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PROJECTION 

CONNECTION 

CONNECTION 

Vol. 9.8 

SEPT. 

2008 

Lighting More than the Torch 

The opening ceremonies for the XXIX Olympiad were seen by more than a billion viewers worldwide. 

BEIJING — The Games of the XXIX Olympiad opened with a record-setting rig in Beijing National Stadium, 

a.k.a. the “Bird’s Nest.” More than 2,300 DMX-controlled fixtures and 45,000 parameters were networked to 

three MA Lighting grandMA full-size consoles, two grandMA light consoles, plus three additional grandMA 

full-size consoles as backup. Forty-six MA Lighting Network Signal Processors distributed control to 2,070 

automated lights throughout the stadium. 

“These are the Games of the records; so is the Opening Ceremony,” said Sha Xiao Lan, lighting designer 

of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Paul Collison, who was responsible for the control system and 

broadcast lighting, said of the preparation for the Opening Ceremony: “I was first contacted in December 

2007 by Sha Xiao Lan, who offered me the task to look after the lighting control 

continued on page 14 

Parnelli Voting Open, Hometown Heroes Named 

LAS VEGAS — Every year is an election year here at PLSN, and voting for the 2008 Parnelli Awards 

is now officially underway! PLSN subscribers have already voted for the best regional production 

companies in the U.S. and Canada — a profile of the winners begins on page 38. Now readers can cast 

their votes for the best of the best in the live production industry at www.parnelliawards.com/vote. 

The full ballot appears on page 43, and every vote counts! 


PRG Sues 

Martin for Patent 

Infringement 

NEW WINDSOR, NY — Production 

Resource Group (PRG) has 

filed a patent infringement lawsuit 

against Martin Professional 

A/S and Martin Professional Inc. 

Court documents filed on 

July 15 at the U.S. District Court, 

Southern District of New York 

cite 20 counts of patent infringement. 

They include the assignable 

macro functions and other 

user interface features for Martin 

Maxxyz consoles, pixel-based 

gobo record control format for 

Martin Maxedia media servers 

and the lamp and three-color 

digital gobo system for Martin 

MAC luminaires. 

Rosco Labs Names 

New President 

STAMFORD, CT — Mark Engel 

was named President and Chief 

Executive Officer of Rosco Laboratories. 

Engel, who had been the 

company’s chief operating officer, 

is the third president in Rosco’s 

nearly 100-year history. 

Engel, 45, joined Rosco over 16 

years ago. He had served as chief 

financial officer before advancing 

to chief operating officer. A native 

of Connecticut, Engel earned 

his M.B.A. at the Kellogg School 

of Management at Northwestern 

University. He is active in many industry 

associations including the 

Technical Standards Committee at 

ESTA. 

34 

38 

52 

A Light Wall, 

Revealed 

The light sculpture in “Passing Strange.” 

Passing Strange may have been 

about a young musician yearning 

to break free from the bonds of 

his stifling suburban Los Angeles 

surroundings. It may have tackled 

themes of love, identity, alienation 

and redemption in locales as diverse 

as Amsterdam and Berlin. 

But the main visual element in 

David Korins’ stage design wasn’t 

about an iron curtain or a wall that 

comes tumbling down. It was about 

a partially-lit light sculpture that 

cast Rothko-esque light projections 

through a translucent curtain, then 

got revealed at full intensity as the 

musical reached its climax — a visual 

moment that strived to be “completely 

inevitable, yet surprising,” 

Korins says. 

For more, turn to page 26. 

Parnelli Preview 

Michael Tait was chosen for 

the first-ever Parnelli Visionary 

Award. Here’s why. 

Hometown Heroes 

PLSN profiles the lighting and 

production companies voted 

tops in their region. 

PLSN Interview 

LD and intern Cody Stoltz is living 

the dream at age 13. 

Ad info:http:// www.plsn.com/instant-info




www.plsn.com SEPTEMBER December 2008 

WHAT’S HOT 

WHAT’S HOT HOT 

PROJECTION, LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS 

Installations 

Caesars Palace’s 4,148-seat Colosseum, built for Céline Dion’s A New 

Day in 2003, now rotates set elements and lighting for a new set of 

stars — Elton John, Bette Midler and Cher. 

Wide Angle 

Video looms large for George Michael’s 25 Live tour, the first North 

American tour for the singer/songwriter in 17 years. 

28 

18 

18 50 

CONTENTS 

Features 

26 Inside Theatre 

A veiled light wall helped David 

Korins create some visual intrigue 

to accompany the music, acting and 

dancing in the Broadway production 

of Passing Strange. 

30 Production Profile 

Megadeth LD Brandon Webster’s 

goal with the latest incarnation of 

Gigantour was to create a big, retro 

rock show look that showcased the 

band members’ skills. 

34 Michael Tait: 2008 Parnelli 

Visionary Award Winner 

Michael Tait put the Roundabout in Yes’ 

early concert tours. Next month, he’ll 

receive the Parnelli Visionary Award in 

Las Vegas for his pioneering vision. 

38 Hometown Heroes Regional 

Winners 

A look at the lighting and staging 

companies in five U.S. regions and 

Canada voted the best by PLSN 

readers. 

44 Company 411 

With an atrium that evokes a 1940s 

Town Square, ETC reveals how serious 

it is about having fun. 

47 Buyers Guide 

As a product category, lighting design 

software has eclipsed all others in 

innovation. 

52 PLSN Interview 

Cody Stoltz, an intern at RZI Lighting 

in New Orleans, did some of the 

programming for the Essense Festival’s 

Coca-Cola stage — at age 13. 

54 Road Test 

LD Assistant ’08 lets designers drag 

virtual fixtures, snap them to virtual 

truss, and automatically update reports 

and renderings with attributes like color. 

Columns 

6 Editor’s Note 

Want to give your career some upward 

momentum? Spend an hour a day 

reading. 

60 Video Digerati 

Cool video effects don’t have to crash 

the server. Give raster mapping a try. 

62 Feeding the Machines 

Common sense — and a shirt and 

shoes — can do wonders for your 

career. 

63 The Biz 

Production values keep rising, and so 

do school budgets for AV equipment. 

64 Focus on Fundamentals 

Can the strategic use of both Ethernet 

and DMX512 slay the Cable Monster? 

68 LD-at-Large 

Creating a visual mosh pit for fans of 

heavy metal music. 

Departments 

7 News 

10 Calendar 

10 Letters to the Editor 

18 International News 

20 On the Move 

22 New Products 

24 Showtime 

55 Projection Connection 

56 Projection Connection News 



TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION 

EDITOR’S NOTE 

PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS 

Ad info:http:// www.plsn.com/instant-info 

How much preparation does it take 

to become the best in the world? 

For Michael Phelps, the most 

prolific Olympic gold medalist of all time, 

it takes about two to five grueling hours 

per day, every day. That’s how much time 

he spent in the pool to prepare for eight 

Olympic events totaling less than 30 minutes 

in the water. His daily preparation 

time exceeds his performance time by 

more than 2,500 percent. 

On Top of Your Game 

PLSN 

If you work 40 hours a week, then 

you would have to put in over 100,000 

hours of preparation to train like Michael 

Phelps. Impractical you say? Well, only if 

you have a life. But clearly, some preparation, 

training, polish, or brush up is necessary 

to improve your game, whatever it 

may be. Greatness falls in no one’s lap, not 

even the physically gifted Phelps, whose 

six-foot, seven-inch arm span is three 

inches longer than his height. He works 

doggedly to pursue his goals. 

You don’t have to work like a dog, 

but with moderate effort you can be top 

dog. For example, by writing for about 

an hour a day, you can finish an entire 

book in about three years. By running 

for about nine hours per week, you can 

train for a marathon in about six months. 

And by studying for about 20 hours per 

week, you can get through college with 

a full load. I know this because I did all 

of these things…with the possible exception 

of actually studying in college. 

That wasn’t my strong suit. But that all 

changed when I started working for a 

living and there was a paycheck at stake. 

Then I realized that the road to the top 

of the career ladder runs right through 

the library. 

By RichardCadena 

An Hour a Day 

Keeps the Cobwebs at Bay 

The brick walls are 

there to keep the 

other people out. 

Reading is Fundamental 


If there is one thing you can do today 

— right now — to get a good grip 

on the next rung of the ladder, it would 

be to read all you can about things that 

relate to your job and to the industry. For 

some of us, that’s an obstacle that can’t be 

overcome because it requires effort. For 

others of us, it’s an opportunity because, 

as Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture 

said, the brick walls are there to keep 

the other people out. For those of us who 

want it badly enough, the brick walls let 

us prove it. 

If you’re ready to prove how badly you 

want to rise to the top of your profession, 

then crack some books, put in some extra 

effort and start climbing every brick wall 

that you encounter. Here are some specific 

reading recommendations for the particular 

professions listed below: 

• Lighting Designers: A Practical Guide to 

Stage Lighting, by Steve Shelley; Stage 

Lighting Design, by Richard Pilbrow; Light 

Fantastic: The Art and Design of Stage 

Lighting, by Max Keller 

• Lighting Programmers: The Automated 

Lighting Programmer’s Handbook, by 

Brad Schiller 

• Master Electricians: Overcurrents and 

Undercurrents: All about GFCIs, AFCIs, and 

Similar Devices, by Earl W. Roberts; Automated 

Lighting: The Art and Science of 

Moving Light, by Richard Cadena; Practical 

Dimming, by Nick Mobsby 

• Lighting/Sound/Video Technicians: 

Rock Solid Ethernet, by Wayne Howell; 

Practical DMX, by Nick Mobsby; Control 

Systems for Live Entertainment, by John 

Huntington 

All can be found at www.plsnbookshelf. 

com. 

Greatness falls in 

no one’s lap. 

There may or may not be an Emerald 

City at the end of the Yellow Book Road 

— there are no guarantees. But following 

the road is richly rewarding in and 

of itself. Reading and learning is enjoyable, 

satisfying and it gives you a sense 

of self worth. And it certainly can’t hurt 

your chances of ascending the steps of 

your career. 

Free Live Web Event 


If the idea of moving up the career 

ladder appeals to you, then join me in a 

free live Web event entitled “The Future 

of the Live Event and Performing Arts 

Production Industry: Meeting the Challenge 

of Technology and Change,” hosted 

by Creative Stage Lighting on Thurs., 

Sept. 18 at 3:30 p.m. (EST). 

To sign up, visit www.creativestage 

lighting.com/events/2008/rcadena_ 

webinar.html. It will be the first in a series 

of Webinars designed to help you 

train for the Olympics…or for other career 

goals. 

The Publication of Record for the Lighting, 

Staging and Projection Industries 

Publisher 

Terry Lowe 

tlowe@plsn.com 

Editor 

Richard Cadena 

rcadena@plsn.com 

Editorial Director 

Bill Evans 

bevans@plsn.com 

Managing Editor 

Frank Hammel 

fhammel@plsn.com 

Associate Editor 

Breanne George 

bg@plsn.com 

Contributing Writers 

Vickie Claiborne, Bree Kristel Clarke, 

Stephen Ellison, Phil Gilbert, Rob Ludwig, 

Kevin M. Mitchell, Bryan Reesman, Brad 

Schiller, Nook Schoenfeld, Jennifer Willis 

Photographer 

Steve Jennings 

Art Director 

Garret Petrov 

gpetrov@plsn.com 

Graphic Designers 

David Alan 

dalan@plsn.com 

Crystal Franklin 

cfranklin@plsn.com 

Web Master 

Josh Harris 

jharris@plsn.com 

National 

Advertising Director 

Gregory Gallardo 

gregg@plsn.com 

Account Manager 

James Leasing 

jleasing@plsn.com 

Production Manager 

Linda Evans 

levans@plsn.com 

General Manager 

William Hamilton Vanyo 

wvanyo@plsn.com 

Business and 

Advertising Office 

6000 South Eastern Ave. 

Suite 14J 

Las Vegas, NV 89119 

Ph: 702.932.5585 

Fax: 702.932.5584 

Toll Free: 800.252.2716 

Editorial Office 

10305 Salida Dr. 

Austin, TX 78749 

Ph: 512.280.0384 

Fax: 512.292.0183 

Circulation 

Stark Services 

P.O. Box 16147 

North Hollywood, CA 91615 

Projection, Lights & Staging News (ISSN: 

1537-0046) Volume 09, Number 8 Published 

monthly by Timeless Communications 

Corp. 6000 South Eastern Ave., 

Suite 14J, Las Vegas, NV 89119. It is 

distributed free to qualified individuals in the 

lighting and staging industries in the United 

States and Canada. Periodical Postage paid 

at Las Vegas, NV, office and additional offices. 

Postmaster please send address changes to: 

Projection, Lights & Staging News, P.O. Box 

16147 North Hollywood, CA 91615. Mailed in 

Canada under Publications Mail Agreement 

Number 40033037, 1415 Janette Ave., Windsor, 

ON N8X 1Z1. Overseas subscriptions are available 

and can be obtained by calling 702.932.5585. 

Editorial submissions are encouraged, but must 

include a self-addressed stamped envelope to 

be returned. Projection, Lights & Staging News is a 

Registered Trademark. All Rights Reserved. 

Duplication, transmission by any method of 

this publication is strictly prohibited without 

permission of Projection, Lights & Staging News. 

ESTA 

ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES &


Martin Reports First-Half Results, Adjusts MAC III Launch 

AARHUS, Denmark — Although Martin 

Professional sees “substantial potential” for both 

the delayed launch of its MAC III luminaire and a 

forthcoming flexible outdoor wall-hanging light 

product, the company also noted that a positive 

market reaction to both will be “absolutely 

essential” if the company is to reach its full-year 

profit target of DKK 70 million before taxes. 

The MAC III is now expected to be ready 

for the market in the fourth quarter of 2008, 

and Martin is pinning its hopes for achieving 

its 2008 revenue target of approximately DKK 

1.2 billion on that launch as well. 

Martin Professional’s profit target was 

lowered in part because of a less favorable 

rate of exchange between the Danish kroner 

and the dollar in the U.S., a prime market for 

the company’s growth. The decline of the kroner 

also contributed to a dip in Q2 earnings. 

A recent press release detailing sales and 

earnings for the company’s first half concluded 

that the company’s overall full-year profit 

forecast for 2008, while lowered, is still “subject 

to significant uncertainty.” 

Martin Professional reported that its revenue 

for the first half of 2008 dipped only slightly from 

the record high from a year earlier, to DKK 558.7 

million, down from DKK 594.3 million in the 

first half of 2007. The company added that the 

decrease was in line with expectations, reflecting 

the divestment of its Martin Security Smoke 

business unit and unfavorable exchange rates. 

Activities in 2008 began at a high level, 

with sales including the final shipment of 

products for the Olympics in Beijing, where 

Martin products were used for the opening 

and closing ceremonies. But the company acknowledged 

that for the latter part of the H1 

reporting period, there was weaker demand, 

fewer project completions and the delay in 

launching the MAC III. 

First-half 2008 profits before tax were DKK 

35.7 million, down from DKK 39.1 million in H1 

2007. The first-half profit had been expected 

to decline somewhat at the beginning of the 

year. However, the H1 2008 profit includes 

a DKK 21.4 million profit from the sale of the 

subsidiary Martin Security Smoke in March 

2008. Adjusted for this transaction, the decline 

has proved to be larger than expected. Martin 

cited exchange rates as a key factor in that decline 

as well. 

Martin MAC III Profile 

NEWS 

CSL Supports 

Erykah Badu Tour 

Grammy-award winning singer and 

actress Erykah Badu recently returned to 

the stage with her first North American 

tour in seven years. Creative Stage Lighting 

(CSL) supplied gear and crew. 

CSL-supplied gear inluding a Martin 

Maxxyz Compact console with Playback 

Wing, Martin Mac 700 Profiles, Vari-Lite 

VL3500 Washes, Coemar Inifinity Wash 

XLs, High End Systems Showguns, Columbus 

McKinnon motors, James Thomas 

truss, Reel EFX DF-50 hazers and an 

Entertainment Power Distribution moving 

light unit. 



NEWS 


Bandit Lites Promotes 

Heffernan to President/COO 

KNOXVILLE, TN — Bandit Lites announced 

that Peter M. Heffernan, a 30- 

year veteran with the company, serving 

the last 15 as COO, has been named president 

of the company. He will also retain 

his position as COO. 

While an undergraduate at the University 

of Tennessee, where he earned a BA 

Parnelli Voting Open, 

Hometown Heroes Named 

continued from cover 

The Parnelli Awards will be presented 

in Las Vegas Oct. 24, 2008. 

PLSN will also honor Dennis Sheehan, 

recipient of the 2008 Parnelli Lifetime 

Achievement Award, and Michael Tait, 

recipient of the new Parnelli Visionary 

Award. (A profile of Tait appears on 

page 38; a profile on Sheehan will appear 

in the Oct. 2008 issue of PLSN.) 

The Parnelli Awards are sponsored 

this year by All Access Staging, Bandit 

Lites, Brown United, Dedicated Staging, 

Nocturne Productions, Precise 

Corporate Staging, Pyrotek Special 

Effects, Sew What? Inc., Rock It Cargo 

and Syncrolite (Gold sponsors) and 

Apollo Design Technology, ASI Production 

Services Inc., Littlite Gooseneck 

Lamps & Accessories, Martin 

Professional and Techni-Lux (Silver 

sponsors). 

“It’s a good networking opportunity, 

and a way to support the industry 

and bring light to the key players 

and the up-and-comers,” said David 

Stern, president of Precise Corporate 

Staging (PCS), Tempe, Ariz., on his 

reason for sponsoring the Parnelli 

Awards for several years running. 

Pyrotek Special Effects, which has 

offices in Markham, Ontario, Canada, 

the U.K. and Las Vegas, is a first-time 

sponsor of the Parnelli Awards this 

year, even though last year was the 

first year in five when Pyrotek didn’t 

win the Parnelli for “Best Pyro.” 

“Our president, Doug Adams, 

is very proud and honored to have 

won the Parnelli award for so many 

years in a row,” said Jim Schorer, Pyrotek’s 

marketing and sales manager. 

He added that this year Pyrotek has 

“pushed the envelope even harder” 

with innovations such as the blazing 

“fire screen” effect that Pyrotek engineered 

for the Jonas Brothers’ Burning 

Up tour in hopes of reclaiming a 

Parnelli in 2008. 

Peter M. Heffernan 

in Communication with a major in Broadcast 

Management, Heffernan served on 

the campus entertainment board, where 

he first came into contact with the staff at 

Bandit Lites. 

Heffernan joined the company in 1978 

and has risen through the ranks, serving 

as lighting director and production manager 

for a number of artists. He first took 

on an administrative position in 1985. 

Bulbtronics Achieves ISO 

9001:2000 Certification 

NEW YORK — Bulbtronics Inc., a global 

distributor of bulbs, batteries and related 

lighting products, has received ISO 9001:2000 

certification by the International Organization 

for Standardization (ISO). 

As a national lighting distributor to diverse 

marketplaces including entertainment, 

medical, and scientific channels, Bulbtronics 

maintains multiple stocking locations in the 

United States and sources its products from 

over 150 manufacturers worldwide. Bulbtronics 

also maintains the LED and energyefficient 

bulbs and an efficient environmental 

recycling solution for its customers. 

ESTA Offers Public Review 

of Draft Standards 

NEW YORK — ESTA is offering a 

newly revised draft standard for lightweight 

streaming protocol for transport of 

DMX512 using ACN on its Web site. Two 

other draft standards, involving luminaire 

inspection and slippery floor surfaces, have 

been posted for public review as well. 

The draft documents will be at www. 

esta.org/tsp/documents/public_review_ 

docs.php through Sept. 22. 

Blues Event 

Gets Greener 

With LEDs 

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO — Blues Under 

The Bridge, a blues event sponsored by local 

NPR radio station affiliate KRCC, got a little 

greener this year. 

KRCC chose lighting supplier Mountain 

Light Co. to provide lighting services for the annual 

event, and by using LEDs, the event’s carbon 

footprint was reduced by about 220 pounds for 

each of the event’s two days. (It was staged on 

two Saturdays this summer, five weeks apart.) 

Blues Under the Bridge attracts a variety of local, 

regional and national blues artists, and helps 

raise money for outdoors and arts organizations. 

Blues Under the Bridge switched to LEDs this year. 

As a sponsor and service provider to the event, 

Mountain Light used 30 Color Blast LED fixtures 

from Color Kinetics (now Philips Solid State Lighting 

Systems) in place of 24 traditional incandescent 

ellipsoidal fixtures. 

Each ColorBlast uses 50 watts of power compared 

to about 500 watts required by most stage 

lighting fixtures. The wattage required for the 

stage lighting was thereby reduced from an estimated 

12,000 watts to 4,950 watts. Along with 

the electrical savings, performers benefited from 

a cooler atmosphere on stage, because the LEDs 

produce about 90 percent less heat as they create 

light. 

“LEDs are the wave of the future and we are 

proud to showcase their many attributes at this 

benefit show,” said John Fuller, founder and principal 

of Mountain Light. 

Global Distributor for 

LightFactory Named 


HERTFORDSHIRE, U.K. — Cooper Controls 

has been named global distribution 

partner for LightFactory control software. 

The software had previously been sold in 

Europe through Cooper Controls’ Zero 88 

division. Existing LightFactory dealers will 

continue to service their markets, but with 

more involvement from Cooper Controls, 

which will now be providing marketing, 

distribution, service and support. 

Cooper Controls will sell LightFactory 

as a complete boxed package. This includes 

the software, Cooper Controls’ USB 

to DMX dongles and quick start guides. 

All the DMX processing can be done in 

the dongles Neutrik 5 pin connector. 

Several options are offered, from one 

to 64 universes of DMX control. An entry 

level package for use in the educational 

sector or by registered students is priced 

to allow this important segment of the 

market to have access to a comprehensive 

lighting package complemented by 

service and training teams. 

Cooper Controls also said a range of 

accessories for LightFactory are in development 

and are planned for launch at fall 

trade shows starting in September. 

8 PLSN SEPTEMBER 2008


NEWS 

In Brief 

The USITT-USA Exhibit Committee is 

preparing for the next Prague Quadrennial 

in June 2011 and is looking for an Exhibit 

Tour Director, Manager, Student Exhibit 

Mentor, National Exhibit Designer and Videographer. 

Applicants should apply by Sept. 

15, 2008. For more info, contact abonds@ 

uoregon.edu … The Illuminating Engineering 

Society of North America (IES) 

has received 400 entries for its International 

Illumination Design Awards (IIDA) program 

and will present eight International Awards 

and 151 Awards of Merit at the IES Annual 

Conference on Nov. 9, 2008 in Savannah, 

Ga. … ETC announced its 2008 LDI Student- 

Sponsorship recipients: Rosemarie Cruz, 

Kent State University (KSU); Greg Goff, NYU’s 

Tisch School of the Arts; Sarah Kamender, 

Bob See / Norman Leornard 

When I read the line, “Norman 

Leonard single-handedly 

changed the industry” (PLSN 

Interview: Bob See, Aug. 2008) I 

was hit like a bolt with a very 

vivid memory of my very first 

THE EDITOR 

tour. It was the 1970s, and I was 

anxious to go on the road after 

working a couple of years as a 

local stagehand. The opportunity arrived in the form of the 1975 U.S. 

