Canada - This August, Pierre E Roy was the LD for Rock La Cauze, a festival that takes place over three days at Parc Terre des Jeunes in Victoriaville, Quebec. The main stage hosted 19 acts, mostly rock and metal artists, along with some reggae bands, like Atreyu, Thrice, Arch Enemy, and Sublime With Rome.
Roy’s versatile festival rig featured the Chauvet Professional Maverick MK1 Spot, seven Rogue Outcast BeamWashes, six Rogue R2 Beams, and 25 Colorado 2 Solo fixtures, all supplied by DGM Sonorisation.
“I only had 14 of the Mavericks, so good placement was important,” said Roy. “I studied all the light plots for each band programmed in our festival. I then introduced the light plan in a way that made it as easy for them to clone their show.
“Given how many acts we have to please, flexibility is important and a priority in the rig,” continued Roy. “I like how I can use these Mavericks as a beam but also profiles with very nice gobos. This helps a lot with setting the right moods. The Outcast fixtures were very helpful in the FOH truss, I was using them to wash the stage and the musicians. During the daytime, I used them as eye-candy by focusing them on the public.
Roy tapped into the colour rendering power of his rig to create some eye-popping panoramas that blended combinations of hues, such as greens, fuchsias and purples. He also used contrasting colours to create deeply textured patterns of light that almost made it look as if the stage had a video wall.
“I’ve got to be honest, most of the time, the choice of colours for the song the band play were pure instinct and luck,” said Roy, “I always do my homework when I know that I will mix an act’s show, because they don’t have their own LD. So, in a way, I kind of know the mood of the band and I always ask the sound engineer, who is often also the tour manager, what they like and what they don’t like - and if I am lucky enough, I will have a pacing of the show. Some of them will propose the colour they want for each song and the mood, which I like very much.”
Roy concluded: “Making every band’s LD happy was the main challenge, but it isn’t that hard if you contact them to make sure all is good. I was also lucky to be helped by David and Martin Fortier, the two brothers who own DGM Sonorisation.”
Explaining the success of Rock La Cauze, Roy noted: “LDs should always remember that even though it’s your rig, it’s their show.” Following this formula, said Roy, is the key to making everybody (or at least almost everybody!) happy at a festival.
