Harvest America events bring the spirit of Laurie's Harvest Christian Fellowship in Southern California to venues in different locations. The 2014 gathering was held 5 October at the American Airlines Centre in Dallas and was attended by more than 21,000. The event featured a day of live music performances, family activities and a sermon from pastor Laurie, which was then broadcasted and live-streamed to churches, theatres and living rooms across the country, reaching an estimated 68 million via television and the Internet.
To provide a visual experience that could be tailored to both in-person and remote audiences, Chris Eguizabal, lighting designer for Harvest Ministries, relied on the Martin MAC Aura for lighting.
"With the MAC Aura's exceptional colorus, we were able to achieve the kind of lighting that not only washed the audience in an array of beautiful colours but also looked great on camera," said Eguizabal.
His biggest challenge, however, was the venue load-in. Since Harvest America isn't a traditional live tour every show has its own look, which occasionally requires the production team to cut its load-in schedule from two days to 12 hours. This was one of those occasions.
"Thanks to the modular Martin lighting rig we prepared, we stayed true to the show's aesthetics even though we only had 12 hours to load the entire event," Eguizabal said. "We ended up cutting a few sticks of truss on stage from the air to accommodate the very limited load time but due to the strength and versatility of the Martin products, the show's visuals didn't suffer."
Felix Lighting, based in La Mirada, California, was instrumental in the load-in, which included a plentitude of Martin video, effect and lighting fixtures including the Martin MAC Viper Profile.
"I love the MAC Viper Profile," Eguizabal said. "The bright colours are amazing, the optics phenomenal and the beam quality excellent. I use them all the time at our church campus and the 32 I used as my primary profile fixtures for this show really gave me some punch from the stage."
(Jim Evans)