Tour of The Soviet Circus. It had been out for about two stops, and they 

wanted to hire a guy to set up the the small 208VAC power distro system 

that ran a variety of Russian props and gags and call follow spots. 

I was encouraged by my Local’s B.A. to grab the chance, so I did. I was 

greener than grass, 20 years old, no experience, but willing. The third 

stop after I joined the show was MSG. I will never forget meeting Mr. 

Leonard. It was about 8:15 a.m. and he is informing me that I, and my 


Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, Liverpool, 

U.K.; Darren E. Levin, University of 

Texas-Austin; Porsche McGovern, California 

Institute of the Arts, Valencia, Calif.; and Jeremy 

M. Sinicki, University of Florida…Robe 

Lighting is collaborating with Netherlandsbased 

Leasing Services to offer flexible financing 

to its clients and business partners, 

through the company directly or more than 

40 distributors. 

gear, are a hazard to the industry. He went on to explain what exactly 

he meant by that. Twecos, welding cable (undersized no less) no chase 

nipples in or out of the distribution boxes, and improper grounding. 

He read me the riot act in the middle of The Garden pretty much reducing 

me to a face in hands moment of complete panic. Thank God 

for the IA Head there, he came over, said it would be okay. He sent his 

guys out to acquire all the materials Mr. Leonard had spec’ed, came 

back, and helped me fix the whole magilla before show time. Three 

years later, I’m in MSG again, this time as the Assistant Electrician with 

Holiday On Ice under a very talented guy who prided himself in being 

prepared for Mr. Leonard when we played there. Even with all the 

prep we did, Norman still managed to find the six inch chase into our 

dimmer box an inch too small. He was, as Bob See said, very thorough. 

I have developed a strong respect for Norman Leonard as the years 

have progressed and I have matured. I would agree, he did change 

the industry. 

—Jinx Kidd, IATSE Local16, ETCP Certified Electrician 

CALENDAR 

PLASA Show 

Sept. 7-10 

Earl’s Court 

London 

www.plasashow.com 

W-DMX Wireless University 

Sept. 9 

Earl’s Court Two 

London 

www.wirelessdmx.com 

Prolight + Sound Shanghai 

Oct. 9-12 

Shanghai New International 

Expo Centre 

Shanghai, China 

http://pls.messefrankfurt.com 

LDI 

Oct. 20-26 

Las Vegas, NV 

www.ldishow.org 

Parnelli Celebrity Classic 

Oct. 23 

Siena Golf Club 

Las Vegas, NV 

www.parnelliawards.com/golf 

OBITUARIES 

Larry E. Nelson 

LAS VEGAS — 

Larry E. Nelson, 

founder of the L.E. 

Nelson Sales Corporation, 

passed away 

from a lengthy illness 

on Aug. 12. He 

was 65. The company 

he founded has 

offices in Las Vegas, 

Nev. and Fair Lawn, 

N.J. 

After attending 

the University of 

Southern California, where he played football 

and earned a degree in electrical engineering, 

Nelson pursued a career in the entertainment 

business and worked for Kliegal, Strand and 

Colortran. He then started the home-based 

lamp distribution business that formed the 

basis of the L.E. Nelson Sales Corp. His wife, 

Bernetta, also worked for the business. 

Heidi Dowd, Larry’s youngest daughter 

and current vice president of L.E. Nelson Sales, 

reflected on her father in the following way: 

“Growing up my father was a sizeable 6’4” 

man. Some people would find that intimidating. 

Instead he taught me to always stand with 

him and know I was equal in stature.” 

The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, 

donations be made to Jews for Judaism, 

9911 West Pico Blvd., Suite 1240, Los Angeles, 

CA 90035. 

Alfred P. “Al” Tasch, Jr. 

LAWRENCE, MA — Alfred P. “Al” Tasch Jr., 

the service technician with Capron Lighting 

and Sound of Needham, Mass., died July 31. 

He was 43. 

Tasch had been with Capron Lighting 

and Sound for eight years. He previously freelanced 

for more than a dozen years in the 

lighting and sound production industry at 

companies such as Bluefin Productions, Inc., 

Parnelli Awards Gala 

Oct. 24 

Rio Hotel & Casino 

Las Vegas, NV 

www.parnelliawards.com 

Sargent Production Services and ALPS Inc. 

Tasch is survived by his wife of 14 years, 

Paula J. (Bourassa) Tasch, his parents, Alfred 

and Lois (Lutz) Tasch, his son, Peter, his daughter, 

Allison, and other family members. 

A fund has been established for those 

wishing to make a donation: the Alfred Tasch 

Memorial Fund, c/o Capron Inc., 278 West St., 

Needham, MA 02494. 


2008 Rogers Cup Tennis Tournament 

Lights Up with Pyro Display 

TORONTO — In the days of white tennis 

balls and tiny wooden racquets, a tennis 

celebration meant polite clapping from the 

gallery and a tall glass of iced tea. 

These days, things are a little more exciting 

in the tennis world. 

Even though the nine-day Canadian 

Masters tennis tournament, which showcased 

the talents of 40 of the world’s top 44 

ranked players, wouldn’t be confused with 

a sporting event like Wrestlemania, Pyrotek 

Special Effects punctuated 

the close of each 

of the three prime-time 

matches with a fireworks 

display. 

Lorenzo Cornacchia, 

Pyrotek’s vice 

president, worked with 

event coordinators 

to implement a new 

design for this year’s 

event. “It really added 

that exclamation mark 

for the match winners,” 

Cornacchia said. 

The displays incorporated 102 of Pyrotek’s 

red comets with tail chases, 27 

multi-shot comet boards and 54 silver 

comets with tails. The fireworks display 

fired from the south end of the court for 

each evening match. 

Pyrotechnicians Tristan Ford and Kenneth 

MacDonald set up the effects and 

implemented the design from atop the 

media booth. 

Pyro fired off by Pyrotek Special Effects explodes above the Rexall Centre in Toronto. 



NEWS 


Rascal Flatts Tours with Bigger Rig, Complex Set 

The set included a 32-foot high, MiTrix-clad staircase and a large rectangular thrust. 

Andy Knighton, LD for Rascal Flatts, is 

in his sixth year of working with the Grammy 

award-winning country band, and over 

that time he’s seen the tour grow from one 

truck to a convoy of 22 semis loaded with 

gear. The current tour, Bob that Head, is using 

lighting supplied by Bandit Lites and 

an interactive set created by All Access 

Staging, lit by LEDs from Elation Lighting 

and Acclaim Lighting. 

For the tour, Knighton chose to use primarily 

Vari*Lite products, including 48 VL3500 

Washes and 60 VL3000 Spots, Color Kinetics 

Color Blasts and Lycian M2 truss spots, all 

controlled by two grandMAs and four grand- 

MA NSPs from MA Lighting. 

There are also about 1,000 color-changing 

LED fixtures from Elation Professional and 

Acclaim Lighting, and a set design from All 

Access that brings the band’s three performers 

into close contact with the crowd. “They 

basically had a T thrust on their last set, and 

this year they wanted one that would extend 

even further out into the audience,” said project 

manager Mike Bell of All Access Staging. 

Working with set designer Bruce Rodgers 

of Tribe Inc. and Knighton of Bandit Lites, All 

Access created “one of the most complicated 

sets I’ve worked on,” said Bell. It has a 32-foot 

high spiral staircase that measures 14 feet 

in diameter and is surrounded by Barco Mi- 

Trix LEDs. That silo-like structure serves as a 

silo-like focal point for the 48-foot-by-68-foot 

main stage, which incorporates a runwaystyle 

rectangular thrust that wraps around 

four spectator egresses to provide audience 

access. 

The set also features a variety of staircases 

following the silo’s curved contours. Five elevated 

risers serve as platforms for the instrumental 

players, while numerous stairways, 

ramps and bridges, also lit by color-changing 

LEDs, connect the various sections and levels 

of the set. 

A total 730 Acclaim X-Cubes RGB LED 

fixtures are used along the perimeters of the 

thrust and those of the risers where the instrumental 

players are positioned. Spaced one 

foot apart on the elevated risers, they “draw 

attention to the risers and the backline guys,” 

said Bell. X-Cubes and MiTrix are also used to 

highlight three diamond-shaped decks that 

sit on top of two elevated audience egress 

bridges and on the front of the main stage 

and a fourth square-shaped deck at the front 

of the thrust. 

The top surface of the entire thrust is 

outlined with Acclaim X-Tubes on each side. 

More than 125 of these linear RGB LED strips 

are placed end-to-end so that they appear as 

an uninterrupted “running light” along the 

sides of the thrust “to really give it a runway 

look,” said Bell. 

The set also uses more than 100 39-inch 

Octostrip LEDs from Acclaim’s sister company 

Elation Professional. They illuminate 

the treads of the many stairways on the set, 

including the two staircases that lead down 

from the 32-foot silo to the main stage, four 

additional “screamer” staircases that surround 

the main stage and eight sets of stairs that 

lead up and down from the elevated decks 

on the thrust. 

Bandit’s Knighton, who said the Vari*Lite 

gear had the “horsepower” needed for the live 

IMAG cameras, also collaborated with Tribe, 

Inc.’s Rodgers on the show. The video plays a 

central visual role, but imposed some restrictions 

on the placement of fixtures. Knighton 

and the crew were able to work out the kinks 

to create the final design now seen on tour. 

Knighton credited the crew for keeping 

things rolling, giving kudos to Marcus Wade, 

crew chief; Adam McIntosh, master electrician; 

Scot Sepe, “who is responsible for the 

Massive RGB network and sole provider for 

support acts;” Stephanie Lough, floor manager, 

who “is in charge of the build, and adds 

a sense of character to the whole thing;” and 

Trevor Ahlstrand, who Knighton called “probably 

one of the single most amazing programmers 

in the business.” 

“A special mention should go to the management 

of Turner, Nichols & Associates for 

assembling the team that continues to make 

Rascal Flatts such an incredible live event,” 

said Bandit vice president Michael Golden. 

LEDs Play Key Role 

in 311 Tour Rig 

The band 311 (pronounced threeeleven), 

an alternative punk-funk/ 

reggae-rap group which gets its name 

from the police code for a skinny dipping 

incident involving a former band 

member, recently wrapped up their 

summer tour, fully clad in lighting from 

a large circular rig. LED lighting, including 

16 Infinity Wash XLs and 36 ParLite 

LEDs from Coemar, played a key role. 

Distributed by Inner Circle Distribution 

(ICD), the Coemar gear was 

used by LD/lighting director/programmer 

Joe Paradise to tone the 

60-foot truss that ran through the 

circular rig, and to complement the 

general illumination from the rig. “I 

use the ParLites as truss toners, and 

the Infinities for general upstage 

and mid stage wash,” Paradise said. 

“I’m also using hazebase base hazers, 

mounted in the circle to give 

atmosphere downstage.” 

Coemar’s Infinity Wash XL lights 

feature a CMY-S color mixing system 

with saturation mode, full range dimming, 

black out, synchronized or random 

strobe effects and an electronic 

strobo zap. The Coemar ParLite LED 

lights also offer full range dimming, 

synchronized or random strobe effects 

and a full range of color generated 

by a convergent RGB color system. 

The ParLite LEDs each have 36 1-watt 

luxeon units with a declared LED life of 

100,000 hours. 

“They provide good color, great 

output and excellent zoom features,” 

Paradise said. “And their patterns 

can’t be beat.” As for the hazebase 

hazers, “I had seen them in ICD’s shop 

and they were fantastic,” he said.. 

“You can place them wherever you 

wish to. They afford really precise 

control of output and fan speed, and 

use very little fluid.” 

LEDs Bring Avalon 

Club Walls to Life 

TORONTO — ACS used 82 Chauvet LEDsplash 

Jr. wash lights to fulfill a club owner’s 

vision of “living walls” that could change hues 

at any time. The lights are wall-mounted behind 

diffusing domes in two distinct sections 

of the club. Chauvet ShowXpress software 

controls them via DMX. 

ACS owner Carlos Costa said he selected 

the Chauvet units for the install because of 

their compact size, and reliability. “They are 

simply the best for this application, providing 

the most efficient and brightest output,” 

he said. 


At Avalon, lighting proves more flexible than paint. 



NEWS 


Lighting More than the Torch 


continued from cover 

system. We knew by this time that it would be 

an MA Lighting system. We started patching 

and designing the network in February 2008. 

One session ran the wash lights in the roof, 

the second session ran all the other wash fixtures 

in the system and the third session ran 

all of the profile or spot fixtures. 

“Once we had decided on the partition it 

was down to the patching business,” Collison 

said. “When dealing with a couple of thousand 

fixtures and having almost ten different fixture 

types, you need to be able to identify things 

fairly quickly. I started with trying to match the 

lamp model number with its ID. So for example, 

the Vari*Lite VL3000 spots start their fixture IDs 

Lighting from 2,342 DMX-controlled fixtures set the unique architecture of 

the Bird’s Nest aglow. 

at 3001, the Clay Paky Alpha Wash 1200 at 1201, 

etc. Once this process was done it was time to assign 

DMX addresses. 

“All of the fixtures needed to be given a position 

in the grandMA 3D world for the pre-programming 

sessions,” Collison added. “This gave 

us the chance to use the wireframe visualizer in 

the grandMA as well as being ready for grandMA 

3D to come online. Each session only had two 

user profiles. One was for the operator, the other 

for administration. Each session was named with 

reference to its color, as were the show files — 

red, green and blue. 

“We now had to set-up the pre-programming 

studio at the Beijing Olympic Committee 

Headquarters,” Collison continued. “This existed 

in various modes, but the one I liked the best 

was each session with its visualizer on a plasma 

The performance area and audience areas added up to close to a full 

square kilometer of space that needed to be evenly lit. 

screen in front of them. This, combined with a 

projector fed from grandMA video, with each 

session blended in to form one picture, worked 

great. It allowed the team to see their programming 

all at work. By beginning of May we started 

the transition from pre-programming to on-site. 

NBC Olympics lighting designer Steve 

Brill of The Lighting Design Group utilized 

City Theatrical’s SHoW DMX to light the Bob 

Costas NBC Prime Time Studio set, which 

rotated 360° on a turntable. Power to dimmers 

mounted on the revolving set was run 

through a three-phase commutator, but 

DMX data was sent wirelessly from a SHoW 

Fixture-by-fixture, truss-by-truss, the 

system came online. On June 12th, 

rehearsals began.” 

On August 8, the Opening Ceremony 

attracted the attention of 

more than a billion viewers worldwide. 

Altogether, 2,342 fixtures were 

used, including 980 Martin MAC 

2000 Wash fixtures, 162 Martin MAC 

2000 Wash XB fixtures, 308 Vari*Lite 

VL3500 Spots, 316 VL3000 Spots, 

180 VL3500 Wash fixtures, more 

than 200 Century Color 2500 and XL 

wash fixtures from PR Lighting and 

112 Clay Paky Alpha Wash 1200s. The 

first session had 15,921 parameters 

with 14 MA NSPs and 834 fixtures, the 

second 13,503 parameters with 16 

MA NSPs and 884 fixtures, the third 

session 15,987 parameters, with 16 

MA NSP and 624 fixtures. Eight Robert 

Juliat Lancelot 4kW HTI followspots 

and eight Robert Juliat Cyrano 2.5kW 

HMI followspots were also used. 

The video system under 

the creative direction of media 

artist Andree Verleger from Germany 

included 120 High End Systems Axon 

media servers (110 active and 10 

spares) being run by six Flying Pig 

Systems Wholehog 3 consoles (three 

active and three backups) on 37 universes 

of DMX512 using 12 DP 2000s. 

Eight-six Christie Roadster S+20K Projectors 

were outfitted with High End 

Systems Orbital Heads and an additional 

63 Christie CP2000-ZX Cinema 

Projectors were used without mirrors. 

In all, the projection circled the entire 

stadium and measured 1,942 feet 

long by 45 feet high. HP Pro-Curve 

2626 field switches, HP Pro-Curve 8212zl and 

kilometers of multi-mode fiber optic cable were 

the backbone of the huge network. 

Axon media server programmer 

Dennis Gardner described the 

Wholehog 3 console setup. “We programmed 

the show on one Wholehog 

3 network running version 2.6 

software. We had the network set up 

as one server console that was never 

touched and just used as the server, 

two client consoles at front of house 

for myself and (programming assistant) 

Steve Kellaway, and one console 

as a roamer for programming around 

the stadium to get better viewpoints. I 

have been using the Wholehog 3 console 

since its birth and I feel it’s the best tool for 

the job. The ease at programming lots of media 

servers and being able to link to timecode was 

a joy. The show was run on LTC timecode, which 

came from the music. The whole system was 

rock solid.” 

DMX Transmitter in the studio, which controlled 

26 key lights on a circular truss over 

the news desk. 

The SHoW DMX unit was set to output 

in limited bandwidth mode and to output 

only 30 DMX channels, thereby creating 

only a very small radio footprint, and not affecting 

any WiFi networks in the studio. 

The choreographed movements of 22,000 performers needed to be lit precisely 

for maximum visual impact. 

Creative Technology Shanghai provided HD 

content management and playback for the massive 

4,000 square meter LED screen that was a 

central feature of the event. The system consisted 

of six Pronto HD hard disk video player/recorders, 

manufactured by DVS of Germany, feeding the 

six main sections of the screen, with additional 

channels feeding the legacy screens within the 

stadium, as well as the video starfield that covered 

the entire field of play. In all, 22 channels of 

HD playback were utilized. 

The stadium’s video “membrane” circled the stadium and the images were 

controlled by 110 Axon media servers. 

Medialon Manager was used as the control 

system for the entire system and the 

interface for incoming audio timecode and 

lighting DMX that provided cues for various 

sections of the show. Multiple channels of 

Barco Encore provided the ability to dim the 

screen when required using DMX and Medialon 

to convert DMX into Barco protocol. 

A Vista Spyder 12x4 system was also used as 

multi-source DVI preview. The entire system 

was fully redundant, with immediate switchover 

in the event of a component failure. 

“I am absolutely excited about the professionalism 

and support I was getting, also 

for ‘my’ video part during all those month 

from MA Lighting and the entire lighting 

crew,” stated Verleger. “This underlines how 

important it is that lighting and video are 

going hand-in-hand. This teamwork gave 

trust and an ongoing motivation to realize 

another record in this show: the world’s 

largest projection screen.” 

NBC’s Beijing Set Relied on DMX Data 

Steve Brill commented, “We needed 

a solid wireless DMX solution, and SHoW 

DMX met that need. There is a lot of RF in 

the facility, and SHoW DMX fit in seamlessly 

and reliably.” 

The electrician for the show was George 

Gountas. SHoW DMX equipment was provided 

by PRG Lighting. 

14 

PLSN SEPTEMBER 2008



NEWS 

Olympics Designers Share Their Insights 

BEIJING — The largest single automated 

lighting system ever assembled for a single 

event was at the Opening Ceremonies of the 

Games of the XXIX Olympiad. The multimedia, 

three-dimensional display was created 

by director Zhang Yimou, and some 22,000 

people took part in the gala, including 15,000 

costumed performers. 

Lighting personnel began initial installation 

of the fixtures in March — five months 

before the event — with most of the 1,142 

Martin MAC luminaires rigged in the roof of 

the stadium and several hundred lining the 

upper balcony. The main lighting supplier 

was China Central Television (CCTV) with several 

lighting sub-suppliers also contributing. 

Sha Xiao Lan: 

“After knowing I would be the chief LD of 

the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 

Beijing Olympic Games, I spent a lot of time 

conceiving the lighting design. The Olympics 

is not only for the Chinese people but for people 

all over the world, so we had to satisfy not 

only the Chinese but people from all countries. 

The problem is that people from different 

places have different tastes in aesthetics. 

To be specific, Westerners prefer elegant pastel 

colors; Chinese are fond of strong highlysaturated 

color, and this was the major part to 

be considered. 

“We did research on the Athens and Sydney 

Olympic Games and in order to emphasize 

the technological factor of the Beijing Olympics 

we decided to utilize the most advanced 

technologies and products to actualize the 

Opening and Closing Ceremony design. 

“You know that the Beijing Olympics 

gained nationwide support from the very beginning. 

However, the budget for the lighting 

design was less than that of the Doha Asian 

Games, yet many well-known manufacturers 

and suppliers promised they would do 

whatever they could to provide whatever we 

needed. I was deeply touched by their gratitude. 

“After we knew about the Bird’s Nest’s 

14-meter high by 500-meter long brim, which 

is perfect for positioning fixtures, we adjusted 

our plan accordingly. 

“The Beijing Olympics is being transmitted 

in a high-resolution digital signal, so we 

needed the lighting fixtures to be highly 

uniform in color temperature. According to 

our plan, we needed more than 2,300 moving 

lights, which is unprecedented. Martin, 

Vari*Lite and many other well-known brands 

attended the bid and we had to choose the 

most suitable ones. Even as the head LD, I 

didn’t have the authority to decide which 

brand would be used in the Ceremony, 

though my opinion was important. 

“The Martin MAC 2000 Wash was eventually 

chosen because it’s the most stable 

fixture with the most uniform color wash I’ve 

ever known. We used about 1,200 MAC 2000 

Washes in the Opening Ceremony, which is 

also unprecedented. No event has ever used 

so many units under the same brand before as 

far as I know. About 90 percent of the Washes 

were used to wash the performance area, the 

ceiling of the stadium and the audience. We 

also used 110 Washes to add backlighting for 

the audience. 

“Martin fixtures have the highest value 

for money and are quite stable with a low dysfunction 

rate. The nominal dysfunction rate is 

2 percent according to the information from 

the manufacturer, but the actual dysfunction 

rate is lower than that. Plus the uniformity of 

color is perfect, which can not be reached using 

other fixtures. Besides the foresaid merits, 

I am very impressed by the MAC 2000 Wash’s 

speed and accuracy in movement and positioning. 

In the Opening Ceremony we used 

wash light to position, that’s rare, and the 

Martin fixtures’ performance is excellent; this 

is widely acknowledged by my colleagues. 

“These fixtures were indispensable in 

achieving the goal of satisfying everyone. 

Without these fixtures none of our ideas 

would have been possible. 

“Even when using the white color, we 

needed it to be tasteful. If you watched carefully 

enough you noticed that the white color 

in the Chinese Landscape Painting scene was 


In all, 22,000 performers took part in the opening ceremonies in a show directed by Zhang Yimou. 

