Staged by Capital Concerts, the nation's leading producer of live patriotic television shows, in order to produce these large-scale live outdoor television events its staff are joined by a dedicated crew of hundreds of professionals. On the technical side these included lighting designer Bob Barnhart, of Full Flood Inc, and lighting director, David Grill, who chose large quantities of GLP impression LED fixtures in their armoury of effects. These were all supplied by Martee Nuruddin at PRG's Orlando office, along with the audio.
This provided an essential component of a specially designed stage and band shell including the complete infrastructure necessary to broadcast live in HD from the outdoor setting. However, this couldn't prevent the show from being abandoned 40 minutes in, due to heavy storms (following the performances of Daughtry and Trace Adkins).
Featured in the rig were 40 of the impression RZ120 RGB Zooms, containing 120 Luxeon Rebel LEDs - providing an automated 10°-26° Linear Zoom. Like its forbear, the original impression 90, the RZ120 has no base unit, and so provides both weight and rigging advantages.
This was the lighting team's first outing with the impression. Stated Bob Barnhart, "There are many LED products on the market but their applications are not always interchangeable with the gear that has preceded them. In this particular case we needed a colour changing wash light that was small and fast - and this delivered."
Twenty RZ120's were placed on each side truss to illuminate the tent roof, providing an excellent color wash from a lower power draw. Barnhart also remarked on the efficiency of the primary colour LEDs. "The GLP's were a great improvement on what we have had before, from the stand point of colour saturation and intensity. One of the benefits of an LED product is that the intensity is not lost in the primary colours."
Five weeks later, the same team also provided lighting for America's national Independence Day celebration, A Capitol Fourth, on the same site - with PRG again responsible for providing inventory.
(Jim Evans)
