A key attraction at the festival was the main concert stage, which featured 29 different bands performing under the light of an Erich Meitzner-designed rig that featured a collection of Rogue fixtures from Chauvet Professional, supplied by Parr Sound and Lighting of Great Bend, KS.
Meitzner positioned four Rogue R2 Beams on mid stage truss and four additional units on upstage truss. He also flew eight Rogue R2 Washes on a truss beam that ran across the entire 40' festival concert stage. The fixtures were selected for their intensity, colour and brightness, but especially important to Meitzner in this instance was versatility.
Aside from featuring a large number of bands, the Wichita Riverfest stage showcased a diverse range of musical genres, from the city's symphony orchestra to '90s rappers Naughty By Nature, to The Roots, Elle King, Fishbone, Violent Femmes and Meat Puppets.
"It was absolutely essential for us to have a versatile rig that was capable of providing different looks for different nights and different genres," said Meitzner. "Although we had a lot of different bands, not one of them brought their own floor package. So our festival rig had to cover a wide range of moods to reflect the different styles. The Rogue R2 Beams really helped us achieve this versatility. We used its split colours and rotating prism a lot to create some unique looks for all of the bands, so we never repeated ourselves throughout the whole event."
The Rogue R2 washes arranged over the downstage deck were called upon to wash the stage in colour. "Our deck was 40' by 40'," said Meitzner, who ran is rig with a grandMA2 Light. "We definitely needed powerful fixtures for the coverage they could give us. Color was another key in setting the tone for the different acts. For some of the softer country/folk acts, we bathed the stage in pastels; for others, we ran intensely coloured gobo patterns."
(Jim Evans)