Steve Kellaway, digital lighting programmer, and Dennis 

Gardner, chief lighting programmer and digital lighting/video 

programmer, in front of the Bird’s Nest’s globe and membrane. 

different from the white color in the Movable 

Typography scene. In the Road of Silk scene 

we used the amber color to simulate the atmosphere 

of deserts and in the Rites and 

Music scene we used the royal golden hue to 

create an atmosphere of the Imperial Palace. 

During the Tai Chi and Zheng He Fleet scene 

we used highly saturated deep blue. I dare 

say without the Martin MAC 2000 Wash, none 

of the above would have been possible. The 

wash effect of the MAC 2000 was so perfectly 

uniform; light from the 1,200 units was just 

like light from one single unit. And the saturation 

of the MAC 2000 was fantastic as well. 

Remember when Lang Lang and the little girl 

began to play piano together? The colorful 

light was just like an impressionistic painting. 

“I believe through the Opening Ceremony 

we successfully showcased the lighting 

Olympics LD Sha Xiao Lan factored cultural preferences for 

lighting hues into his design. 

design ability of China. All factors including 

organization, back-stage, control, and lighting 

design are quite satisfying and we have 

gained the praise from the Western media.” 

Paul Collison: 

“Lighting for television on an event like 

this can be quite a challenge. The performance 

area is huge and when you add the 

audience in as a background you have almost 

a full square kilometer of surface area to light. 

Even though the show, at times, is orientated 

to one side, the cameras can be pointing in 

any direction. We are very aware that every 

area of the stadium is a part of the show. 

“The MAC 2000 XBs have been great. They 

are bright — really bright. They sit in perfectly 

well with the other 900-plus standard MAC 

2000 Washes. We have used them out wide 

on the level three balcony position to get 

some extra kick in from the sides when the 

performances are orientated towards the VIP 

or on camera side. They also have a slightly 

longer throw to the center of the field from 

that position. 

“All of the Martin fixtures have performed 

well under trying conditions. High humidity 

and high temperatures are hard on lighting 

fixtures, not to mention the huge amount of 

dust that we encountered through the final 

stages of the construction of the Bird’s Nest. 

I’m sure these fixtures have seen more dust 

over the last four months than most vacuum 

cleaners see in a lifetime! Despite this the fixtures 

are still working well. We have a much 

lower fault rate with the Martin fixtures than 

any others in the system. Martin’s commitment 

and support has been exceptional and 

certainly helped to 


16 

PLSN SEPTEMBER 2008


INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

Live Outdoor Concert 

Lit for Eurovision Fans 

A crowd of 20,000 stormed the historic fortress to attend 

the live show. 

BELGRADE — Azerbaijan hosted a 

free live concert at a historic fortress 

here to showcase singing duo Elnur 

& Samir and other top contenders for 

the Eurovision song contest. LD Robert 

Kelber and operator Tobias Aberg 

used three grandMA full-size and 

two MA NSPs to control the lighting 

for the event, which drew a crowd of 

over 20,000. 

Called Legends and Sensations of 

Eurovision, the event used an outdoor 

rig that included 94 Martin moving 

lights, six Space Cannons and a full 

complement of conventionals and 

LED screens. “The grandMA provided 

the flexibility, versatility and safety 

to make this show the success it became,” 

said Ola Melzig, lighting project 

manager. 

The event, which took place on 

the grounds of the Kalemegdan 

Nebojsina Kula Fortress, was planned 

by RTS and produced by Euro Media 

from the Ukraine. Sky Music of Belgrade, 

managed by Milenko Skaric, 

provided stage, lighting, video, sound 

and crew. Procon supplied the lighting 

consoles, followspots and some 

of the moving lights. 

In addition to the Azerbaijani 

headliners, whose full names are Elnur 

Huseynov and Samir Javadzade, 

the show featured other Eurovision 

standouts including Ruslana, Dana 

International, Marija Serifovic and 

Zeljko Joksimovic. 

18 PLSN SEPTEMBER 2008 

OSLO, Norway — The Oslo Opera House, 

home of the Norwegian National Opera and 

Ballet, has three auditoriums, and each required 

a lighting rig including spotlights 

that can perform well with throw distances 

ranging from 15 meters to 40 meters. London-based 

designers Theatre Projects Consultants 

specified Robert Juliat profiles and 

followspots for the job. 

The 1,350-seat Main Stage measures 16 

meters wide by 18 meters deep and is mirrored 

by the Rehearsal Stage. Stage 2 is a 

slightly more modest 12 meters by 12 meters. 

They all opened in April with a ceremony 

presided by King Harald of Norway and 

attended by Cecilia Bartoli, Bryn Terfel, along 

with the Berliner Philharmoniker with British 

conductor Sir Simon Rattle. 

A total of 277 Robert Juliat 1.2KW 

600SX zoom profiles and 81 Robert Juliat 

2K 700SX² zoom profiles, with various lens 

tubes, were employed front of house, overhead 

and on side booms, while followspot 

positions were filled by four 2,500-watt 

HMI RJ Cyranos, four short throw 1,200- 

watt HMI RJ Lucys and two 1,200-watt HMI 

RJ Super Korrigans. 


Lighting the Oslo Opera House’s Multiple Stages 

Theatre Projects Consultants wrote the final 

specifications for the Robert Juliat equipment 

following consultations with the technicians 

at the Opera House. 

“We think they are solid lanterns which 

perform well over a very long period of 

time,” said Paul Vidar Saevarang, head of 

lighting. “You get a great light out of them 

and they are excellent for projecting gobos, 

which we use a lot.” 

Robert Juliat’s zoom profile products use 

double condenser optics with operational 

features such as shutter locks and a rotating 

barrel with a barrel lock. 

Robert Juliat’s Norwegian dealer AVAB, 

through local agents Elpag AS, supplied the 

Robert Juliat profiles and followspots. Other 

Scandinavian projects relying on Robert Juliat 

products include the Copenhagen Opera 

House and the new Royal Danish Playhouse. 

Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe Stays in Control 

EDINDBURGH, Scotland — As its name 

suggests, the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe 

is not about predictable theatrical fare. The 

performances include comedy, dance, theatre 

and music from around the world, much of it 

edgy. But if the element of surprise is an important 

aspect to the festival, it’s not exactly 

what the technical crew wants from the lighting 

and video gear that they’re using. 

To help keep the lighting for the performances 

on track, ETC supplied Congo lighting 

control systems to two festival venues, both 

run by Universal Arts. Congo and Congo jr. 

lighting systems were installed at Hill Street 

Theatre, one of the Fringe venues, and at the 

Universal Arts Theatre in Freemason’s Hall on 

George Street. ETC also sent Florian Baeumier 

to train the technical staff in both venues. 

The Universal Arts technical team put 

that training into practice, helping designers 

and technicians from the visiting international 

companies to plot and operate 

the lighting for their shows for the duration 

of the festival. They helped introduce the 

Congo systems to 22 groups from across the 

world, including music acts from Mexico, the 

U.S. and South Korea and theatre companies 

from Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Taiwan, 

Spain and the U.K. 

“We provided full size Congos for the Universal 

Arts Theatre and the smaller Congo jr 

for the Theatre and the Studio at Hill Street,” 

said ETC’s Jeremy Roberts. “We’re excited to 

demonstrate our products to lighting designers 

from across the world.” 

“I first toured with the Congo desk to 

Venezuela with Universal Arts in 2006 and 

it’s been our desk of choice ever since,” said 

Anthony Newton of Universal Arts. “We have 

used Congo for all our work in Edinburgh, the 

U.S., Germany and the Netherlands. The relationship 

with ETC has been mutually beneficial 

and has been developed with the full support 

of Stage Electrics, our supplier of other 

stage equipment.” 

LEDs Frame Visuals for Kaiser Chiefs Homecoming 

LEEDS, U.K. — Kaiser Chiefs Lighting Designer 

Richard Larkum and rental company 

Prism Lighting used over 300 Chroma-Q Color 

Block DB4 LED fixtures to create a different 

kind of lighting look for the band’s recent 

homecoming concert at the Elland Road soccer 

stadium. 

The show drew the band’s largest ownheadlining 

crowd to date, and XL Video UK 

supplied equipment and crew to give the 

35,000 who turned out for the Elland Road 

Stadium performance a closer look at band 

members as they performed with a 15-screen 

live video mix. 

LD Richard Larkum has used the Chroma- 

Q Color Block DB4 for the Kaiser Chiefs since 

2005, and the Color Block has also become a 

workhorse fixture in the rental stock inventory 

of Prism Lighting. For the most recent 

Kaiser Chiefs tour, Larkum came up with the 

idea of custom lighting “pods” consisting of 

square frames holding either strobes or Molefay 

strips. He then decided to ring the frame 

with LEDs to give a square light beam. 

“The size and shape of the fixture was very 

important — rectangular, big LED pixels, in 

Joan Lyman 

uniform rows,” Larkum said. “I didn’t want a fixture 

with the pixels spread out randomly. The 

uniformity also helps with the color mixing. 

Because they were forward facing, I needed 

the color mixing to blend evenly on the eye.” 

The pods, designed by Larkum and Prism 

Lighting and manufactured by Tomcat, are 

hung from a mother grid at various heights, 

angles and depths. Each pod features 22 Color 

Blocks providing a square light beam, outlining 

them using various colors and chasing 

them as whole entities, with various dimmer 

effects through them. 

Video director Jon Shrimpton, who had 

collaborated with Larkum in the past, cut the 

IMAG from FOH instead of the more conventional 

side-stage position. 

The Elland Road stage was similar in set 

up to the band’s arena tour, with five portrait 

format screens providing a key focal point 

above the front of the stage. At this show, 

these were constructed from Barco MiTrix 

that measured 18 tiles high and five wide, 

and chosen in part for light weight. 

On both sides of stage, offstage of the PA 

wings, Shrimpton added another five screens, 

The opera house opened with a gala ceremony attended by King Harald of Norway. 

each comprised of Barco OLite, two modules 

wide and five deep, and arranged in a quirky 

format that he described as an “Electric Legoland” 

effect. 

Shrimpton configured his GV Kayak vision 

mixer so all the screen cuts were individually 

controllable via its macros, and the crew used 

a Leitch router for additional routing “trickery.” 

The IMAG mix matched the lighting in 

energy and pace, often with screens flashing 

and chasing in time to the music and to Larkum’s 

lighting cues. 

XL also supplied three Catalyst digital media 

servers, overseen by Alastair MacDiarmid. 

The show was project-managed for XL Video 

by Phil Mercer and Jo Beirne. 

The homecoming show in Leeds added 84 Chroma-Q Color Blocks to the 220 units included on Kaiser Chiefs regular tour rig. 

Erik BErg 

Yllana from Spain presented PaGAGnini at the Universal Arts 

Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, lit with an ETC Congo console.

Ol’ Blue Eyes Tours 

U.K. with Custom Set 


INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

Carrère Studios Equipped with Moving Lights 

PARIS — Studio 8 of the Carrère Studios at 

La Plaine St Denis has been equipped with over 

140 Robe moving lights at the request of David 

Seligmann-Forest, director of photography. 

Impact Evénement installed the rig, 

which includes 15 ColorSpot 1200E ATs, 26 

ColorWash 1200E ATs, three white ColorWash 

250 ATs, 90 ColorWash 575 XTs, two white ColorWash 

575 XTs and six ColorSpot 700E ATs. 

Most of the lights are hung in the studio’s 

ceiling on special trussing — also supplied by 

Impact Evénement. The white units are used 

for floor level lighting of sets and other scenic 

elements. 

The move followed Seligmann-Forest’s extensive 

use of Robe on the 2007 reality show, Secret 

Story, and also on Le Grand Soir d’Eliane et Francis. 

Seligmann-Forest credited Robe’s Color- 

Spot 700E ATs for their compact size, 15° to 

60° zoom, optimized MSR 700W bulb and 

electronic ballast. 

The Carrère Studios’ Robe fixtures are 

rigged in the customized trussing gantries 

supplied by Impact Evénement, which are 

designed to match the layout of the studio 

scenery in the shape of waves, rings and 

curves. 

In the gantries, Seligmann-Forest has alternated 

the ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200E 

ATs and makes use of their gobo selections 

and defined beams when lighting shows. The 

ColorWash 575s are positioned all over the 

trusses to ensure complete coverage across 

the studio floor. 

The lights are 

programmed and 

run from Impact 

Evénement’s grand- 

MA console. Also on 

Seligmann-Forest’s 

lighting team are 

lighting director 

Pierre Redon, console 

operator Xavier 

Fossier, moving light 

tech Forward Hall, 

electricians Patrick 

Lelec, Guillaume 

Acani and Thierry 

Petit and rigger Vincent 

Garrick. 

Most of the 140 lights are hung on special trussing installed on the studio ceiling. 

Louise stickLand 

The set was built from smaller aluminum sections to make for an 

easier load-in at theatres where forklifts were not an option. 

LONDON — Karl Sydow’s Sinatra, directed 

by David Leveaux, is currently touring the 

U.K., a production based on the 2006 West 

End production at the London Palladium. The 

Art Deco-influenced set was modeled on the 

original West End production, and was designed 

by Tom Pye with significant input from 

his associate, Tim McQuillen-Wright. It echoes 

the 2006 production’s set, but was also customized 

for the road by staging company 

Brilliant Stages in about three weeks time. 

Brilliant Stages designed the rostra so it 

would be easy to transport and set up. “Because 

we are touring theatres, not arenas, fork 

lift trucks for loading and unloading are not 

an option,” said Nik Rea, Sinatra production 

manager. “Brilliant Stages therefore built the 

band rostra in smaller aluminum sections.” 

The video footage of Frank Sinatra himself, 

some of which has been rarely seen, is a focal 

point of the show. It carries the production’s 

momentum as Sinatra narrates his life story 

and sings his hits, “performing” alongside the 

live singers, dancers and musicians. 

Accordingly, the 13-by-9-meter Brilliant 

Roll view screen plays a key role in the overall 

set design. The projected images run as the 

screen is unrolled, so it was important that 

the surface should remain evenly tensioned 

and at a constant distance from the projector 

to maintain focus. 

The crew did this by constructing three 

4.8-meter custom truss sections containing the 

motor and gearbox drive shaft system and bottom 

gather-up pipe. The bottom gather-up pipe 

is driven using fire-retardant webbing, which 

runs in slot drums fitted to each end of the pipe. 

The pipe, in turn, is wrapped in a Translite white 

rear projection screen from Harkness Screens. 

The motor and gearbox drive is housed 

in the central truss section to make sure the 

drive shaft loads and turns symmetrically. A 

4kW Kinesys Elevation control system allows 

the screen to vary in speed by up to 0.9 meters 

per second. The webbing system remains 

rigged during transit, and the screen can be 

set up in about 25 minutes. 

2008 SEPTEMBER PLSN 

19

ON THE MOVE 


A.C. Lighting 

Group recently 

opened A.C. Lighting 

Asia KK, the company’s 

first office in 

Asia. The subsidiary 

is headed by Ruilin 

Zhang. The new office 

is located at 103 Ruilin Zhang 

Angel Building, 1-10-20 Shiba Hinotsume, 

Kawaguchi-City, Saitama 333-0852 Japan; tel: 

048.475.9377, fax: 048.475.9355, email: asia@ 

aclighting.com 

Cinelease Inc., a motion picture equipment 

rental company that added a theatrical 

division in 2001, has signed a 10-year, 

$14 million lease for 155,000 square feet of 

space in the Los Angeles area. The site was 

previously occupied by a furniture retailer. 

Creative Stage 

Lighting appointed 

Bill Kaechele as the 

company’s vice president 

of customer 

services. Kaechele 

will oversee CSL’s 

sales, accounting 

and operations Bill Kaechele 

departments as well as various information 

technology functions. CSL has also appointed 

John Fieldstadt as the company’s 

manufacturing manager. His responsibilities 


include overseeing 

CSL’s manufacturing 

department and directing 

the production 

of CSL products, 

including Dura-Flex 

cables and Entertainment 

Power Systems 

products. 

John Fieldstadt 

Event Innovation, a Washington, D.C.- 

based enterprise software company for sports 

arenas and performing arts theatres, announced 

the appointments of Frank Ganis as vice president 

of business development and Kent Leonard 

as vice president of product delivery. 

Fuller Street Productions has moved to a 

larger facility. The new address is 10702 Hathaway 

Drive, Unit #2, Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670. 

GearSource.com and LEDsource.com 

named Betsy Torres (formerly Halpin) as CFO/ 

COO. Torres had spent nearly 10 years working 

for lighting industry firms as a controller. 

IATSE announced the retirement of Thomas 

C. Short, who had been president of the organization 

since 1994. Matthew D. Loeb was elected 

by the IATSE’s board to assume the role of president. 

Craig Carlson has been elected vice president. 

Short had been a member of IATSE for 

over 40 years and an elected official for the past 

21 years. Loeb served as IATSE’s International 

Representative in June, 1994 and as IATSE’s first 

division director of Motion Picture and Television 

Production. He was elected International 

Vice President in 2002 and 2004 and had served 

as the chairman of IATSE’s East Coast Council for 

more than 14 years. Carlson, who started out as 

a third-generation stagehand with Chicago’s 

Lyric Opera in 1979, assumes the position that 

Loeb had held with the organization. 

J. R. Clancy has 

added two dealer 

project managers and 

a technical designer 

at its corporate headquarters. 

Geoff Stock 

and Bridget Cox join 

the company as dealer 

project managers. 

Stock is formerly 

a project manager 

with Grand Stage 

Company. He will 

oversee the in-house 

completion of dealer 

projects. Cox came 

to Syracuse from the 

New York City Opera, 

where she served as 

assistant technical 

director. She will also 

work with dealers 

on rigging projects. 

Charles Rouse has 

been appointed technical 

designer for the 

company. He comes 

to J. R. Clancy from Schott North America. In 

his new position, Rouse will design the plan 

and layout of detailed rigging systems. 

Kinesys has appointed two Australian distributors 

for its hoist controllers and control software 

products. The two companies, TC Hasemer 

and HME, are both based in New South Wales. 

Lex Products, 

has promoted Mike 

Scala, the leader of 

the company’s ERP 

i m p l e m e n t a t i o n 

team, from director 

of operations to vice 

president of operations. 

Geoff Stock 

Bridget Cox 

Charles Rouse 

Mike Scala 

Liberty Wire & Cable, a supplier of products 

for the AV industry, has promoted John D. Dace 

from vice president of sales to general manager. 

LSC Lighting Systems, an Australiabased 

manufacturer of lighting control systems, 

recently moved to a larger facility. The 

new address is Building 3, 66-74 Micro Circuit, 

Dandenong South, Victoria 3175, Australia, 

tel: +61 3 9702 8000, fax: +61 3 9702 8466. 

Multi-Lite International Lamp 

Sales announced that Lori Mehrkens has 

joined the company. Mehrkens has more than 

25 years of experience specifying and selling 

lighting and architectural lamps. 

Production Resource 

Group (PRG) 

has named Vickie 

Claiborne as a console 

and media server 

product specialist. 

Claiborne, who is also 

a contributing writer 

to PLSN, will be based Vickie Claiborne 

out of PRG’s Las Vegas office. 

Neo-Neon, a manufacturer of LED 

lighting products, has named Joe Golden 

as technical support manager. 

Proel America LLC is the name of a 

Miami-based subsidiary established by 

Proel S.p.A., an Italian-based manufacturer 

of AV and lighting systems. Pictured 

here are, from left, Melissa Zagonel, national 

sales manager, Massimo Signor, 

managing director of Proel S.p.A. and 

Daniel Costa Salomao, vice president of 

Proel America LLC. 

Rose Brand, has 

appointed Michael 

P. Reed as product 

manager. Reed has 

previously worked 

with The New Jersey 

Shakespeare Festival, 

Plays in the Park, 

The Whole Theatre, Michael P. Reed 

the George St. Playhouse and The Paper Mill 

Playhouse. 

Show Distribution Group Inc., which 

distributes Chain Master and Prolyte products 

in the U.S., has appointed Sebastien 

Richard as rental manager. 

Sparks, an event 

marketing and custom 

retail fixture 

agency, announced 

the appointment 

of Carol Swain who 

has joined as senior 

account director. 

Swain will be 

working from the 

company’s Philadelphia 

headquarters. 

Sparks also recently 

appointed Brian 

Miller as director of 

strategy and consulting. 

Tim Hunter Design, 

an architectural 

lighting design firm, 

has appointed Bill 

Groener president 

and COO. Groener, 

currently the president 

of ESTA, is a former 

vice president/ 

general manager of Production Resource 

Group (PRG). 

Vitec Group has 

named Bob Romero 

global customer operations 

director of 

its Clear-Com Communication 

Systems 

division. Romero 

will lead and manage 

the company’s 

Carol Swain 

Brian Miller 

Bill Groener 

Bob Romero 

worldwide service and support teams, including 

its application engineering, technical 

support and service and repair teams 

based in the U.S. and U.K. 



NEW PRODUCT GUIDE 

PLSN SPECIAL SECTION 

By WriterName 


22 22 PLSN PLSN MONTH SEPTEMBER 2006 2008 

www.PLSN.com 

www.PLSN.com

PLSN SPECIAL SECTION 

Make an Impression... 

Advertise in 

Measurable, 

Effective Results 

Call Greg Gallardo 

702.454.8550 




2008 SEPTEMBER PLSN MONTH PLSN 2006 

23 

23 


SHOWtIme 


ST 

Venue 

Arco Arena 

Sacramento, Calif. 

American Idols Live tour 2008 

Video Director: Steve Ossler 

Set/Staging: All Access Staging & 

Productions 

Steve JenningS 

Crew 

Lighting Designer: Seth Jackson 

Lighting Director: Jeff Bertuch 

Programmer: Jeff Bertuch, Wally Lees 

Account Rep: Curry Grant 

Lighting Crew Chief: Marty Langley 

Lighting Techs: Vince Gallegos, Clate 

Stewart 

Production Manager: Graham Holmes 

Tour Manager: Geoff Donkin 

Video Company: Nocturne Productions Inc 

Gear 

Lighting console: MA Lighting grandMA 

33 Element Labs Versa Tubes 

2 Martin MAC 2000s 

1 Mbox media server 

2 Truss spots 

16 Vari*Lite VL2500 Spots 


18 Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash Fixtures 

8 Vari*Lite VL5 Wash Fixtures 

Lighting Co 

PRG 

Steve JenningS 

James taylor 

band of Legends tour 2008 

Venue 

Greek Theatre 

Berkeley, Calif. 

Crew 

Lighting Designers: Bryan Leitch, Nick 

Whitehouse 

Lighting Director/Programmer: Tom 

Wagstaff 

Account Rep: Curry Grant 

Crew Chief: Anthony Ciampa 

Moving Light Tech: Jeffrey Anderson 

Production Manager: Ralph Perkins 

Tour Manager: Meagan Strader 

Video Company: Nocturne 

Set Drapery: Sew What? Inc. 

