"I've been involved with the M3 Rock Festival since 2009 and putting the design together for this type of event is actually two parts," began Lurz. "First, we use the Merriweather Pavilion house rig to give the bands as many lighting options as possible with profile and wash fixtures, colours, patterns, etc. Then, for this particular genre of music, we need to look at providing a lot of contrast and movement to make the rig look big through the layering of beams. To accomplish this, versatility in your lighting instruments is essential and that's where the VL4000 BeamWash and VL4000 Spot luminaires truly excel."
As Lurz began to put together his final lighting plot that would encompass the lighting needs of 20 Heavy Metal bands over the two day festival, he knew that he needed a fixture that could truly tie the whole rig together. It was 4Wall Entertainment Lighting who came up with the ideal solution.
He continued, "The whole event really came together through the hard work of Merriweather house lighting director Len Applefeld and 4Wall when they informed me we could get VL4000 BeamWash luminaires for the run of the festival. Once I found this out, I went online to research all I could about the new lights which made me even more excited due to the triple functionality of the VL4000 BeamWash."
In the lighting rig for the M3 Rock Festival, 4Wall provided eight VL4000 BeamWash fixtures that Lurz placed in the air, plus four additional fixtures which he placed on the stage behind the amp line.
He explained further, "At a festival, every light really has to be able to do everything and once we got the VL4000 BeamWash fixtures on site, I was surprised that it was even brighter than I thought it would be. When you looked at the stage with all the various lights, the VL4000 BeamWash was noticeably brighter and they gave us so many different looks from the same lights in the same positions. I could use them for audience sweeps, spots, a wash of the stage, and everything in between."
"The thing that really impressed me most about the VL4000 BeamWash was when we used them for Queensryche playing Silent Lucidity," admitted Lurz. "During this song, I brought in a gobo pattern with no colour onto a stage that was saturated in LED blue and the optics of the VL4000 BeamWash punched right through it all. Then as the song played on, I quickly changed the optics from Shaft mode where the gobo was tiny, and moved into Wash mode for a large gobo spread, then we came back into Beam mode for a spot special. It was an extremely fluid movement and it's so rare in lighting, that I really don't even know how to explain it. You really just have to see it for yourself."
Lurz concluded, "In speaking to other designers about the new VL4000 BeamWash, I'd say that anytime you can take the same light and have three optic modes, you now have infinite possibilities. The VL4000 BeamWash literally gives you three moving lights in one unit and I truly believe they will have wide spread applications due to their advanced optic system. No matter what type of design you are putting together, the VL4000 BeamWash easily gives you the right fixture with the right movement at the right time."
(Jim Evans)
