 28 EPV375 HO panels were used to create the stage's video wall, which itself presented a unique challenge, because the gear had to complement a proprietary rig brought in by the second stage's headline act Excision. "The Excision rig was projection on a custom DJ booth, so I had to design a rig that would fit on the trailer stage and leave room for the Excision set piece," explained Guest.
The video wall configuration consisted of a main screen behind the DJ made up of 10 EPV375 HO panels and an inverted horseshow on the downstage edge comprised of 18 panels. "The separation of the two surfaces provided texture and a unique look for all the acts," said Guest. "Multiple screens with unique shapes on multiple planes has been a theme in almost all of my recent video designs. I believe it helps add some artistic feel beyond good video content."
(Jim Evans)