ST 

Gear 

Lighting console: Virtuoso DX2 with v6.0 

software 

14 Vari*Lite VL 1000 Arcs 

38 Vari*Lite VL5s 

12 Vari*Lite VL5 Arcs 

40 Color Kinetics Color Blaze 72 LED Strips 

12 Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12s 

8 Mole Richardson 2k Fresnels 

4 Mole Richardson 5k Fresnels lamped at 

2000 watts 

2 10k Fresnels lamped at 120 watts 

1 Power/data distribution system (PRG 

Series 400) 

Lighting Co 

PRG 


24 PLSN September 2008



Venue 

Wells Fargo Center 

Santa Rosa, Calif. 

Chris Isaak 

Crew 

Lighting Designer/Director/Programmer: 

Lane Hirsch 

Production Manager: Tim Lamb 

Account Rep: Craig Teague 

Tour Manager: Doug Casper 

Set/Drapery: Paul Guthrie, Atomic Design, 

Superior Backings 

Gear 

Lighting console: Avolites Pearl 

11 Martin MAC 2000 Profile Fixtures 

8 Martin MAC 500s 

8 Martin MAC 250 Wash Fixtures 

1 Reel EFX DF-50 Haze Machine 

2 Antari Fog Machines 

Atari Strobe Lights 

ST 

Lighting Co 

Entertainment Lighting Services (ELS) 

ST 

Venue 

Various locations 

Widespread Panic Summer ‘08 Tour 

Crew 

Lighting Designer: Joel Reiff 

Lighting Director: Olivier De Kegel 

Production Manager: Chris Rabold 

Lighting Technicians: Eric Durning, Chris 

“Mr.” Fuller 

Rigger: Patrick Dickinson 

Gear 

Lighting Console: MA Lighting grandMA 

54 ChromaQ LED ColorBlocks 

9 ETC Source Four Lekos 

18 ETC Source Four PARs 

9 Four-cell blinder with scroller 

5 High End Systems DL.2s 

1 Jem ZR33 smoke generator 

28 Martin 2000 Profile IIs 

16 Martin 2000 Wash fixtures 

11 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes with 

scrollers 

1 Motors (1/2 ton) 

15 Motors (1-ton) 

2 Reel EFX DF-50 hazers 

Lighting Co 

Christie Lites 



Lighting Co 

Starlite Productions 

Venue 

Cooper River Park, 

Pennsauken, N.J. 

Crew 

Lighting Designer/Operator: Brandon 

“BC” Creel 

Promoter/Producer: WMGK 102.9 

Production Manager: Jason Danowitz 

Lighting Technicians: Chris Ametrano, 

John Andraka 

Rigger: IATSE Local 8 

Staging Company: Tri-State Staging, 

MSR, Starlite Productions 

Staging Carpenter: Chuck Oagel 

Randy Bachman 

ST 

Gear 

Lighting Console: Avolites Pearl 

5 ACL Bars 

2 Altman Explorer followspots 

40’ Box truss (20x20) 

1 ETC 48-Channel Sensor Plus Dimmer Rack 

60K ETC Source Four PARs 

1 JLG Scissor Lift 

1 Leprecon 208-volt distro 

300’ Lighting snake 

4 Manual Chain Hoists (1/2 ton) 

8 Motors (1 ton) 

40’ Pre-rig Truss 

2 Reel EFX DF50 hazers 

1 Stageline 250 

1 Stageline SAM 550 


6 Vari*Lite 3000 Washes 


2008 September PLSN 25

INSIDE THEATRE 


A Light Wall, Revealed 

In addition to the light wall, revealed from behind a 

translucent curtain, the stage features “pods” that 

allow band members to rise up and descend. 

David Korins Takes the Wraps Off Passing Strange 

One of the few original musicals unleashed 

on Broadway in recent years 

— and one that will also be available 

in a DVD version filmed by Spike Lee — Passing 

Strange chronicles the life of a young 

musician who flees his stifling suburban Los 

Angeles environs to find himself and explore 

his musical artistry in Amsterdam and Berlin. 

The show, staged at the Belasco Theatre, 

tackles themes of love, identity, alienation 

and redemption. It stars Stew, the charismatic 

and charming singer-songwriter of the group 

The Negro Problem, who relives his comingof-age 

adventures through his younger self, 

played by Daniel Breaker. Stew co-wrote the 

show with his longtime band mate Heidi 

Rodewald, with whom he also plays in an 

“Afro-Baroque cabaret ensemble,” also called 

Stew. 

A Giant Light Wall 

Veteran stage designer David Korins, who 

has worked off-Broadway (Jack Goes Boating 

and Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell), on 

Broadway (Bridge and Tunnel and the new 

Godspell) and at the Delacorte Theater in 

Central Park (Hamlet), immersed himself in 

designing a production with five musicians, 

seven actors and a giant light wall onstage. 

An added challenge was that the musicians 

were onstage all the time, as were most of the 

actors, and Stew also narrated the entire show 

and even interacted with his younger self. 

“We talked about this show for a really, 

really long time and didn’t have any way to 

crack it,” says Korins. “Every time we started 

to storyboard the play we didn’t know where 

to put the band onstage because the band 

wrote this thing. It wasn’t like they were an 

orchestra pit band that was brought on to 

the project. Stew and Heidi not only lived but 

wrote it. You can’t throw Heidi underground 

in the orchestra pit where most of the bands 

on Broadway are. So for us, the way in was 

when the director said to me, ‘I want this to 

be a show in which you basically layer a music 


IT 

track over an acting track over a dancing track 

over a singing track, and they need to coexist 

happily. One thing shouldn’t pull focus more 

than the other thing.’” 

Korins came up with the idea of placing 

each of the other musicians — Rodewald 

(stage left), guitarist/keyboardist Christian 

Gibbs (upstage, back to the audience), keyboardist 

Jon Spurney (stage right) and drummer 

Christian Cassan (downstage, behind 

Stew) — on individual “pods” that could be 

lowered partially below stage level. They acted 

as individual orchestra pits for the band, 

whose members could still see one another 

and interact with the actors during a few key 

moments. The ability to raise and lower the 

musicians was essential to the show. 

“There’s a moment in the show where 

Heidi has a bass solo and sings a couple of 

verses herself, and we raise her up,” says Korins. 

“That’s a nice dynamic to be able to 

control. There’s something about watching 

a band play together, especially a small rock 

band, not like an orchestra. At the top of the 

show they just sit down and jam like a band 

would, and then we actually are going to put 

together a theatrical evening. When they 

lower down in the pits they become more of 

a classic version of an orchestra. But it was important 

that we start the show off by saying, 

‘Hey, this is a rock show.’ It was really important 

to get that dynamic.” 

Lighting the Transitions 

Beyond setting up the musicians, the look 

of Passing Strange was essential in setting the 

tone and creating an atmosphere appropriate 

for each of the show’s three main locales, 

IT 

particularly as stage props were minimal. “We 

knew that the play traveled from Los Angeles 

to Amsterdam to Berlin and back to L.A., had 

multiple locations and needed to be sup- 

ported visually but not with realistic scenery,” 

explains Korins. “We knew we weren’t going to 

do ‘sets’. It needed to be more like a rock show. 

Nothing works better on stage for a rock show 

than light, as far as how to get from location 

to location, and nothing is more seamless than 

fading from one light bulb to another. As far 

as the color saturation and the time of day, 

nothing could articulate it as cleanly visually 

as light. We unlocked the physical space and 

the way that the band would relate to the performers 

and vice versa, so then it was about 

the backdrop and what could be an amazing 

The goal was to “basically layer a music track 

over an acting track over a dancing track over a 

singing track, and they need to coexist happily.” 

—David Korins, stage designer. 

emotional barometer and place setter for us. 

And the back wall was born.” 

Korins brought in lighting designer Kevin 

Adams, who, besides having a photography 

and set design background, is an avid rock ‘n’ 

roll fan. Adams revisited Bob Fosse’s 1972 concert 

film about Liza Minnelli called Liza with a 

‘Z’ and suggested that Korins check it out. The 

set designer felt that despite being a period 

piece, it still looked fresh and contemporary. 

“We looked at it and literally light bulbs 

went off in our heads,” recalls Korins. “It essentially 

follows the A-B-A structure visually. It 

starts with a curtain of sorts that is painted with 

this beautiful, Rothko-esque thing where you 

can’t really tell where the sources of light are 

coming from, and then in part two it reveals 

itself to be a gridwork of very old-fashioned 

lighting units that are like scoop lights pointing 

at this fabric. It reveals itself to be making 

the lighting sculpture in the first act, and we 

David Korins, stage designer for Passing Strange 

wondered what would happen if we made 

that but with 2008 lighting fixtures. What 

would happen if we completely updated this 

thing and made it totally modern? It was one 

of those really beautiful confluences of scenic 

and lighting design coming together.” 

What resulted was a high wall that is initially 

covered by a black curtain, but through which 

various lights of different shapes and sizes shine 

through to help set the mood for Stew’s teenage 

years in L.A. before he journeys to Europe. 

“The light that you see on that curtain is being 

thrown at it from the front and from the back. 

It’s a translucent, very diffusive piece of fabric,” 

remarks Korins. “But it’s difficult for someone 

who’s not that knowledgeable about lighting 

design to figure out what the source is and how 

it’s working. We were using the fixtures on the 

wall very sparely to make polka dots or smears 

or single lines of sources, and when we reveal 

we basically show you everything that’s been 

working on the thing one at a time. When we 

reveal it we turn it on all at once.” 

The Inevitable Surprise 

The curtain rushes open, and underneath 

lies an asymmetrical wall with different types 

of lights of various colors and shapes that 

help to create the heady vibe of Amsterdam. 

An outer wall featuring rows of white fluorescent 

lights, which represent the colder, more 

fascistic feeling of Cold War-era Berlin, later 

consume and cover most of the first wall. 

Korins and Adams spent a lot of time testing 

different shapes and fixtures on the wall, and 

moved many of them around, to see what 

worked best for the layout. 

IT

Stew confronts his younger self, played by Daniel Breaker, amid 

musicians on pods in semi-lowered positions. The pods function as 

“individual orchestra pits,” notes David Korins, stage designer. 

“Kevin started with a color palette,” says 

Korins. “We actually started the show in Berkeley, 

Calif., and at first we actually had a lot of 

colors on the wall that we wound up taking 

off almost immediately. There were a lot more 

purples and a lot more greens, and it felt a little 

candy store, so we wound up really trying to 

more clearly define the color palette for each 

location. We knew that Amsterdam was going 

to be saturated with oranges and yellows, and 

we knew the Berlin was going to be a lot of 

white light, and we then started to pare away 

all the stuff that we didn’t need color- wise.” 

The set designer notes that Passing 

Strange’s light wall layout is asymmetrical 

within a symmetrical framework. The wall 

and the space are completely symmetrical, 

with a vertical green line and horizontal blue 

line that section off the wall into quarters. But 

within that framework there is an asymmetrical 

layout. Korins adds that the directive for 

the lighting and set design partially stemmed 

from a comment made to him by director and 

collaborator Annie Dorsen. 

“She said to me, ‘This design needs to feel 

completely inevitable and yet surprising’,” he 

says. “So when you walk into the space and 

see those band platforms up, you think that 

the band isn’t going to stay up like that. There’s 

someone right downstage in front of an audience 

member; how are we possibly going to be 

seeing the show like that? So it’s inevitable that 

that thing is going to move, but it’s still surprising 

and rewarding when it lowers down into 

the ground. It’s the same thing with the wall. 

You walk in and see a curtain and think that 

the curtain is not going to be there. It has some 

kinetic or potential energy. You think it’s going 

to move, and it does. It’s completely inevitable, 

and yet when it moves it’s completely surprising.” 

Illuminating the Text 

Having done the show off-Broadway at the 

Public Theater, the production team salvaged 

much of the original light wall and brought 

in motors that ran three out of the four pods. 

However, “the whole rig and the mechanism 

had to be rebuilt,” Korins says. Once everything 

else got put into place at the Belasco, they 

were off and rockin’ once again.” 

Korins says that he learned a lot about collaboration 

on Passing Strange, particularly as 

someone who likes to “stay off the stage” as a 

designer and who tries to serve the piece and 

illuminate the text. “Part of it was about this 

light wall and breaking new ground in the way 

that lighting and set designers collaborate,” 

he says, “and also what it was like to collaborate 

with people who had never made theatre 

ever. Stew, Heidi, and the band have never 

made theatre. How do you make it feel right as 

a theatrical piece, but how do you also break 

new ground? I think that was the thing that 

I learned and that was also the biggest challenge. 

How do you play well with others who 

don’t even know the rules of the game?” 

Does he think that the experience was 

fulfilling for the band? “I know it was,” replies 

Korins. “I know that they had a great time with 

IT 




27

INSTALLATIONS 


AFTER CeLINE, ‘ ANOTHER DAY DAwNS 

The Colosseum at Caesars Palace Hosts Cher, Bette Midler and Elton John 

Set elements like the giant pearl that opens to reveal Cher are 

designed for visual elegance, yet don’t distract attention from 

the main focus on the star. 

By JenniferWillis 

Wi thin 

the last 

two decades, 

Las Vegas has seen a cycle of 

high-stakes one-upsmanship among 

the casinos lining the Strip, with aging casinos 

imploding to make way for full-service 

resorts that have become world-class destinations 

for gambling, fine dining and relaxing 

in the sun. 

The competition to fill the seats of the 

vast casino showrooms is no less intense. The 

various Cirque du Soleil productions in town 

now play to an audience of 9,000 or more per 

night, and audiences are expecting the same 

kind of crowd-pleasing visual spectacles for 

musical performances as well. 

Caesars Palace took note and hired former 

Cirque du Soleil director Franco Dragone for 

A New Day…, the musical spectacular featuring 

Céline Dion, which opened in 2003. It also 

built a new theatre specifically for that show, 

the 4,148-seat Colosseum, which played before 

sellout crowds regularly through 2007. 

Betting on a New Trifecta 


So how do you top a show that enjoyed 

a five-year run, with a 73 percent sellout rate 

and ticket sales in the $400 million range? 

Caesars’ solution was to sign three of the biggest 

draws in the music biz — Cher, Elton 

John and Bette Midler — give each of them 

a spectacular set, and have them rotate their 

performances throughout the season. 

“With an artist as versatile as Cher it is 

important that the technology is equally as 

versatile,” says Baz Halpin, lighting director 

for Cher. “Whether Cher is on our customized 

longboat in a lake of smoke singing 

the mesmerizing ‘After All’ or belting out 

‘Turn Back Time’ to a screaming audience, 

we have tried to create a show which both 

captures the intimacy of a theatre and delivers 

the large scale punch of arena rock. 

Cher has the audiences dancing on their 

seats every night without fail.” 

The production and design teams for all 

three shows — Cher at the Colosseum at Caesars 

Palace, Elton John’s The Red Piano and Bette 

Midler’s The Showgirl Must Go On — worked 

in concert to come up with plans and equipment 

lists that would allow the shows to rotate 

in and out easily throughout the 2008 performance 

season. Initial meetings for lighting and 

set design came about a year prior to the first 

show, 

with pre-production 

design for Cher’s show beginning in 

earnest about eight months before opening. 

“The design team spent a long time 

discussing the concepts before we ever 

put pen to paper, so there were very few 

changes,” says Halpin. “I think we are on version 

four of the plot, which is a testament 

to in-depth discussion and ensuring a full 

understanding of the vision before starting 

to add lights to a plot.” 

Doing hand illustrations and using tools 

like AutoCAD, Photoshop, VectorWorks, 

SketchUp and 3DS Max, the team went to 

work creating a design that would maximize 

the flexibility of The Colosseum and allow for 

quick load-ins and load-outs as the shows 

rotate. Cher production designer Jeremy 

Railton says his main goal was making Cher 

happy so she could enjoy herself onstage. 

“It’s all to make a comfortable environment 

for the performers that tells the story of 

the show,” he says. “Theatrical events should 

happen seamlessly and not stop the show 

and overshadow the performers.” 

Cher’s fans have come to expect “glittery 

rock ‘n’ roll with plenty of spectacle,” says 

Railton, and he made sure his design delivers 

just that to Las Vegas audiences. With three 

different shows sharing the same venue, 

space had to be used as efficiently as possible. 

The lighting designers for Cher, John 

and Midler agreed on a kit list that would 

satisfy the needs of each performer. 

“Each show had to be visually polemic 

due to the nature of the artists, but all three 

shows had the same 120-foot video wall 

and the same stock of lighting equipment 

to design from,” Halpin says. 

A Flexible and Dynamic Rig 


The Cher equipment list includes 95 Coemar 

Infinity Wash fixtures, 60 Vari*Lite VL3000 

Spots, 24 VL3500 Spots, 24 VL2202 Spots, 39 

VL3500 Wash fixtures, 46 Clay Paky Profile SVs, 

14 Syncrolites, six Robert Juliat followspots, 

one Lycian 3K followspot, 14 Martin Atomic 

3K Strobes, two Hungaro Strobes, 24 Color 

Kinetics ColorBlasts and 18 Chroma-Q Color 

Blocks. 

There are also six 

Pixel Range PixelLine LEDs, 34 4-lighters, 20 

police beacons, 120 strings of twinkle lights, 

12 Pathway 4-Port Nodes and one Martin 

Maxedia Pro media server. 

“The lighting is not consistent from show 

to show,” explains Caesars Palace Colosseum 

technical director Bob Sandon. “It’s a different 

hang for each of them. Bette and Elton 

are similar, but between Bette and Cher, 

it’s completely reworked. The pieces are all 

there, just assembled a little different.” 

In designing the lighting for Cher’s 

show, Halpin wanted to create a variety 

of styles within a single space. “We move 

from arena rock to West End theatre to Vegas 

glitz,” he describes, “so it was important 

that the lighting was flexible and dynamic 

enough to work within all disciplines.” 

Halpin uses a Studio Due Dominator to 

backlight a giant pearl in which Cher makes 

her entrance. 

“It’s a 6K Xenon breakup fixture which 

literally dominates the stage,” he says. “We 

also use 40 Jem Hydra smoke machines with 

steam fluid to create smoke chases and a 

faux CO2 effect for the battlefield scene.” 

Special Effects and Ethernet 


Smoke and confetti are consistent 

across all three shows and additional special 

effects for Cher include full color lasers 

from LaserNet. LED fixtures internally light 

the individual set pieces for Cher’s show, 

and Halpin uses ColorBlasts and DB4s to illuminate 

band members and band risers. 

“I like LEDs both for their low power 

consumption and low heat, which means I 

can position them closer to soft goods,” Halpin 

says. “With LED technology moving forward 

at such a rapid pace, I am sure lighting 

rigs will become more and more efficient 

and environmentally friendly.” 

All told, The Colosseum went from 

12 lighting universes for the Céline Dion 

show to 31 universes for the 2008 season. 

The Cher and Midler shows are controlled 

through two Martin Maxxyz+ consoles, and 

the Elton John show uses an MA Lighting 

grandMA. ETC Sensor 

Dimmer racks 

— with 1,348 dimmers — 

were chosen for their versatility 

and reliability. 

“It is all Ethernet based. All demultiplexing 

and signal processing is in-built within 

The Colosseum and runs throughout the 

building,” says Halpin. 

All three shows make use of the house 

rigging, which Halpin describes as a combination 

of Niscon digitally controlled linesets 

and conventional hoists and trusses. 

The load-in for the Cher show took about 

two weeks, including rehearsals. 

Lighting a Huge Space 


For Halpin, working in Las Vegas and in 

The Colosseum for the first time presented 

some challenges. 

“It is obviously much larger than a conventional 

theatre yet it still has more restrictions 

to design than an arena,” he says. 

Halpin was encouraged by the amount of 

atmospheric and ambient light control The 

Colosseum offers, but he still had to deal 

with lighting one of the biggest proscenium 

spaces in the country. 

“This is a huge performance space to 

light properly without overlighting,” Halpin 

says. “It was quite challenging in the design 

process to ascertain the best fixture placement 

in order to get big rock and roll cathedral 

looks while at the same time ensuring 

that we are not bombarding the audience 

consistently with high-powered lighting.” 

For Cher at the Colosseum, the set design 

calls for creating a false proscenium 

through the use of two 45-foot on-stage 

towers — designed by Tait Towers — that 

close the space to a more manageable 72- 

feet and create a visually dynamic set. 

“We can go from small and intimate, to 

action that spans 140-feet across the stage 

and 40-feet vertically,” Halpin says. 

Railton says that designing for a permanent 

stage is usually easier and less expensive 

than designing for a touring production, 

but this particular show has to be a 

blend of both. 

“The three shows all are sharing the theatre. 

Although we load out most of the scenery, 

some of the heavy stuff remains,” Railton 

explains. “The difficulty was to squeeze in our 

scenery on top of the other two shows.” 


The huge video wall, a striking feature for Celine Dion’s performances, is permanantly 

fixed into place. Most of the other set elements shift for the three shows. 

A false procenium helps close Cher’s performance space to a manageable 72-foot width. 

Cher’s show has a five to six week run. Bette Midler’s show runs for four weeks. 

Elton John’s show is limited to two to three weeks. 

Cher’s fans expect “glittery rock ‘n’ roll with plenty of spectacle,” notes Cher’s 

production designer, Jeremy Railton. 

For Cher, LD Baz Halpin creates a variety of looks within the big space, from “arena rock to West End theatre to Vegas glitz.” 

Elaborate costumes, lasers, smoke 

and confetti work with the video wall to add visual spectacle to Cher’s show. 

Now You See It… 


For Sandon, the biggest challenge 

was “finding space for everyone’s production 

and still try to create ease of load-in 

and load-out so we don’t necessarily have 

to completely remove an entire show.” 

One solution was to leave some elements 

in place — like the lettering for the Elton John 

show that remains hanging in the grid during 

performances by Cher and Midler. 

“You leave some things behind just so 

you can rotate the shows quickly,” Sandon 

explains. 

The real test of the design comes when 

it’s time to rotate the shows — taking down 

one show and loading the next one in, all in 

just over 24 hours. The three artists rotate 

performances throughout the 2008 season, 

with Midler’s show running about four weeks 

at a time, Elton John at two to three weeks 

and Cher with a five to six week run. 

And each performer has a completely 

different set. 

“The only thing that doesn’t move is the 

video wall. It's permanently fixed in place,” 

says Sandon. “There are new drops, new 

lighting positions, new scenery and even 

a different floor layout. Bette has one giant 

riser onstage, and then Cher has the bridge 

and towers and everything else. It’s a completely 

different look from show to show.” 

And time is of the essence. 

“We have a day,” Sandon says. “We close 

on Sunday nights, and then we have a Tuesday 

show, all the time.” 

As an example, Sandon expects the Cher 

show to load out in about six or seven hours. 

“Then we’ll have to work pretty much sixteen 

hours the next day to put it back in,” he says. 

