Canada - Although bad weather cut Ottawa’s Escapade Festival 2024 from three to two days, 45,000 fans attended the EDM extravaganza.
The ever-popular Bet99 Stage featured performances by the likes of Slander, Isoxo, Seven Lions, Kayzo, and Subtronics, all supported by a versatile, dynamic rig created by Onedot that featured 29 Chauvet Professional Color STRIKE M motorized strobe-washes, and an equal number of STRIKE Array 2 fixtures.
Animating every performance on this stage was a massive video wall measuring roughly 124’ wide by 10’ heigh. Comprised of two sections, the wall displayed a variety of evocative images and IMAG content on its surface, which rather than being configured as a straight plane, was arranged accordion style, with different sections protruding out further than others. This design endowed the stage with a greater sense of depth and texture.
The scope and distinct configuration of the video wall opened up a wealth of creative opportunities for the visiting LDs who came with the headliners, as well as the Onedot team, which handled many of the other acts. However, along with this opportunity came challenges, not the least of which was how to keep the output from the wall from overwhelming the rest of the rig.
“Having a video wall of this size necessitated powerful fixtures that could pack a punch compared to the video,” said Jean-Sébastien Guilmette of Onedot, who served as the creative director and lighting operator for the festival stage. “In addition to that, we rigged the video wall from the centre of the stage to the outside of the stage wings which required careful engineering. Our team had one month to design the stage and make sure that this funky setup was possible to realize. Once on site, we had two days of load-in and one day to program with guest LDs.”
Ensuring that the video wall would be balanced by the output of the lighting rig called for powerful fixtures. This led the production team, including visual designer Marc-Antoine Pelletier and TD Mathieu Couture, to select the Color STRIKE M and STRIKE Array 2 fixtures, which were taken from Solotech’s inventory.
“The Color Strikes were evenly spread to outrigs on top of the video screen,” said Guilmette. “They were also the main fixtures we relied on to fill up the space where there was no video wall. The powerful strobe strip in the fixture was used to blind and add a big punch of strobe in the crowd, and they also created a big wash impact.”
As for the STRIKE Array 2 fixtures, they were positioned in the same places at the Color STRIKE M on the screen outrig. From this position, they revved up the energy during critical moments of the various shows by serving as blinders.
“We were very impressed with the output of these fixtures,” Guilmette said of the STRIKE Array 2s. “Because these are LED fixtures, we were also able to use them to strobe with a warm colour.”