Painless Production 


For Halpin, working in The Colosseum 

couldn’t have been better. 

“Putting together one show like this, 

never mind three shows, would not be possible 

in some venues,” he says. “Head electrician 

Greg Whittle and his team have made 

this one of the most painless experiences of 

my career. The attention to detail and cando 

attitude meant a potentially difficult and 

stressful situation was in fact a thoroughly 

enjoyable one. It was almost too easy.” 

Sandon is happy to host Cher, Midler 

and John at Caesars Palace. He believes The 

Colosseum and its three rotating performers 

— with diverse sets, styles and audiences 

— are a match made in heaven. 

“It’s such a great complement. The building 

is laid out in such a way that there is no 

seat that’s further than 130 feet from basically 

the downstage center mic position,” he says. 

“It’s a great place to come see a show. The 

shows themselves just look great.” 


PRODUCTION PROFILE 


Instead, Megadeth’s LD used retro lighting 

looks and moving truss for Gigantour 2008. 


Photos & Text by 

Bree Kristel Clarke 

“Musicianship” might be a word 

more commonly associated with 

a Chopin concerto or chamber ensemble 

than with the thrash metal bands 

Megadeth, In Flames, Children of Bodom, 

Job for a Cowboy and High on Fire. Those 

bands toured North America this year as 

the latest incarnation of Gigantour, the 

annual shred-fest launched by Megadeth 

front man Dave Mustaine in 2005. 

When they first met to discuss lighting 

this year’s tour, LD Brandon Webster admitted 

to Mustaine that he wasn’t really that 

well acquainted with Megadeth’s music. 

That, of course, has changed. “Megadeth is 

more than just metal,” Webster says. All four 

band members — guitarist/singer Mustaine, 

guitarist newcomer Chris Broderick, 

drummer Shawn Drover and bassist James 

LoMenzo — “are incredible musicians.” 

Showcasing Skills 


Webster met up with Mustaine in 

late 2007 when Megadeth was touring 

Australia with Static-X, DevilDriver and 

Lacuna Coil. That tour, Webster says, 

was “a completely different show,” with 

different “backdrops, set pieces, the 

whole thing.” 

Webster calls Mustaine “a mastermind” 

who is able to choreograph in 

his head “exactly who moves where, 

every night.” But when it came to the 

lighting design for Gigantour 2008, 

Mustaine “gave me a lot of flexibility 

to do whatever I wanted,” as long as 

Webster was able to come up with “a 

big rock show with a distinct ‘feeling.’ 

I responded back that I wanted to do 

this in a way that would complement 

their skills and the show, without taking 

away from the stage performance.” 

A Giant Rig 


One of the first items to be considered 

was pyro. “They’ve had pyro in 

previous Gigantours,” Webster says, “but 

I was of the mindset that, ‘if you can’t 

give me a really big number per week to 

do it, I’d rather not do it at all.’ We might 

Aside from a false alarm, LD Brandon Webster hasn’t had any major issues with his console. 

as well build a giant lighting rig and go 

from there, instead of going halfway with 

everything.” 

With the focus shifting from pyro, 

Webster was able to push for his retro 

vision of the kind of big rock rig seen 

before automated lighting arrived on 

the scene. “I’ve always had this wet 

dream of doing a 1970s-style show,” 

Webster says, recalling the big rigs 

used for bands like Rush, “with 500 PAR 

rigs that flower out from the stage.” 

Moving truss also plays a big role 

in changing the look as the show 

progresses. “I wanted to change each 

block of the set so that it was different 

throughout the show,” he says, “so it’s 

not like you’re just sitting there staring 

at the four guys playing the whole 

time. Everything is flat in the beginning, 

and then the truss moves and we 

change backdrops and give a flow to 

the whole thing.” 

Webster doesn’t feel the need to 

try to visually pump up the energy 

with lighting by itself. “The band 

members are perfectly capable of 

spooling the crowd without my help. 

But it’s completely useless if they 

can’t be seen. So I just try to do big 

open looks so everyone can see everything 

that’s going on.” 

Music, not Multimedia 


Even during those times “when the 

songs are really really heavy, more often 

than not there’s not a lot going on 

onstage,” Webster notes. “They might be 

moving slowly, and I’m changing colors 

slowly, but I’m really not trying to take 

away from it. I didn’t want to get caught 

up in this whole multimedia craze 

where there’s so much going on visually 

that it takes away from the players” and 

the music. 

As for his choice of colors, Webster 

generally just tries to match the mood of 

the songs, but not necessarily their tempo. 

“Even if the band is playing 100 miles 

per hour, it doesn’t mean you have to go 

from color A to color B in zero seconds,” 

Webster says. “The biggest thing for me 

was for each different song to have a distinct 

look.” A song like “Hangar 18,” for 

example, will need a “spacey” look, with 

some alien visuals. “The music really dictates 

it, in the end.” 

Starting with Pen and Paper 


Webster always starts his designs “with 

pen and paper,” then when the rig is drawn, 

he uses VectorWorks at home, then moves 

on to previsualization software from ESP 

Vision. “They are great tools,” Webster says, 

but adds that he still likes to spend three 

days in front of the rig itself before the 



PRODUCTION PROFILE 


opening show and an additional two days 

at the first venue to complete the looks. 

Despite that level of preparation, 

the band rarely sticks to a set song list. 

“Dave bases his performance on the energy 

and how he feels about it, so he 

will just change the set list, skip a song, 

flip it or start a song within the middle 

of the song without warning,” Webster 

says. “It doesn’t really bother me that 

much. He knows that we are going to 

work this together and make it happen.” 

Webster programs the lighting on an 

Avolites Diamond 4 Vision console, which 

he considers “the most flexible console 

on the market. I can change or rearrange 

a set list on the fly, or I can grab a 

look and do an entire song on fader. I’ve 

found that to be more difficult on some 

of the other consoles I’ve used.” 

A False Alarm 


The d ay b e fo re h e s p o k e w i t h 

PLSN, Webster had a scare with the 

console, but it proved to be a false 

alarm. “Just last night, I go to eat dinner, 

and I get a call to say, ‘The console’s 

dead. It’s completely crashed.’ 

S o I walk i nto t h e ve n u e a n d l o o k a t 

it, and I’m already sending people 

h e re w i t h p ower s u p p l i e s a n d c a b l e s 

b e c a u s e I h ave a ver y f i n i te a m o u n t 

of time to fix it. I asked, ‘Has anyone 

tried to turn it back on?’ Somebody 

had accidently hit the power switch,” 

We b s ter s ays. B u t i n d e fe n s e o f h i s 

c re w, h e a d d s t h at h e, too, h a s a 

tendency to jump to the worst-case 

conclusions when glitches arise. 

Webster also values flexibility and reliability 

in his lighting instruments. He’s 

particularly impressed with the Martin 

MAC 700s. He likes their hard edge and 

the ability of the units to go “from arenas 

to small clubs, and their ability to 

not overpower the club.” Relatively low 

power draw, brightness and reliability 

are other advantages, he says. 

Keeping the Beat 


Of all the songs Megadeth performs, 

Webster says his favorite one to light is 

Megadeth’s “Trust,” with its unabashedly 

crowd-pleasing beat. “I’m not really into 

the whole art school off-beat thing, you 

know,” he says. “If I can’t track a song or 

tap my foot and sing the song when I’m 

driving down the road, it kind of loses me. 

That song has these incredibly smooth 

transitions from one feeling to the next. 

It starts out really slow, just a drum beat, 

and you don’t know what to expect, then 

the band comes in all at one time, and it’s 

like, ‘Here we are, let’s do this.’” 

CREW 

LD: Brandon Webster 

Crew chief: Martin “Juice” Joss 

Lighting techs: James “JimmyMac” 

MacKay, Cathy Martin 

Lighting company: Premier Global 

Production Co. Inc. 

GEAR 

Lighting console: Avolites Diamond 4 

Vision 

13 4-Light Mole-Feys 

18 Chain Hoists (1 ton) 

2 City Theatrical Aquafog 3300 dry 

ice foggers 

24 Color Kinetics Color Blast 12s 

14 ETC Source Four 19° ERS 

12 ETC Source Four PARs 

1 High End Systems Axon media 

server 

4 High End Systems DL.2s 

30 High End Systems Studio Color 

575s 

13 Martin Atomic 3K Strobes w/ color 

changers 

24 Martin MAC 700 Profiles 

10 PixelRange PixelLine 1044s 

2 Two-stage kabuki drops 

For Megadeth’s song, “Hangar 18,“ Webster went with a “spacey“ look, with alien graphics. 

Webster doesn’t need to do much more than make sure the performers can be seen. They’re capable of “spooling in the crowd 

without my help.“ 




FEATURE 


2008 Parnelli 

Visionary Award 

Michael Tait and the Art of Innovation 

By Kevin M.Mitchell 

Michael Tait’s vision has 

taken him around the world. 

This photo was taken during 

a recent trip to India. 

“ 

Michael Tait is the reincarnation of 

Leonardo da Vinci — an artist, an 

engineer, a sculptor, a true genius,” 

says production designer Steve Cohen. 

“He single-handedly raised the bar on 

production design in my lifetime and stewarded 

the growth of our little business into 

the gift that keeps on giving.” 

That’s just one description of Michael 

Tait, the visionary whose indelible imprint 

in the live event industry is seen on almost 

every concert stage today — from rotating 

stages to light towers, down to the guitarist’s 

foot pedal box. His remarkable career 

has helped forge an industry before there 

was one, and his work ethic and creativity 

has touched many, from contemporaries to 

the superstars of the concert arena. 

Begging Him to Stay 


“I will always remember this moment 

in time,” Yes front man Jon Anderson told 

PLSN in an exclusive interview. “Mickey Tait 

had been Yes’ driver, roadie, and general 

dogsbody for a year. He’d had enough, and 

was ready to return to Australia. We’d just 

returned from a Yes show in a pub in the 

north of England, where Mickey had spent 

the evening side stage switching lights on 

and off, after putting gels on them, and 

making the show infinitely better. 

“So I said to Mickey, ‘Please don’t go 

to Australia!’ and I begged him to stay and 

become our lighting engineer. He then 

started to tell me of these wonderful ideas 

he had for lighting the band, which would 

become known as ‘Genie towers.’ He was so 

excited that the following day we arranged 

some cash for him to get the towers built. 

Such was the inventiveness of Michael. He 

became an intricate member of the Yes 

experience that lasted for so many years. I 

cannot tell him enough how grateful I am 

to have had him in my life — as in ‘You bet 

your sweet bippy.’” 


“Smartest and Coolest Solutions” 


“You always knew Michael would give you the 

smartest and coolest solution.” 

— Bruce Rodgers, set designer 

“From the first time I met Michael 20 

years ago I knew he was special,” says Bruce 

Rodgers, a Parnelli Award-winning set designer 

who worked with Tait on several 

Bruce Springsteen tours. “His legendary 

mental abilities, his positive attitude and 

fearlessness in solving design challenges, 

his awareness of the needs of the production 

design and the people who move our 

shows, and his engineering instincts always 

come into play regardless of the size of the 

project. You always knew Michael would 

give you the smartest and coolest solution.” 

“Tait Towers has built a ton of stuff for 

me over the years — for tours, MTV video 

awards, all sorts of things,” says Parnelli 

Award-winning lighting designer Roy Bennett, 

who is currently working on Madonna’s 

tour. “I’m a detail man, and also totally 

into innovation, and the thing about Michael 

and his company is they do pay attention 

to the details. He thinks about everything, 

and everything is important on 

every level. And I always feel safe walking 

into his shop with any kind of idea knowing 

that they will figure out how to make 

it work.” 

Letting There Be Light 


Tait was born in Melbourne, Australia, 

where he attended the Royal Melbourne 

Institute of Technology. There he studied 

electrical and mechanical engineering but 

he “got bored pretty quickly.” His first foray 

into the entertainment business was opening 

a nightclub in Queenland’s famous seaside 

town of Surfers Paradise, which was 

very successful right up to the minute the 

authorities noticed Tait hadn’t bothered to 

get a liquor license and shut him down. The 

restless young man then set off for a sixweek 

vacation to England, which became a 

permanent move. 

That was the 

year 1967. Upon his 

arrival he immediately 

found out which was the hottest 

nightclub in town, the Speakeasy, and 

got a job there. Soon he was in the presence 

of the likes of the Beatles, The Who 

and Jim Hendrix, among others. “My very 

first night working, my first table included 

two of the Beatles, who I didn’t recognize at 

the time,” he smiles. 

Not unlike other Parnelli honorees, his 

new career in live events would begin with 

those five magic words: “Can you drive the 

van?” The band in need was Yes, then a stillobscure 

group. 

The band was immediately drawn to 

Tait’s imagination, work ethic and easygoing 

nature. Tait, in turn, was drawn to 

the band’s vision and ambition, finding a 

unique home for his skills in electrical and 

mechanical engineering. “Because I have a 

very technical background, I started working 

on the gear and improving it,” Tait explains. 

“Yes’ music was totally revolutionary. 

Jaws dropped when the band played.” 

Primitive Days 


In the late 1960s, the technical side of 

the concert industry was still in its infancy. 

“Those were primitive days,” Tait says. In 

fact, at the time, instruments weren’t miked, 

only vocals, and many of the pieces of gear 

that are commonplace today weren’t even 

invented. “As Yes got bigger, I started building 

equipment and redesigning things.” 

“The first system I built had auto fog lamps 

in coffee cans and homemade wire wound 

potentiometers for dimmers,” he says. “When 

PAR 64s came out, we made our own square 

cans out of sheet metal. Later on I made round 

ones out of air conditioning duct.” 

On Yes’ first American tour, Tait had only 

six Strand Pattern 23 lights and everything 

else was “homemade,” including the controller. 

“One of the early ones I built,” he 

said, “had bump buttons with micro switches 

that could be played like a piano. This allowed 

me to ‘play’ in time with the music.” 

As Yes grew in popularity, their lighting 

and stage show grew in complexity. To enhance 

the concert experience, Tait began 

working with towers and multi-celled PAR 

cans. 

“I created 

self-contained 

units that you could roll in, put one 

on in each corner of the stage, push a button 

to raise the lamps, a quick focus and you are 

ready for a show,” Tait explains. The cans on 

the towers had four lamps each with a different 

color gel, which allowed focusing in 

one-fourth the time, which was startlingly 

innovative at the time. Eventually, the towers 

became known as Tait Towers. 

A Revolutionary Concept 


In the mid 1970s, Tait devised the inthe-round 

rotating stage. The idea came 

from an unlikely source: A film canister. 

Tait was in the studio with the band one 

day while they were filming a documentary. 

Tait picked up a 35mm film can that 

was nearby and realized how easy it would 

be to recreate the band’s studio setup on a 

round stage. “We were talking about what 

we would do for a stage set and all of a sudden, 

this idea came to me,” Tait says. “If we 

played in the center, everyone would be 

closer and everyone could see better.” The 

financial advantage was not lost on anyone 

— the “front row” was now 85 seats instead 

of the usual 42. 

“So, I came over to America and built 

the round stage in Lancaster County, Penn. 

with the help of a local engineering company.” 

While building a stage in the heart of 

Pennsylvania Dutch country might sound 

unusual, it was already home to Clair Brothers 

Audio. “Roy Clair was on tour with Yes 

most of the time and we became very good 

friends. That’s why I decided to move to Lititz.” 

The decision would make the modest 

town, population less than 10,000, an unusual 

but formidable live event production 

haven to this day. 

But the rotating stage brought new 

challenges, like lighting. 

“Since the band kept moving, I had to rethink 

how light the band,” he says. “And there 

were no real production rehearsals, as I was 

always building stuff right up to load out! 

Consequentially the lighting had a more dynamic 

feel and it was different every night.”


FEATURE 


“It was a bit like Spinal Tap. If someone else had 60 channels, 

I needed 100.” —Michael Tait 

Michael Tait has been restlessly pursuing new design concepts for staging 

and lighting gear for four decades. This photo was taken in 1970. 

Jake Berry was working as keyboard technician 

for Yes’ Rick Wakeman at the time, and 

today, he is a production manager who has 

worked with the best talent in the business, 

from the Rolling Stones to U2. “When we did 

the Yes stage, Michael was full of ideas,” Berry 

says. “Because the stage was in the middle of 

the arena, everybody was stressed about how 

the building would be able to clear the chairs 

in time to get the show out. So Michael came 

up with this fantastic idea of a barricade, 

which, in actual fact, was a barricade with 

drawers, and slots that stored all the drums, 

the keyboards and guitars that you could 

pack from the inside. So you could actually 

work and pack away your instruments while 

the crowd was still in the building.” 

The Phone Gets Busy 


The stage also made his phone ring. 

Once Yes premiered the stage in the round, 

Tait got a call from Imero Fiorentino and Associates. 

They asked him to design a rotating 

stage for Barry Manilow when Manilow 

was at the top of his popularity, packing 

arenas. “They asked if I could make a round 

stage for them that would incorporate a 

small orchestra and backup vocalists in addition 

to the band,” Tait says. 

Although Tait had success with the rotating 

stage in the round, Tait Towers was 

really a lighting company. “The company 

really consisted of all of the lights I built 

over the years for Yes, and, at the time, 

apart from FM Productions, there were 

very few set building companies outside of 

Broadway.” 

It was also during this time that Tait 

developed the swing-wing truss — a truss 

system in which the instruments remained 

inside the truss while the sides hinged 

to create a safe walkway for focusing. Tait 

added to it a distributed dimmer-per-circuit 

system, which was revolutionary at the 

time. “There were test buttons on the full 

length dimmer raceway, so you could turn 

the lights on to focus without having someone 

at the control board.” 

Control boards were also of interest to 

Tait, who designed one of the first pin matrix 

boards in Europe. “I realized that I needed 

more than just the standard A and B preset 

scenes; I needed to be able to switch large 

quantities of lights to be able to keep up 

with Yes,” Tait explains. The pin matrix board, 

created in 1973, had twenty channels, A and 

B scenes, ten pin matrix presets and 12 high 

speed preset bump buttons. 

Bennett likes to point out that while it 

was years before he actually “met” Tait, he 

had an encounter of sorts with him when 

he was just another Rhode Island kid with a 

ticket to a Yes concert. Bennett happened to 

be seated in close proximity to the gentleman 

behind the light board. 

“I was 14 or 15, at a Yes concert at the 

Providence Center,” Bennett recalls. “I happened 

to have had a seat sitting across the 

aisle from Michael [who was running the 

lighting board] in a suit jacket and bow tie. 

He had this home made lighting console 

that was most impressive, especially the 

two cigarette lighters, one on either side. 

That way he could light his cigarette with either 

hand if the other was busy running the 

lights!” he laughs. 

Tait remembers that console well, and 

says it was a 100-channel monster that no 

one else had, if even if he didn’t need all 

those channels. “It was a bit like Spinal Tap,” 

he jokes. “If someone else had 60 channels, I 

needed 100.” 

Bennett adds that it would be years later, 

on a Luther Vandross tour, when they actually 

met. “That was the first time I got to 

spend time with Michael and see how they 

do their stuff.” 

If I Had a Million Dollars 

The 1980s kept Tait busy 

building his client base, which included 

the Grateful Dead, U2, Billy 

Joel and Bruce Springsteen. The 

concert industry had outgrown 

its infancy and was headlong 

into its proverbial teenage years, 

acne and growth spurts included. 

When automated lighting came 

into play, “I saw the writing on 

the wall, and I knew to be in that 

business, it would take millions of 

dollars.” 

That was when Tait seriously 

looked at his finances and had a 


startling realization. “All those years, the 

set building had been subsidizing the 

lighting rental, and that’s why I had no 

money in my pocket,” he admits. He sold 

all his lights and then took his 15 years 

of road experience and focused all his 

energy exclusively on set design and production. 

The firm began to expand, and Tait 

used his experience to create sets that 

could be assembled quickly and easily by 

anyone, no matter what their level of technical 

expertise. Through the 1990s and 

beyond, he continued innovating, and a 

new facility, more employees, and more 

designers knocking on his door would 

create further growth. Over the years, Tait 

Towers clients have included Reba 

McEntire, AC/DC, Roger Waters, 

Ozzfest, Pokémon Live and Britney 

Spears, just to name a few. 

Tait also worked with noted set 

designer Mark Fisher on numerous 

projects, including U2, Metallica, 

AC/DC, the Rolling Stones and Janet 

Jackson. “Michael Tait is a clever 

engineer/inventor/rock-show 

designer who has done everything 

A young Michael Tait plays the drums in 1962. 

Born in Melbourne, Tait studied engineering, got bored, then ran a nightclub. 

After his Surfers Paradise club was shut down for lack 

of a liquor license, Tait traveled to England, worked at a 

club there, then met and worked for Yes. Here Tait stands 

before a set he designed for Yes in 1973. 


“I always feel safe walking into his 

shop with any kind of idea knowing 

that they will figure out how to make 

it work.” 

—Roy Bennett, lighting designer 

Tait got the idea for a revolving set for Yes from the round shape of a film canister. 

there is to do in this business except 

play and sing,” Fisher says. 

“Consequently, Michael is very 

wise about what works and what 

doesn’t. He’s been on the road, 

building and tearing down late every 

night, so he knows it’s the little 

things that count.” 

As the years passed, Tait Towers 

constructed some of the most 

notable and innovative sets in the 

entertainment industry. Bennett 

tells a story about Faith Hill’s tour, 

where the original idea was to 

hide a support structure behind a 

black curtain. But before the cloth 

could be hung, Hill saw it. “Oh my 

God, that’s so beautiful we have to 

leave it,” Hill exclaimed to Bennett. 

“Michael makes even the parts that 

people aren’t supposed to see look 

great,” Bennett says. 

As of late, Tait has taken a bit of 

a step back, allowing his partners 

“Winky” Fairorth and Adam Davis, 

who “have the benefit of youth,” to 

run the show. His hands aren’t totally 

clean though, as he’s still involved 

with tweaking designs and 

allowing his formidable imagination 

to run wild; he’s just free from 

the day-to-day grind that running 

a business that Tait Towers demands. 

He’s getting to spend more 

time with his family, too. Tait has 

been married to his wife Anne for 

27 years and has a daughter, Lucia 

26; and two stepchildren, Brooke, 

32, and Ben, 30. 

“Unlike other industries that go 

through complete design phases 

to generate their final products, 

our industry builds from the concept 

phases” Rodgers sums up. 

“Therefore it takes a special engineering 

mind to create a finished 

product that can tour around the 

world from this phase. That's the 

reason our industry is the most 

exciting design industry and that’s 

the reason Michael is one of a kind 

in the world.” 



37

FEATURE 


PLSN readers anoint six regional lighting 

companies as the best in North America. 

The readers have spoken. And who are we to argue with them? 

Not that we ever doubted their choice, but they have voted for an 

especially eclectic group of companies for the regional winners of the Parnelli 

Hometown Heroes Awards. The common thread among them is that they 

are all serving their clients above and beyond the call of duty, yet they all do it in 

their own unique way. From these six winners, one will be chosen to receive the 

overall Parnelli Award for Hometown Hero at PLSN’s gala ceremony Oct, 24 2008. 

So read about those you don’t know and reacquaint yourself with those you do. 

Then go to www.parnelliawards.com and cast your vote! 

Hollywood Lighting Services 

Portland, Ore. & Seattle 

Dwayne Thomas, president, 

Hollywood Lighting Services 

Hollywood Lighting Services handled the lighting for the International Fight League’s mixed martial arts competition 

Hollywood Lighting Services has a long, rich history. Founded in 1948 by Don 

Cameron and George Howard in Portland, the company went through several 

owners and partners before Tom Neal joined in 1969. Neal holds a BS 

degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University with a background 

that includes R&D engineer for Boeing. He worked his way through college as a 

humble stagehand. 

Then came Richard Fuller, who started in the company’s rental department in 1973. 

In 1978 Fuller bought into the business, and in 1989 he became sole owner. In 1994, 

the Seattle office was opened. Today the company boasts 9,200 square-foot showroom 

and warehouse. 

Dwayne Thomas, president of Hollywood Lighting Services, would love to show 

you pictures of some of their most recent work, a military assignment. But then he’d 

have to kill to you. 

“We just finished lighting the product rollout for the [censored], and new type of 

[censored] that [may or may not] float,” he doesn’t say. They weren’t allowed to photograph 

it, though it involved a “shock and awe” unveiling, which is what they got with 

the help of a couple of tons of trussing. Lots of Martin MAC moving lights may or may 

not have been involved. The roll out was just for the hard working employees who did 

or didn’t build whatever it is we’re not talking about. Not only was there no press at the 

event, but also no generals or government officials. 

Some things Thomas is a tad chattier about include work they do for the large number of 

apparel companies in the Northwest, including Macy’s, Nordstrom and “every shoe company 

in Portland, which is, like, all shoe companies.” Adidas recently brought in 1,000 associates for 

a spring sales meeting and Hollywood Lights was on hand to help motivate the crowd. 

Thomas is a musician who transitioned to lighting, and has been running the company 

since 2005. “It comes down to creative design,” he says. “We believe great lighting 

is not just about gear, but the people behind it. I like say we have a pretty darn ingenious 

design staff. Not to say we’re just about big. If you’re only required to hang two 

PARs, hang them right. We take it all seriously. 

Precise Corporate Staging (PCS) 

Phoenix, Ariz. 

David Stern, president of Precise Corporate Staging 

“ It’s the quality of the equipment,” says David Stern, president of PCS, when 

asked why readers of PLSN nominated the company for a second time in a row 

as best lighting house in the Southwest. “That’s what makes a company grow 

so large in eight years.” 

But of course, Stern makes it look easy when it’s not. He doesn’t blindly buy everything 

that comes off the line. “If a company pushes something that they say is cool but 

the clients aren’t asking for it, I don’t buy it,” he says. “I’m careful about the selection and 

what ends up in our warehouse.” 

Right now he’s got equipment on the road with Tom Petty, Billy Joel, Elton John, 

Tina Turner (“I have 148 lights out with her”), Alice Cooper and Madonna. He says that 

lighting designer Roy Bennett paid him a big compliment when his gear was used on 

the Spice Girls reunion tour. “He said that he had never seen cleaner moving lights out 

on a tour before,” Stern says. “That’s another aspect that has really driven our growth. 

You look at our gear, and it all looks brand new. We maintain it that well.” 

Stern got into the business as a musician and was a sought-after keyboard tech 

for Bon Jovi and Van Halen. When he tired of the road, he formed PCS with his wife 

Marla, and they’ve been successful since founding the company. “We were both 

brought up in the age of ‘the customer is always right’ and that is hard to find these 

days.” A belief in mutually beneficial relationships with the clients allows for their 

growth and success as well. 

Today they have two offices — one in Tempe, Ariz., and another in Marietta, Ga. 

Last year, they moved into more spacious digs: a 36,000 square-foot building that they 

bought. They needed a place that would to hold all their gear, and that’s a lot. 


Blue Planet Lighting, Inc. 

Hollister, Mo. 

Mike Gormley and Kelly Koster, partners, Blue 

Planet Lighting 

Blue Planet Lighting was formed 

out the Branson, Mo. -based Koster 

& Associates. Partners Kelly 

Koster and Mike Gormley received 

Parnelli honors last year, and have 

since re-branded themselves as Blue 

Planet Lighting. 

“We’ve all been lighting designers 

and tour techs, and we wanted to go 

to the next level with Blue Planet. And 

man, are we glad we did,” says Kelly 

Koster. “We’re right in the center of 

the country, and being near Branson 

doesn’t hurt, though it only accounts 

for about a fourth of our sales. We’ve 

sold to Sweden and Mexico. We’ve 

become a world-wide company very 

fast. 

“One huge advantage is our location. 

We don’t have local competition, 

so we can carry High End, Clay Paky, 

all the big brands. Go open a lighting 

shop in L.A. and good luck getting 

a High End dealership,” Koster adds. 

He says another advantage they have 

is their service department, which is 

run by John Hurst. “He takes care of all 

our lighting repairs, and I’ll put him up 

against anybody. Andy Evans is a great 

service tech as well. 

“We’ll be expanding and hiring a 

few more people because business 

has been going through the roof and 

we’re crazy busy,” he laughs. 

One of their recent big projects 

was “just up the road” in the St. Louis 

metro area. Lindenwood University 

built a new Performing Arts Center, a 

venue for students and professional 

acts coming through. Koster says it’s 

a beautiful space made even better 

by the Vari-Lite, Martin, Color Kinetics, 

and pretty much everything but the 

kitchen sink. He almost sounds jealous 

when he talks about the new tools the 

students have. “Those kids have it all!” 

he laughs. 

Another big project they worked 

on was a church in Upper Marlboro, 

Md. Closer to home, they have done 

a lot of work for the local Silver Dollar 

City theme park in Branson. 

The company has even recently 

launched Light Nation Radio, an online 

radio station dedicated to lighting 

industry professionals. Blue Planet also 

has a lighting forum on their Web site 

(www.blueplanetlighting.com). 

Eye Dialogue Lighting & Sound 

Charlotte, N.C. 

Jack Kelly, Eye Dialogue Lighting & Sound 

There are many professionals in 

the live event industry that take 

an unusual path into this business, 

and that’s certainly the case with 

Jack Kelly. The son of a preacher, he was 

slated to become a church music director. 

He would become a professional 

musician, restaurant manager, sound 

engineer, lighting designer, dance instructor, 

movie consultant… 

Kelly got his start as a “copy tape 

boy” recording his father’s sermons. 

He graduated with a degree in music 

composition, but shifted gears. He 

tried many different things before volunteering 

to work for a new lighting 

company in Wilmington, N.C. in 2002. 

“It lasted a New York minute,” he says. 

He bought the equipment from the 

defunct company for “pennies on the 

dollar,” and started running lights for 

friends sometimes for $50, and more 

often just for free drinks. 

His gift for lighting design was 

getting noticed, and was then doing 

Christian rock bands, youth confer 

ences, and “edgy” churches. At one point 

he asked to design Charlotte’s hottest 

club, the Sky Lounge, which brought him 

national acclaim. Then he was asked to 

do the Ménage Lounge, which was the 

biggest install in Charlotte at the time. 

The LED revolution was in full swing, 

and Kelly realized he couldn’t compete 

with companies that had conventional 

lights, nor did he want to. He taught 

himself everything about LEDs by reading 

manuals online and reading PLSN. He 

kept picking up more clients, and Eye Dialogue 

Lighting & Sound was on its way, 

formally being founded in 2004. 

Today it is a lighting, sound, special 

effects and video company. The company 

boasts the largest stock of LED color fixtures 

in the area. They serve clubs, houses 

of worship, live events of all kinds including 

corporate and educational events, 

and some very imaginative parties. 

Kelly believes that there is no such 

thing as competition. “In a market that 

is underdeveloped, you can’t really have 

competition. In sound, you’re not developing 

new clients, you’re trying to take 

away others,” but he believes LEDs can 

and should be used everywhere. “People 

throwing $3,000 parties used to spend 

$1,500 on decorations, but now they are 

spending that money on lighting.” 

The young company already boasts 

seven full-time employees, and seven 

part-timers, and offers health benefits. 

He keeps overhead low: “My office is still 

a red barn next to my house in the center 

of the ‘hood.’ ” 



39

FEATURE 


Earl Girls Inc. 

Egg Harbor City, N.J. 

Don Earl, president of Earl Girls Inc. 

“ That our customers have voted and made us winners of the Northeast Hometown 

Hero award for lighting five years in a row assures us that we must be 

achieving our primary objective, which is satisfying our clients,” says Don 

Earl, president of Earl Girls. “We have been growing at a tremendous rate and we 

realize that it is primarily because of the word-of-mouth praise that we receive 

from our existing customers. We try to view every customer as our friend and colleague, and 

we try to satisfy every concern from the client’s point of view, since our experienced staff 

knows first hand what it’s like to produce events.” 

For those of you at home keeping score, Earl Girls is five for five on the regional 

award. The company has in recent years expanded into a larger warehouse, adding an 

addition 15,000 square feet to their needs. 

When Don Earl was a kid growing up in Connecticut, his parents were active in community 

theatre, and he was on the stage at the tender age of seven. But luckily for the 

lighting clients in New England, he didn’t get bit by any acting bug. 

“I remember looking up the stairwell at the theatre, and there was this board with 

all these lights and dials,” Earl recalls. “And I was thinking I had to find out more about 

that…” 

He did. He earned a college degree in technical theatre, then moved to Atlantic City 

and worked on the lighting in casinos opening there. In 1991 he founded Earl Girls in 

honor of his wife and two young daughters. 

“This past year has seen remarkable growth in our video and rigging departments, 

as well as the moving light area,” Earl says. “Video installations have been increasingly 

interesting, and we are particularly happy with a unique installation that we did with 

Hollywood Casino in Pennsylvania, using a holographic screen.” 

The tougher times haven’t phased Earl either: “This is presently a challenging economy; 

however it provides Earl Girls with the opportunity to show our customers how to 

get the most for their dollar.” 

Metalworks Production Group 

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada 


Owen Whitehead, left, and Bob Spencer of 

Metalworks Production Group 

The Metalworks people have it 

figured out. 

First, they have an awardwinning 

studio that draws the talent 

to record their projects (Prince 

recorded his Musicology there most 

recently). Once they have their ear, 

they introduce them to their live 

event division. Then a third component 

is their education facility, where 

hundreds of students learn about live 

event and recording arts. This creates 

a talent pool from which to draw. 

Founded 30 years ago by Triumph 

guitarist Gil Moore, who is still very 

much involved in all aspects of the 

company, they handle concerts, live 

theatre, corporate, and special events. 

“What we did was develop into a 

one-stop shop approach,” says Owen 

Whitehead, production manager. 

“We were good at multitasking and 

becoming experts all kinds of events. 

And with all our clients we’re able 

to take an event from conception to 

completion.” 

“We supply LDs, stage managers, 

the CAD equipment — down to the 

paperwork necessary to have a show 

go on,” president Bob Spencer adds. 

“We’re the first supplier to [arena] Rogers 

Center here in Toronto, and our assortment 

of Stage Line mobile stages 

allows us to do almost all the big festivals 

that Canada has.” 

Metalworks has a full inventory of 

products that relies heavily on Martin 

products. “We have 150 moving lights 

and 150 LEDs,” Whitehead says. “And I 

believe a couple of miles of truss. And 

everything we have is new, as we selloff 

product when it gets old.” 

Spencer says what attracted him 

to the organization is that it’s not just 

“a bunch of good-old boys” but is 

staffed with forward-thinking people. 

“The company is well-financed and 

has a proper attitude. We have great 

international support for the organization 

because of all three of our components. 

Consumers see our state-ofthe-art 

approach as a positive.” 

A few recent highlights for the 

company include handling all of 

Alice Cooper’s Canadian tours, “as 

we’ve done for the last seven years,” 

Spencer says. They handled some especially 

large concerts by Queen of 

the Stone Age and Blue Rodeo. And 

they reach beyond the border, too. 

Last year they took on the two week 

Seventh Day Adventist convention 

held in St. Louis, with 60,000 people 

in attendance. They built the mammoth 

set in Toronto. 

Whitehead’s highlight of the 

year is more personal. “I was setting 

up a Steve Winwood gig and he was 

on stage practicing,” he smiles. “I 

snuck on stage and played drums 

with him.” 

Ah, the perks of the biz! 



HIGH-DEFINITION TELEVISION 

NEWs 

Join Us 


Parnelli Lifetime 

Achievement 

Award 

Dennis 

Sheehan 

Michael 

Tait 

Parnelli 

Visionary 

Award 

Alice 

Cooper 

Master of Ceremonies 

In Honoring 

The Very Best 

Of Our Industry 

When: 

October 24, 2008 • 7pm 

Where: 

Rio Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas 

www.parnelliawards.com 

SPONSORED 

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Brought to you by Martin Professional 

42 PLSN August 2008

and the Parnelli goes to... 

Below are the nominees for the 8th Annual Parnelli Awards. Cast your vote to honor those 

individuals and companies who have done outstanding work in the past year. Voting for the 

Parnelli Awards is limited to subscribers of Projection, Lights & Staging News and Front of House. 

To cast your vote, go to www.parnelliawards.com/vote 

Sound Company 

Audio Analysts — Linkin Park 

ClairShowco — Police 

Firehouse Productions — Radiohead 

Rat Sound Systems — R.E.M. 

Sound Image — Rascal Flatts 

Special Event Services — Coldplay 

FOH Mixer 

Scott Boorey — Steve Miller Band 

Dirk Durham — Toby Keith 

Jon Garber — Rascal Flatts 

Pete Keppler — Nine Inch Nails 

Ken “Pooch” Van Druten — Linkin Park 

Jim Warren — Radiohead 

Monitor Mixer 

Jules Aerts — Bob Dylan 

Kevin Glendinning — Justin Timberlake 

Chris Lantz — Seal 

Kevin “Tater” McCarthy — Linkin Park 

Troy Milner and Monty Carlo — Bruce Springsteen 

Mike Sprague — Rage Against the Machine 

System Tech 

Ted Bible — Def Leppard 

Brett Dicus — Bruce Springsteen 

Russell Fisher — Toby Keith 

Matt Naylor — Kenny Chesney 

Lee Vaught — R.E.M. 

Mike Wolf — Elton John 

Hometown Hero 

Sound Company 

Midwest — Great Lakes Sound, Toledo, OH 

Southeast — Atlanta Sound & Lighting, Atlanta, GA 

Southwest — LD Systems, Houston, TX 

Southwest — HAS Productions, Las Vegas, NV 

Northeast — MHA Audio, Hagerstown, MD 

Northwest — Morgan Sound, Lynnwood, WA 

Canada — Tour Tech East, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia 

Production Manager 

Omar Abderrahman — Hannah 

Montana/Miley Cyrus 

Jim Digby — Linkin Park 

Bill Leabody — Nine Inch Nails 

Robert Long — Rage Against the Machine 

Mark Spring — George Michael 

Ed Wannebo — Kenny Chesney 

Tour Manager 

Mike Amato — Linkin Park 

Scott Casey — Bon Jovi 

David Farmer — Kenny Chesney 

Andy Franks — Coldplay 

Chris Littleton — Steely Dan 

Brian Ormond — Radiohead 

2008 Parnelli Ballot 

Lighting Company 

Bandit Lites — Rascal Flatts 

Ed & Ted’s Excellent Lighting, Inc. — Bon Jovi 

Premier Global Production Co. — Gigantour 2008 

Q1 Production Technologies — 

Trans-Siberian Orchestra 

See Factor — Various 

Theatrical Media Services — Dave Matthews Band 

Upstaging — Police 

Lighting Designer 

Roy Bennett — Nine Inch Nails 

Bryan Hartley — Trans-Siberian Orchestra 

Mattheiu Larivée — Chantal Chamandy: Beladi - A 

Night at the Pyramids 

Mark Jacobson — Tool 

Sha Xiao Lan — Summer Olympics 

Opening Ceremony 

Andi Watson — Radiohead 

Staging Company 

Accurate Staging — Linkin Park 

All Access Staging Productions — Rascal Flatts 

ASI Production Services — NCAA Final Four 

Brown United — Billy Joel at Shea Stadium 

Mountain Productions, Inc. — 2008 Papal U.S. Tour 

Stageco — George Michael 

Set/Scenic Designer 

Justin Collie — Beyoncé 

Seth Jackson — Toby Keith 

Jason Robinson — Wrestlemania 

Bruce Rodgers — Dave Matthews Band 

Mike Swinford — Kenny Chesney 

Willie Williams — George Michael 

Set Construction 

Accurate Staging — Linkin Park 

All Access Staging Productions — Wrestlemania 

B and R Scenery — Superbowl 

Show Group Production Services — Keith Urban 

Tait Towers — Bon Jovi 

Hometown Hero 

Lighting Company 

Northwest — Hollywood Lighting Services, 

Portland, OR & Seattle, WA 

Southwest — Precise Corporate Staging 

(PCS), Tempe, AZ 

Midwest — Blue Planet Lighting, Inc., Hollister, MO 

Southeast — Eye Dialogue Lighting & Sound, 

Charlotte, NC 

Northeast — Earl Girls Inc., Egg Harbor City, NJ 

Canada — Metalworks Production Group, 

Mississauga, ON 

Be front and center as the 

industry salutes its finest companies and 

practitioners at the 8th Annual Parnelli Awards 

www.parnelliawards.com/vote 

Video Rental 

I-Mag Video — Rascal Flatts 

Moo TV — Brad Paisley 

Nocturne Productions — Nine Inch Nails 

Pete’s Big TV’s — Bruce Springsteen and 

the E Street Band 

Screenworks NEP — Kenny Chesney 

XL Video — Foo Fighters 

Video Director 

Steve Cohen — Billy Joel 

Mike Drew — Rascal Flatts 

Mark Haney — Eric Clapton 

Tony Bongiovi — Bon Jovi 

Bailey Pryor — Brad Paisley 

Christine Strand — Return to Forever 

Rigging Company 

Atlanta Rigging 

Branam Enterprises 

Five Points Production Service 

Show Group Production Services 

Stage Rigging 

Pyro Company 

Advanced Entertainment Services — Poison 

Pyro Spectaculars by Souza — Fourth of July 

Pyrotek — Trans-Siberian Orchestra 

Strictly FX — Avenged Sevenfold 

Zenith Pyrotechnology — Wrestlemania 

Tour Manager 

Mike Amato — Linkin Park 

Scott Casey — Bon Jovi 

David Farmer — Kenny Chesney 

Andy Franks — Coldplay 

Chris Littleton — Steely Dan 

Brian Ormond — Radiohead 

Coach Company 

Diamond Coach 

Four Seasons 

Hemphill Brothers 

Music City Coach 

Roberts Brothers Coach 

Senators Coaches 

Trucking Company 

Ego Trips 

ES Transport 

Janco 

Roadshow Services 

StageCall 

Upstaging, Inc. 

Freight Forwarding 

Acme Global Logistics 

Epes Freight Management 

Horizon Freight System 

Rock-It Cargo 

Show Freight Industries 

Sound Moves

COMPANY 411 


People, Products, 

Philanthropy 

Define Company 


If you want a peek into the corporate 

culture of any company, get to know 

its CEO. For Electronic Theatre Controls, 

better known as ETC, the CEO is the 

guy in the Birkenstocks who was once 

described by a family friend as “the one 

who talks.” (His brother and co-founder 

of the company was described by the 

same friend as “the one who thinks.”) The 

telling part is that the CEO, Fred Foster, 

is the one who tells the story. It’s a testimony 

to the kind of humor and humility 

you’ll find in this seriously successful 

man and the company he leads. 

On the surface, it might seem that the 

success of the company is entirely due to 

the success of its products. After all, 2.3 

million of the company’s Source Fourbrand 

fixtures have been sold. You can 

hardly find a performing arts space today 

that doesn’t have them, and for good 

reason. The Source Four spotlight totally 

redefined the industry’s expectations of 

the ERS and changed a commonly used 

1000-watt fixture into a more efficient 

575-watt fixture that produces more 

light. Their introduction in 1992 started 

a virtual transformation of the entire industry, 

one shipment at a time. 

And if all the 1.5 million ETC Sensor 

dimmer modules that have been 

shipped were stacked one on top of the 

other, they would reach a height of over 

36 miles. Most of those dimmers are 

controlled by one of the many consoles 

the company has manufactured over the 

years, starting with the Concept in 1982 

and culminating, to date, in the Eos, Ion, 

Congo, Congo jr, SmartFade and Smart 

Fade ML consoles. 

2MHz to 2MS4s 411 

There was a time, however, long before 

the Eos and Congo, when the Foster 

brothers could only dream of making a 

living designing and selling technologically 

advanced theatrical lighting equipment. 

While they were attending the 

University of Wisconsin-Madison, the 

brothers and friends Gary Bewick and Jim 

Bradley built a computer-based controller 

with the dream of one day selling it to 

the Metropolitan Opera. The four friends 

built the hardware and programmed the 

software around an Intel 8080 microprocessor 

running at 2 MHz. That was in 

1975, and this prototype would be the 


first seed of what would grow to be ETC. 

Bill Foster was the first president of 

ETC, but he soon answered a different 

calling, pursuing a physics Ph.D. and 

later a political career. This year he was 

elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, 

after working as a scientist at Fermi 

National Accelerator Laboratory for 22 

years. Fred Foster, on the other hand, left 

school to continue his entrepreneurial 

dreams, developing and marketing his 

lighting products. Since day one, he has 

been busy in the ETC offices, building 

the company with the help of his talentheavy 

staff. 

Through a series of acquisitions, ETC 

has become a highly regarded, internationally 

recognized brand. In 1990, ETC 

acquired Lighting Methods, Inc (LMI), 

taking them from a controller company 

to a dimming and control manufacturer. 

Two years later, ETC acquired the intellectual 

property for the Source Four fixture 

and suddenly became an end-to-end 

provider of theatrical lighting systems. 

The acquisition of Arri GB in London 

established their European presence in 

1995, and they expanded into Asia in the 

same year. 

The astute observer in the late 1990s 

might have speculated that the one 

missing piece of the puzzle was automated 

lighting. And indeed, rumors 

swirled around the industry about the 

company’s plans to enter that market. 

In 1998, ETC acquired the Irideon line 

of exterior color-wash fixtures and architectural 

moving-yoke fixtures. Never 

living up to ETC’s technical standards 

however, the line was eventually discontinued. 

Instead, ETC went to work on its 

own, unique Source Four-based automated 

fixture. Noted programmer Tom 

Littrell (first ever to use moving lights, 

1981 Genesis tour), came on board to 

shepherd ETC’s Source Four Revolution 

to market in 2003. 

Corporate Mission: Fun 411 

But ETC’s products are only part of 

the picture. Dig a little deeper and you’ll 

find a company culture inspired by genuine 

concern for employees, customers, 

the industry, and the environment alike. 

It is perhaps the only lighting manufacturer 

whose mission statement contains 

the word “fun.” It reads brightly: “ETC 

David Lincecum, marketing manager, left, with Bill Gallinghouse, vice president of business development and marketing. 

“In the past few years, ETC has listened 

harder than ever to what the industry 

was saying about the need for innovation in 

control systems.” 

— David Lincecum, ETC marketing manager 

will develop great new products for the 

lighting world, listen to customers and 

give them more than they expect, have 

fun and make money.” 

ETC’s Web site captures the philosophy 

of the company in a few lines. There’s 

a bit about Company Management (people), 

Company History and Awards (products), 

Corporate Philanthropy (giving), 

and the Environmental Policy (caring). 

What the Web site doesn’t reveal is 

how ETC recruits and retains its talent. 

Many of the almost 700 employees are 

long term, very talented people who actively 

contribute not only to the company, 

but also to the industry. Steve Terry, 

vice president of R&D, has been a leader 

in the industry and helped develop many 

of its standards since his days as the coowner 

of Production Arts in New York. Today, 

he sits on several ESTA-related committees, 

as does Dan Antonuk, ETC R&D 

network products development manager, 

who chaired the ACN Task Group. 

Two of ETC’s marketing product 

managers, Sarah Clausen and consultant 

Anne Valentino, came to ETC having 

worked with other console manufacturers. 

Dennis Varian, R&D senior technical 

product manager, came from Light 

& Sound Design. The three were instrumental 

in bringing ETC’s recent Eos and 

Congo console lines to market, and these 

are among the first brands to readily support 

ACN, the newest control protocol in 

the industry. 

“In the past few years, ETC has listened 

harder than ever to what the industry 

was saying about the need for innovation 

in control systems,” says David 

Lincecum, ETC marketing manager. “As a 

result we’ve overhauled our control offerings. 

It’s been big change, and we’re 

very pleased with how the market has 

responded.” 

Going to Town 411 

If you visit ETC’s new 328,000-squarefoot 

headquarters, you will immediately 

get it. The “fun” that was put in the mission 

statement is more than just a philosophy; 

it’s a way of life for this company, 

starting the moment you set foot inside. 

The atrium is a full-blown Town Square 

straight from the 1940s, complete with a 

life-size recreation of the café in Edward 

Hopper’s Nighthawks painting. A 40-foot 

façade features a theater marquee and an 

art deco skyscraper, masking the company’s 

offices and various departments. Every 

scenic-designed detail brings Town 

Square to life. 

Foster directed the design group that 

included architects, builders and ETC em-


COMPANY 411 


ETC CEO Fred Foster, “the one who talks.” 

The company’s atrium features a 1940s-styled Town Square with theatre marquee and cafe. 


ETC marketing product manager Sarah Clausen with the company’s Eos console. 

ployees to conceive a facility that would 

serve the culture of ETC. The first phase 

of the building — 250,000 square feet — 

was completed in 2004. The headquarters’ 

dual purpose is to act as hub of the 

company’s global operations and as an 

homage to the art of lighting and entertainment 

technology. The second phase, 

completed this August, added another 

78,000 square feet of manufacturing, 

shipping and inventory space, plus more 

parking to help keep up with the ever expanding 

company. 

“With this expansion, we’re extending 

our original design principal to continue 

to draw the ever-growing ETC community 

together,” says Foster. 

As fun as the Town Square is, it is only 

one piece of the puzzle. The rest of the 

ETC headquarters houses a large manufacturing 

area plus the company’s offices 

for administration, sales, tech support, 

and R&D. It’s impressive to witness the 

scope of the operation firsthand, and to 

see how upbeat the employees seem to 

be. They seem genuinely interested in 

the jobs and are eager to tell you about 

their latest projects and accomplishments. 

And it’s not uncommon for Foster 

himself to give you a tour — serving as 

your personal guide through ETC’s console 

museum, which is a long hallway 

filled with every model of board ever 

produced by ETC, most of which are still 

working. 

Hard Work, Vision and Fun 411 

ETC has enjoyed a real measure of 

success in its 33-plus years in business. 

But success was not handed over on a sil- 

ver platter; it was wrought by a talented 

staff, with hard work, vision, and fun. And 

the continued success of the company 

could be put to the test when the patent 

for the Source Four expires in a couple 

of years. The company could be facing 

the biggest challenge yet, and how it responds 

could determine its future. 

But ETC also has reason to be very 

confident. “At a time when many indus- 

tries have been threatened or challenged 

by the economic downturn, ETC is enjoying 

sustained growth,” says Foster, “and 

that is allowing us to develop new technologies 

and explore new markets.” 

It seems that ETC has always been a 

leader, and they’ve never been afraid to 

seek out the new. They were one of the 

first to jump into the ACN pool, and the 

odds are in favor of their continued suc- 

cess. If you ask Fred — the one who talks 

— he’ll probably tell you so. 



Lighting Design Software By 

BUYERS GUIDE 

RichardCadena 

LightConverse screen shot detail 

When AutoCAD was first being used 

by lighting professionals, a software 

license was almost as much a status 

symbol or a badge of honor as it was a useful 

tool. To the uninitiated, it seemed terribly 

advanced and hopelessly impossible to learn. 

There were commands and syntax that were 

totally foreign to the untrained masses, and 

the price tag alone was enough to convince 

you that it was not child’s play. And when 

someone was serious enough to invest in 

a pen plotter, you just knew they were in a 

league of their own. 

Today, there’s a different mystique 

about computer-aided design. With many 

very good lighting design computeraided 

design software packages, the 

game is about speed, efficiency and 

quality of work. And the work can be 

many things — lighting plots, schedules, 

magic sheets, photo-realistic renderings, 

visualization, video renderings, and more. 

In the world of software, things move fast, 

and last year’s products are old news. This 

year’s models are better than ever, with 

more features and more offerings than 

ever before. 

In the eight years that PLSN has been 

compiling these types of product comparisons, 

no single area of the industry 

seems to advance as rapidly as lighting 

design software. The developers have 

been busy expanding the horizons and 

the possibilities of working on a computer 

and in virtual reality. If the trend 

continues, in no time at all we’ll all be 

totally immersed in the virtual world of 

live event production up until the first 

downbeat of the show. 

Sometimes it’s challenging to keep up, 

but with the help of this month’s Buyers 

Guide you can quickly get up to speed on 

the latest offerings. But pay close attention 

because there’s more on the horizon. 

Until then, here are the listings. 

Light Grid from Stage Research 

Microlux Professional from LuxArt 

Screen shot from FocusTrack 

Design & Draftings’ LD Assistant PL 08 


47

BUYERS GUIDE 

Manufacturer 

Web Address 

Capture Sweden 

www.capturesweden.com 

Product Name 

Capture Polar, Basic 

Edition 

Capture Polar, 

Extended Edition 

Stand-alone?/ 

supporting software 

CAD Paperwork Rendering 

Real-time 

Visualization 

no. of Elements in 

Symbols Library 

3D drawing? 

Compatible File Formats 

stand alone Y Y N Y 2,500+ Y GIF,JPG,BMP 

stand alone Y Y N Y 2,500+ Y GIF,JPG,BMP,DXF,DWG 

Cast Software 

www.wysiwygsuite.com 

or www.viviendesign.com 

Design & Drafting 

www.LDASSISTANT.COM 

www.AutoBLOCK2000.COM 

Field Template 

www.fieldtemplate.com 

FocusTrack 

www.focustrack.co.uk 

WYSIWYG Report Y Y Y N N 18,000 Y 

WYSIWYG Design Y Y Y Y Y 18,000 Y 

WYSIWYG Perform Y Y Y Y Y 18,000 Y 

WYSIWYG Console 

Edition 

Y Y Y Y Y 18,000 Y 

Vivien Y Y Y Y 

Conceptual 

ONLY 

6,000 plus 

unlimited access 

to Sketchup’s 3D 

Warehouse 

LD Assistant Ac 08 stand alone Y Y Y Y 8,000 Y 

LD Assistant PL 08 

Plug-in Requiring 

AutoCAD2008 

AutoCAD2009 

Y 

WYG (WYSIWYG), VVN (Vivien), SKP 

(Sketchup), DXF, DWG, Lightwright, 

Excel, JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG 

WYG (WYSIWYG), VVN (Vivien), SKP 

(Sketchup), DXF, DWG, Lightwright, 

Excel, JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG 

Native AutoCAD; DWG, DXF, wmf, 

eps, dxx, 3ds, avi, mov, mpg, wmv, 

ASCII, xls, ies, txt, bmp, jpg, png 

Y Y Y Y 8,000 Y Native AutoCAD DWG & DXF 

AutoBlock2000 AutoCAD & AutoCAD Lt Y Y N N 8,000 Y Native AutoCAD DWG & DXF 

SoftSymbols V3 

Symbol libraries for 

VectorWorks 

Y light plots N N 3,500 

2800 hybrid 

symbols 

FocusTrack stand alone N Y N N N/A N 

native to VectorWorks and SoftPlot, 

can be used with Spotlight or 

AutoPlot 

Import from Lightwright, VectorWorks 

Spotlight, Strand 300,500-series 

showfiles, ETC Eos showfiles (beta), soon: 

MA grandMA & Strand Palette showfiles 

Future Light by 

West Side Systems 

www.future-light.com 

Virtual Light Lab 3 

stand alone but needs 

current version of 

Quicktime 

N N N Y n/a JPEG 

John McKernon Software 

distributed by City Theatrical 

www.mckernon.com 

www.citytheatrical.com 

Lightwright 4 Stand alone N Y N N N 

Microsoft Windows® 98 NT/2000/ 

ME/XP or later; Mac OSX 10.2 

(Jaguar) or later 

LightConverse Ltd. 

www.lightconverse.net 

www.atfull.com 

LightConverse stand alone Y Y Y Y 

500+ 3D fixture 

models; user can 

also add their own 

Y 

DXF, X (DirectX file), 3DS, 3DL; all 

picture and movie formats (jpeg, 

bmp, avi, etc.) 

Microlux Light stand alone (PC) Y Y N N 1,250+ N 

MLX(Microlux), DXF, DWG, BMP, 

XML 

LuxArt Conception Inc 

www.luxart.com 

Microlux 

Professional 

stand alone (PC) Y Y Y N 1,250+ Y 


XML 

Microlux Vision stand alone (PC) Y Y Y Y 1,250+ Y 


XML 

Martin Professional A/S 

www.martin.com 

Martin 

ShowDesigner 

(MSD) 

stand alone Y Y Y Y 14,000+ Y .scn, .mlb, .dxf, Xfile 

Nemetschek North America 

www.vectorworks.net 

Vectorworks 

Spotlight 

stand alone (Mac & PC) Y Y Y Y 2,500+ Y 

VWX, MCD, DWG/DXF, PDF, 

Lightwright, ESC, SketchUp, KML, 

3DS, XML,Excel, Filemaker, ASCII, 

PSD, EPS, BMP, TIFF, JPG 

Stage Research, Inc. 

www.StageResearch.com 

SoftPlot stand alone Y Y N N 3,000+ N 

SoftPlot 3D stand alone Y Y Y Y 3,000+ Y 

LighShop Online stand alone N N N N 3,000+ N 

Light Grid stand alone N N Y Y n/a Y 

DXF,DWG, JPG, BMP, GIF, EMF, PLT, 

HTML 

DXF,DWG, JPG, BMP, GIF, EMF, PLT, 

HTML 

ZZYZX, Inc. 

www.espvision.com 

Vision 2.3 stand alone N Y (patch data) Y Y 

hundreds (new 

ones added “almost 

daily”) 

some 

native: ESC or v2s/compatible: max, 

mcd, DWG, DXF, 3DS 



Latest Features Retail Price Comments 

Realistic realtime visualization featuring realtime shadows, volumetric 

beams, realistic color mixing, color temperature and HDR mapping 

(preventing whiteouts and improving contrast). 

Enhanced beam visualization in shaded views, soft-edge beams, beam 

flare, realistic color-mixing; new shadows, improved beam footprints/ 

wrapping and fixture’s POV in shaded views; variable soft focusing of beam 

footprints; atmospheric smoke; improved lineweights; boolean functions; 

pixel mapping support for LES grids; import items from SketchUp and 3D 

Warehouse; enhanced render engine 

ruler tool for visual point of reference; custom gobo wizard for importing 

images/logos; “improved” beam visualization in Virtual Views; “improved” 

custom library features/control; file compression; 1000+ new library items; 

“enhanced” Render Engine; boolean functions; “improved” lineweights 

1089€ 

1815€ 

(726€ to upgrade from Basic) 

$999 

$2,499 

$4,999 

Bundled with Console. Contact 

Manufacturer. 

$1,845 

- Available for Mac OS X by end of 2008 

- No limitations in number of universes 

- Supports ArtNet, BSR E1.31 (Streaming DMX), CITP, ETCNet2 

- Compatible with AVAB, Avolites, Compulite, EntTec DMX USB Pro, Hog2PC, Hog 3, LanBox, LT-Light 

and SandNet 

38 manufacturers in the RWD program; previz one to hundreds of lights; plotting to previz to photorealistic 

rendering; streaming video; runs on Microsoft XP, and now Vista, as well as MAC (with BootCamp) 

WYSIWYG CE is installed using software currently available at the date of installation. To receive new releases 

and updates, CE customers must upgrade to a regular WYSIWYG which offers membership benefits. 

Vivien is for event planners, designers, caterers, venues and meetings marketplace working for the 

special events industry. A new APEX menu item contains information about Accepted Practices 

Exchange (APEX) standards. 

2D drafting & 3D modeling, scenery design, entertainment lighting, event planning, play movies on 

Real-Time walkthrough with video playback, moving scenery, XREF, sight 

$2,495 

any object, create animations as you walkthrough your design with video playing in real-time and 

line camera; no dongle required for 64 universe access; support for Art-Net, 

pre-cue the show; export dimmer & channel information to USITT ASCII text patch. 

Pathport, ENTTEC both USB and Ethernet; FX Rendering, Volume Light, Lens 

Effects; use any JPG or BMP as gobo/texrure; library of 8,000 symbols (19 

Scenery design, Entertainment lighting, Event planning, play movies on any object, Create animations 

manufacturers, truss, fixtures, video projectors, plasma & LCD monitors, drape, 

as you walkthrough your design with video playing in real-time and Pre-Cue the show. No other 

tables, chairs, doors, windows, IES file supports Incandescent, low pressure 

$1,495 

programs or dongle needed to connect your console using Art-Net/ENTTEC or Pathport’s Ethernet. 

sodium, high intensity, fluorescent lamps; built-in online suppoort and updates 

Export dimmer & channel information to USITT standard ASCII text patch. Easily move fixtures labels, 

create new instruments and rotate truss. LDI2002 Lighting Tools and Software Product of the Year. 

LD Content; Share the Power; save 70% on CAD design times. $499 Plug-in to AutoCAD and AutoCAD Lt 2004, 2005, 2006 

New data conversion plug-ins convert symbol data from imperial to metric and back 

Professional grade alternative to VectorWorks’ Spotlight symbols; phsically accurate and data-filtered; 

again. New libraries: CCT, Diversitronics, GAM, Nexxus, SeaChanger, Reich & Vogel, 

$120 

eliminates need for metric fixture libraries; now integrated into Stage Research’s SoftPlot. 

Robe, and USITT 2007. The remaining 34 fixture libraries are all completely updated. 

New FocusFinder and FocusMatch tools for rationalizing focuses for tours; 

Tool for documenting lighting for theatrical and other productions including moving light and 

new Cue Summary for examining how lights are used in cues; new Fixture 

conventional focuses, cue states, rig set-up, rig changes and more. Available for Mac or PC; in use 

UK£400 

Data Library; new weight and power totals; new tools for re-numbering or 

worldwide including Billy Elliot, Equus, Les Miserables, Mary Poppins, Miss Saigon, Never Forget, 

changing rigs; new FocusGrid for quick notation of focus positions in cues. 

Young Frankenstein and at English National Opera, Glyndebourne Opera and the Royal Opera House. 

Version 3 added the ability to have multiple models “on stage”, more lights, 

cyc groundrow, 4 circuit cyc & groundrow, multiple models on stage at the 

same time having same or different lighting, slide show feature that does 

time fades between stage pictures. v3.2.1 added platform feature, vertical 

model placement, exporting pictures, updated color library. 

62 Universes of DMX; 100 Moving Light libraries per show; Stores 

accessories, weights, symbols and template holder sizes; Focus chart 

database; Work notes database 

Direct connectivity with Hog3, plus Hog3PC, Avolites, LightFactory, Chamsys 

and Pangolin Laser software. Bi-directional with Zero88 consoles. Imperial/ 

Metric measurements. 

High-res High End Showgun visualization. 

Allows creating a complete and exact plan with all the necessary paperwork. 

Comes with an extensive manufacturer specific library. *** Improved 

libraries 

Has everything you need to create professional Lighting plans and 

schedules with the ability to view your plan, either in 2D or 3D, visualize the 

lighting and test every aspect of your design. Focus and see the beams of 

light, find out the exact illumination, calculate the weight on your truss and 

more. *** Improved bill of material and equipment rental management 

MICROLUX Vision is an add-on to Microlux Professional to allow you to visualize 

the intensity of spots on screen as it is controlled by the console in real time. The 

intensities can be shown with a beam representation on the plan or they can be 

displayed in a table format, thus allowing MICROLUX Vision to pre-program a 

lighting board without the spots. ***Compatible with more DMX devices 

Newly designed 3D engine, moving objects, live video input, real-time 3D rendering w/ 

real beam intensity curve, camera animation, timeline control, true HD video rendering, 

Fast Net-Render, new drag-drop objects/fixtures, new sidebar controls and more. 

Library of instruments and accessories from 30 manufacturers; define and manage 

labels and label formatting for lighting instruments; define lighting positions, 

hang instruments, and create instrument position summaries; create multi-circuit 

instruments, gang instruments, and add accessories; assign instruments to focus 

areas and show light beams in 2D and 3D; track instrument and accessory data 

used in light plots and automatically generate paperwork; import data directly 

to Lightwright; export dimmer and channel information to a USITT standard 

ASCII text patch; automatically calculate and display the illumination values; over 

3,000 gobo patterns from leading manufacturers or create custom gobos; create 

animations of scene changes or virtual tours clients can navigate in real time; 

simulate your Spotlight models in real time with ESP Vision 

$239 individual, $599 site license (4 

users)+$99 per additional user. New 

additional human model set for $25 

individuals or $100 for site licensee. 

Individual Lightwright 4 - $449.95; 

Institutional Lightwright 4 - $899.95; 

Individual Upgrade* from LW3 to LW4- 

$184.50; Institutional Upgrade from 

LW3 to LW4 - $449.00; Student Version 

LW4 - $135.00; Student to Individual 

LW4 Upgrade - $314.95 

$400-$1900.00, depending on the 

level of DMX or ArtNet connectivity, 

and if laser, pyro, 3D view video, or 

vector plotting is needed. 

$70 

$809 

Current version 3.2.2 and is free update to v3 owners. 

LDI Software Product of the Year in 1998 and 2003, Eddy Award winner in 2004. Lightwright was 

written by John McKernon, a professional designer and an associate designer to Ken Billington. 

Emphasis is on making changes quickly and easily while helping to spot potential errors with a 

minimum of effort. It is used every day on Broadway, in opera houses, ballet companies, regional 

theatres, community theatres, and universities. In the United States, Canada, England, France, Italy, 

Germany, Sweden, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Asia. 

Instant real-time photorealistic rendering; run hundreds of moving lights off a laptop w/ no lag time; 

object and texture libraries; no subscription or renewal fees, student and educational discounts 

available. 

2D Plan view only but 3D information is present making it compatible with Microlux Professional 

and Microlux Vision. A free version is also available. 

Significant rebates are also available for peoples interested in contributing to the maintenance of 

libraries or software improvements. 

$499 Compatible with many USB-DMX Interface, Artistic DMX Dongle and others 

Silver version: $2.010; Gold version: 

$3.900 

Field Template SoftSymbols; CAD Drawing Importer; “improved” editors $349 

Silver = Drawing package only; Gold = Silver + rendering and visualization. MSD-5 will be introduced 

in September 2008 and will be sold in 5 different packages: Gold, Live Full, Live 4, Silver and 

LightJockey Edition. 

$1,395 Compatible with Mac an PC hardware. Rendering add on Renderworks is $400 

CAD application specifically for lighting. Plot lighting, manage paperwork for all levels of 

entertainment from theatre to film to TV. 

Field Template SoftSymbols; CAD Drawing Importer; “improved” editors $449 CAD application specifically for lighting; includes a 3D views; USB-DMX interfaces to console. 

web-based 

High dynamic range textures, moving truss and set pieces, complete 

modification within Vision, one-button renders, MOV and AVIL creation, 

software console for conventional fixtures (shutters, iris, bottle rotation, etc). 

Live video capture from media servers for use in moving head projectors, 

video screens, LEDs, incl. new transparent tubes, screens (such as G-LEC). 

$79 

Single source for every category of photometric information with thousands of lighting fixtures, gels 

and filters, gobos, and bulbs from industry manufacturers, web enabled, web deployable application 

$99 Simulate and experiment with virtual lighting fixtures. 

$750 per universe/port up to $7,500, 

which is considered unlimited 

Compatible with an expanding list of consoles and protocols. Live Design 2004, 2006 Product of the 

year. InfoCOMM 2005 Software Product of the year. 


49

WIDE ANGLE 


George Michael 

25 Live Tour 

Photos & Text by SteveJennings 

You don’t have to be that old to be surprised with 

the fact that George Michael, frontman for the 

1980s pop band Wham!, has been performing for 

more than a quarter of a century. The first leg of his 25 

Live tour, which supports a greatest hits album by the 

same name, traveled though Europe in late 2006. The 

North American leg that began earlier this year represents 

the artist’s first live tour in the U.S. and Canada in 

17 years. 

Benoit “Ben” Richard, lighting designer and director, 

and Richard Shipman, video programmer/director/ 

department head, say Michael played a significant role 

in coming up with the ideas for the tour’s visuals, where 

video dominates and lighting plays a supporting role. 

“I’m sad that the tour is almost over,” Richard said. 

“All great things must come to an end. But I’m ready 

for the next big challenge.” In little more than a blink 

of an eye, that might just be a George Michael tour 

called 50 Live. 

George Michael marked 25 years in the music biz with a tour that lasted almost two years longer. 

Video Steals the Show 

Benoit “Ben” Richard: “Late in 2005, Vince Foster was the original lighting and set designer 

for the show but when he had to leave for another tour, I was brought in to take over after the 

first dozen shows in Europe in Oct. 2006. Willie Williams and Ken Watts worked with Barco to 

develop the MiStrips for this highly visual show. George Michael himself actively participated 

in all aspects of the design process and everything you see during the show comes from his 

original ideas. There’s no doubt that the video screens are the main highlight of the show. The 

lighting system serves as a ‘supporting role’ to pump the beat in the dance numbers and make 

the slower songs more theatrical. We also programmed the show to time code, which makes 

the whole experience even more impressive.” 

The tour represented the artist’s first tour in the U.S. and Canada in 17 years. 

Support from the Crew 

Benoit “Ben” Richard: “To my right at 

front of house is Blake Rogers, who has been 

my right hand man forever. On this tour, I 

needed him to be at front of house during 

the show to monitor the system and to deal 

with me moaning about broken gear. Thanks 

to his hard work and dedication to the project, 

we’ve had great shows during this North 

American leg. Kevin Forster, the account rep 

at Ed & Ted’s Excellent Lighting put together 

a great crew for us on this tour. Richard 

Shipman started at front of house and used 

Zookeeper to communicate with his three 

Green Hippo Hippotizer media servers backstage. 

Once everything was programmed 

and locked to code, he moved backstage and 

monitored the show from a SpyCam feed at 

the front of house.” 

A large video wall dominated the center of the multi-level set, flanked by video screens on both sides. Lighting played a supporting role. 


A Political Juggling Act 

Richard Shipman: “I joined the U.S. leg in 

May for pre-production to iron out some previous 

issues. I’m the department head for video 

and the graphics programmer/editor and final 

vision mixer for all screen content. I liaised with 

the software suppliers on formats, pixel ratios 

and general formatting of any content for the 

screens. During the show I vision mix between 

the graphics and the camera cut, inserting 

camera pictures with the visuals as agreed 

with George directly. I’m responsible for all 

aspects of the visual look of the show and act 

as a bridge between tour production, artist 

production and software producers, so you 

could say I am a ‘politician.’ I am the bridge for 

tour artist and content providers to ensure the 

screen hardware is built and working, that the 

material is synched and correct with cameras 

inserted to George’s brief, and that the current 

or revised edits of any content are being 

used and managed for the software providers 

or content production. Before the tour in preproduction, 

I specified the graphics units from 

XL Video, liaised with the content providers, 

Bikini Films, and received an artist brief from 

George regarding final overall looks for the 

tour. It was quite a juggling act.” 

Richard Shipman vision-mixed camera footage with graphics during the shows, incorporating ideas for the visuals from George Michael himself. 

Serving Up the Video Content 

Richard Shipman: “I’m using Hippotizer 

V3 units running from MIDI time 

code triggering three independent 

timelines, one for each screen, managed 

by a Zookeeper PC at front of house via 

a Cat 6 Ethernet link to the servers backstage. 

The PPU camera cut by Paul Eggerton 

is fed into the Hippos live and any 

DVE sizing and mirror effects are via the 

Hippos, thus eliminating delay down 

to two frames to the screen. This final 

vision mix is done uniquely via a MIDI 

map on the Zookeeper system onto a 

Berringer BCF2000 unit. So all I had at 

front of house was a laptop PC and the 

BCF. Nigel Saddler at Green Hippo, who 

wrote some specific code required for 

this MIDI map and timecode display, 

was a big help.” 

CREW 

Lighting Designer/Director: Benoit “Ben” 

Richard 

Video Playback Programmer/Director/ 

Dept. Head: Richard Shipman 

Video Staging Designer: Willie Williams 

Tour Director: Ken Watts 

Production Manager: Mark Spring 

Lighting Crew Chief: Kevin Tyler 

Syncrolite/Moving Light Tech: Jeremy 

Knight 

Lighting FOH: Blake Rogers 

Dimmers: Jerry Smith, Rhane Rhodes 

Lighting Techs: Moss Everhard 

Lighting Company: Ed & Ted’s Excellent 

Lighting 

Account Rep: Kevin Forster 

Video Company: XL Video (Belgium, U.K., 

L.A.) 

Live Director: Paul “Eggy” Eggerton 

Video Engineer: David Cruz 

Video Screen Technician: Frederick 

Opsomer 

Design: Innovative Design 

Video Content: Sam Pattinson 

(Onedotzero Industries), Willie Williams 

(Neal Street Studios) 

Set Construction: Chris Cronin, Merv 

Thomas, Total Solutions Group; Adrian 

Brooks, 

Lite Structures: James Fairorth, Adam 

Davis, Tait Towers 

Soft Goods: Megan Ducket, Sew What? Inc. 

Stage Engineering: Neil Darrocott, Andy 

Prescott, Xolve Ltd. 

GEAR 

Lighting Consoles: Flying Pig Systems 

Wholehog 3, 2 Catalyst v4 w/ PixelMad 

Media Servers, 3 Hippotizer V3 Media 

Servers 

22 4-Light DWE Mole — Feys 

2 Arrisun 4kw HMI 40/25 Fresnels with 

Eclipse DMX dousers 

21 Color Kinetics Color Blaze 72 LEDs 

24 Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12 LEDs 

4 Lycian 2.5kw truss spots 

32 Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes with 

color changers 

45 Martin MAC 2K Profiles 

74 Martin MAC 2K Wash fixtures 

28 PAR 16s with MR16 flood 

16 PixelRange PixelLine 1044s 

22 Robe REDBlinder 2-96 LED Fixtures 

14 Syncrolite SXB-5/3 Fixtures 



51

INterVIeW 

Living the Dream at Age 13 

As a young child, Cody Stoltz knew he wanted to be an LD when he 

grew up. He decided not to wait until adulthood to get started. 

By RobLudwig 

You may have never heard of Cody Stoltz, 

but if you have, then you know why 

this young man is special. At 13 years 

of age, he absolutely loves lighting. While 

most people his age are still playing with 

their friends or dealing with the changes that 

come with transitioning to life as a teenager, 

Stoltz knows what he wants to do; he wants 

to be a lighting designer. He’s even saved his 

money and invested in his own lighting rig, 

and he’s an intern at New Orleans-based RZI. 

PLSN: How did you get interested in lighting 

at such a young age? 

Cody Stoltz: I’ve been interested in it for a 

really long time. When I was younger I wanted 

to design a show with moving lights and design 

the stage from the ground up. I think a lot 

of that — buying a lighting rig, and getting to 

do what I am doing now, would be the NOCCA 

— the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. 

The school is one of the best in the world for 

pretty much everything. They have a good setup 

on their stage; it’s a very expensive system. 

But, what made me buy my lighting system 

was that they wouldn’t let me play with the 

console when I took theatre classes there. 

Your parents work in the industry. Did you 

parents take you to a lot of shows when you 

were younger and did that influence you? 

It might have somewhat. Doing that, 

I learned more about what the equipment 

does and the brand names of the 

equipment, but as far as me being really 

interested, I’ll pay $50 or $60 for a ticket to see 

a good light show. 

Did you go to a lot of live shows when you 

were younger? 

A lot of festivals but not a lot of big 

lighting shows. One of the first ones I can 

remember that had a good light show was 

Duran Duran. Steve Rehages’s younger 

sister brought me on stage to see them. I 

didn’t know who they were but my Dad (Erick 

Stoltz) told me to go see them because they 

were good. 

Being in the business is kind of in your 

blood, isn’t it? 

My mom (Ashley Boudreaux) does it, my 

step-dad (DJ Boudreaux) does it, and my 

dad used to go out on tour. But I never really 

experienced any of that. But, since I started 

with this, my step-dad’s always giving 

me a heads-up on things that I should 

and get. 

How old were you when you thought this 

was something you wanted to do? 

Probably about five or six years ago. 

Did your school have classes that exposed 

you to lighting? 

The last school I went to had eight PAR 

cans and dusty, decrepit followspots that 

hadn’t been used in years. 

Were you interested art or other creative 

studies? 

I’ve been interested in pottery and art 

class, but it wasn’t really anything that fulfilled 

me. 

Cody Stoltz, who has already worked as an intern at RZI in New Orleans, got his start with a $350 investment in a 16-channel console and eight PAR cans. 

But you do have a creative side to begin 

with, and then you discovered lighting. 

When did you start going to NOCCA? 

I started going to the Saturday classes 

right after Mardi Gras. 

What did you have to do to take those 

classes? 

For Saturday classes, you had to fill out 

a form and list some references. There was 

also a fee for Saturday and summer classes. 

For summer classes, which I did for two 

weeks, it was $100, and for Saturday classes, 

it was like $10. 

“Whenever they have something new 

there, I just go up and take a couple of 

minutes to pull some moving lights out 

and hook them up to the console.” 

—Cody Stoltz 

From what I understand, you worked with 

audio and pyro systems during the NOCCA 

production of Tommy. 

I helped with pyro. But I got to learn how 

to handle it and how it worked. I watched 

them do it and learned about the controllers 

they use for it. And I was doing backstage 

microphones and I got put on the audio gear. 

But didn’t you really want to do lighting? 

Yeah. The first day or so, I did nothing but 

prepping and hanging some lights. 

Since you couldn’t work with light more 

extensively, was that an incentive to buy 

your own system? 

I’m not really sure if that was before or after 

Tommy. I think it might have been before. 

Did you save your money to invest it in a 

lighting rig? 

Yeah, I did. I think on my first order I invested 

about $350. 

What did you buy? 

Eight PARs, a little 16-channel console 

from Elation, and clamps and stuff like that. I 

didn’t know a lot about conventional systems 

at the time, so on my next order, I bought 

dimmer packs for the PAR cans. Since then 

I’ve kind of grown from there. I got a couple 

of hazers and some followspots. I really didn’t 

have enough money to get anything like 

moving lights, but I’m tying to save my money 

to get Martin MAC 250s and three Atomic 

strobes for my rig. 

That’s impressive. I heard that in addition 

to saving your money to build a bigger 

lighting rig, you’re doing an internship 

so you can continue to learn more about 

lighting. 

Yep. At RZI Lighting, with Ray Ziegler. 

What are you doing there? 

I’m doing a lot in the warehouse. I’m 

learning a lot about different fixture personalities 

and how lighting systems are built. I’m 

learning about new lighting equipment and 

different brands and other equipment that 

will be good for my rental company. I’m also 

helping load and unload trucks. For the past 

three weeks, I’ve been learning about consoles. 

The first console I learned was the Pearl 

from Avolites. Then, the Jands Vista came in 

and I’ve kind of learned that. And, I just got 

a chance to program some preset cues that 

were used on the Coca Cola Stage at the Essence 

Festival using an Avolites Pearl. They 

actually used all them, too. And one of them 

was the walk-in look. 



With a dad, mom and step-dad in the lighting business, lighting is in Stoltz’s blood. 

Stoltz learns as much as he can from classes, internships and industry 

connections. He would sit down and learn every board he could, “if I 

had the chance,” he says. 

“even when I see 

lighting shows designed 

by the best of 

the best, I still have a 

few things I’d add.” 

—Cody Stoltz 

Do they set up the board for you and give 

you some lights and let you run with it? 

Whenever they have something new there, 

I just go up and take a couple of minutes to pull 

some moving lights out and hook them up to 

the console. No one really shows me anything 

unless I really can’t figure it out, so I had to learn 

everything from a manual, which can be hard. 

I used to proof manuals, so I feel your pain. 

If you could, though, would you sit down 

with every board and learn it? 

If I had the chance. 

Do you see yourself as more a lighting programmer 

or do you want to be a designer? 

Even when I see lighting shows designed 

by the best of the best, I still have a few things 

I’d add. I want to design a system from the 

ground up and run it. 

To that end, didn’t you recently attend a 

training session at High End Systems? 

Everyone at High End was really cool and 

friendly. They say down and taught me oneon-one. 

Mitch Peebles was the one who was 

teaching me and he hooked up a console to 

visualizer and he showed almost everything 

on the Hog console. It was a great. 

I also heard that you had a good experience 

when Rush was in town. Can you tell 

me about that? 

Howard Ungerleider, the lighting designer, 

put me on the headset and I got to 

listen to all the cues. It was great and I learned 

a lot. And if it wasn’t for Howard, I probably 

wouldn’t have gotten to go to High End. 

You’re already networking. You’ve got a 

bright future in this industry. 

I hope so. 


2008 September PLSN 53

ROAD TEST 


LD Assistant ‘08 

By Stephen Ellison 


As lighting designers, we need to provide 

lots of information in the form of 

lighting plots and paperwork. That 

hasn’t changed since the days when I was 

in college. But these days, two-dimensional 

drawings are not enough. We have to be 

able to draw in three dimensions, turn on 

the lights, capture cues as photo-realistic 

pictures, and we have to do this in the same 

amount of time it used to take to produce 

the light plot alone. 

Fortunately, lighting design software has 

come a long way since my college days. In fact, 

lighting design software didn’t exist back then. 

We learned to draft by hand, and used Microsoft 

Excel to try to manage our paperwork. 

One of the major challenges of working 

that way was remembering to update all 

the documentation whenever you’d make a 

change. If a color changed in a fixture, you 

would have to change it on several schedules, 

on the plot and on all the detail drawings. 

Today’s software lets you make changes 

once, and all of your paperwork and drawings 

get updated automatically. 

The latest version of Design and Drafting’s 

LD Assistant integrates the drafting and 

the paperwork in a comprehensive program. 

The software lets designers drag a truss block onto the page set the height then drag in fixture 

blocks and snap them to the truss. 

But the basic elements for creating the plot 

and paperwork are only the beginning. 

Start Your AutoCAD Engine 

RT 

At its heart, LD Assistant 08 is a CAD 

(computer-aided design) program that uses 

an Autodesk AutoCAD engine for third-party 

developers. LD Assistant 08 starts with the 

basic platform of lines on the virtual page 

used to create sophisticated drawings and 

expands to other levels to allow the designer 

to produce 3D renderings of the lighting 

design, connect a lighting console and previsualize 

your show, and even add real time 

video projection as well. 

The program has a suite of drafting tools 

that are common to all CAD programs, 2D 

and 3D drawing tools. The software also 

works in native DWG format so any drawings 

you get from the architect can be opened 

without having to import the file. That can 

reduce the risk of losing valuable information 

like blocks — pre-drawn items stored 

in libraries (which can be real time-savers 

when creating a design) or dimensions. 

A Wizard’s Wand 

RT 

The program has all the tools required 

for a complex drafting project, but you don’t 

need to be a CAD wizard to produce good 

results. It has some built-in features to make 

lighting design easy, including several dropdown 

menus just for lighting and production 

applications. In these menus you will 

find tools to help create professional looking 

drawings with minimal training. 

LD Assistant comes with an extensive 

library of ready-to-use blocks, and there are 

more are available online. These let you, for 

example, drag a truss block onto the page, 

set the height then drag in fixture blocks 

and snap them to the truss. 

Each block has associated attributes that 

can be edited and used in the report generator. 

Take a fixture, for example. Certain attributes 

are already supplied, such as “Type,” 

“Frame Size,” “Candle Power,” etc. Other attributes 

require your input — “Filter Color” 

and “Channel,” for example. These details will 

automatically appear in your reports, and attributes 

like color will also show up in your 

renderings. 

You can also add a stage, curtains and set 

pieces and also apply images to the surface 

of any object. To render a stained glass window, 

for example, you can draw the shape of 

the window, take a picture of the real thing, 

apply it to the object and it will look real. It’s 

a feature that works especially well for backdrops 

or corporate logos. 

Virtually There 

If you change an attribute, like color, it will automatically show up in your reports and renderings. 

RT 

Once you have the 3D model constructed, 

you are ready to turn on the virtual 

lights and use the really fun features 

that differentiate this program from a 

standard CAD program. 

Pre-Visualizing Cues 

RT 

After focusing your virtual lights, putting 

in color and possibly gobos, you are 

ready to start pre-visualizing your cues. You 

do this by using the LD Control Window 

with a built-in fader console that allows 

you to create scenes and record cues for 

playback just as if you were actually in the 

theatre. If you have a DMX interface, you 

can connect your lighting console to the 

computer and record the cues directly to 

the console. The program supports eight 

standard interface devices. 

Video projection that has become an 

increasing part of our designs, and this software 

lets you drop a video projector block 

onto the page and attach a video file, which 

will play back in real time. In the time it takes 

to read this paragraph you can have a projector 

playing back video in your visualizer. 

After you have a series of cues, you can 

add an audio file, capture the cue sequence 

as you walk through the space and save it for 

playback as an animation file. This software 

gives you plenty to work with, and it will take 

some time to fully realize its potential. 

LD Assistant 08 is a feature-packed 

program that starts with drafting and ends 

with full motion video movies of your design. 

The program can be used by people 

well trained in CAC drafting to create sophisticated 

drawings, or by up-and-coming 

designers with limited training. The tools 

are available for the novice to start producing 

designs quickly, but it also has powerful 

features for pros. 

What is it: A CAD program for lighting design, 

documentation, presentation and previsualization. 

Who it’s for: All levels of lighting designers, 

event planners, scenic designers and technical 

directors. 

Pros: Built-in content library, great rendering 

capability, native CAD files and Autodesk 

CAD engine, powerful features. 

Cons: Needs a good “Dummies”-style howto 

book. 

Retail Price: $2,495. 


Edinburgh Castle Animated with Projected Images 

HD Projection Adds to 

Alicia Keys Tour’s Visuals 

The large-format projection animated the 2008 Edinburgh Military Tattoo. 

WILSONVILLE, OR — InFocus Corporation 

reported second quarter revenues of 

$72.7 million and a net loss of $3.8 million, 

or $0.10 per share, compared to a net loss 

of $1.8 million, or $0.05 per share in the 

first quarter of 2008 and a net loss of $7.8 

million, or $0.20 per share in the second 

quarter of 2007. 

Included in the second quarter results 

is a restructuring charge of $0.9 million, 

which accounted for $0.02 of the net loss 

EDINBURGH Scotland — The projection area 

for the 2008 Edinburgh Military Tattoo, an annual 

part of the Edinburgh Festival, expanded from 60 

to 90 meters, spanning the full width of Edinburgh 

Castle’s walls at the far end of the Esplanade/Arena, 

where the performance took place. 

E/T/C London provided the large format image 

projections for the fourth consecutive year, using 

four of E/T/C’s PIGI 6K projectors fitted with double 

rotating scrollers. Three covered the width of the 

Castle wall area. The fourth provided “drop-ins” in 

the area around the Castle gates where the performers 

made their entrances. 

The projection ran on an E/T/C OnlyCue system, 

programmed and operated by Karen Monid. 

Adam Masters joined Monid for the load in, and 

Paul Highfield coordinated the project’s logistics. 

E/T/C’s Ross Ashton designed and produced the 

artwork for all the key strategic points in the show, 

accented by additional projections. He worked on 

the creative content in conjunction with the show’s 

producer, Major General Euan Loudon. 

For the Indian Army Chief’s Military Band, Ashton’s 

artwork cast thousands continued on page 59 

InFocus Posts 2Q Loss in Earnings 

per share, compared to a restructuring 

charge of $2.1 million, or $0.05 per share 

in the second quarter of 2007. There were 

no restructuring charges included in the Q1 

2008 results. 

The company reported total cash, restricted 

cash, and marketable securities 

as of June 30, 2008 of $69.8 million, a decrease 

of $3.1 million from the first quarter 

of 2008, and an increase of $2.5 million 

from the second quarter of 2007. 

The set included a 54-foot-wide curved and backlit projection screen. 

Moving lights, video panels and a 54-foot-by-20-foot 

curved projection screen all played a role on the touring 

set for Alicia Keys’ As I Am tour. The gear list supplied by 

Montreal-based Solotech wouldn’t be complete, of course, 

without projectors. Six Christie Roadster S+20K 3-Chip DLP 

projectors were chosen for the job. 

The curved screen creating a back projection surface 

to project HD video content, which is synchronized in real 

time with live camera shots and special effects during 

Keys’ performance. Two towers of triple stacked Christie 

Roadster S+20K projectors produce a combined 120,000 

lumens of brightness to display the HD video imagery, 

which is interspersed with live mixes of Keys and her musicians 

and dancers. 


56 

60 

Inside... 

360° Foo View 

Over 5,000 LED panels were used for 

a Foo Fighters concert at Wembley 

Stadium in London. 

Video Digerati 

Raster mapping in three easy steps. 



55

NEWS 

LAS VEGAS — It’s not easy to compete for visual attention 

on the Las Vegas Strip, but Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, 

which re-branded the resort formerly known as the Aladdin, 

upped the visual ante by working with Panasonic Systems 

Integration. The resulting LED large screen displays set the 

tone for the resort as a whole, backed up by numerous Panasonic 

projection systems, plasma and LCD displays within the 

100,000 square-foot resort complex. 

The resort’s exterior is hard to miss with its array of multidirectional 

digital signage. It includes a curved LED large 

screen system that’s over 57 feet high and a 180-foot-high 

pylon with back-to-back LED boards measuring 40 feet by 30 

feet. Two additional curved LEDs are also found on the face of 


Planet Hollywood Casino Ups the Visual Ante 

The 57-foot-high curved LED screen on the exterior is joined by ribbon 

LED panels that run the 600-foot length of the building. 

the casino, along with a curved ribbon LED display that runs 

approximately 600 feet — the full length of the building. 

Keith Hanak, group director, Panasonic Systems Integration, 

said the design and installation of the indoor and outdoor 

digital signage system and network involved a team of 

Panasonic and Planet Hollywood staff working together with 

local contractors and other specialists. 

“This was a massive deployment of digital signage technologies 

that was on the fast track to meet the scheduled 

opening,” he said. “An additional challenge to the installation 

process was the fact that we had to implement the design 

while Planet Hollywood remained open, all without impacting 

any of the Casino’s security, shows or events.” 

Under its new management, Planet Hollywood Resort & 

Casino was opened in November 2007, with some attractions 

and venues phased in later over a period of several months. 

Video is consistently used to heighten the resort’s Hollywood 

celebrity motif. It also extends the visibility of the resort’s red 

carpet events to areas far from the red carpet itself. 

The casino area of Planet Hollywood is outfitted with 

about 200 Panasonic plasma displays, complemented by 

a variety of other Panasonic display technologies. Several 

of the slot machines are also equipped with Panasonic LCD 

displays that provide information on specific slots, and vertically 

mounted Panasonic plasma displays are found at the end 

caps and in multiple arrays on surrounding walls and facades. 

Ceiling-mounted projectors from Panasonic also display dynamic 

graphics on the walls. 

LONDON — With the help from an array 

of LED video panels, the Foo Fighters played 

before 230,000 fans with just three performances 

in the U.K. The band had been on 

tour for six months, then played before Wembley 

Stadium’s 86,000-capacity audience for 

two dates, with a third sell-out show in Manchester 

added to the group’s busy schedule. 

Production Designer Nathan Wilson 

took on the challenge of simultaneously 

designing, programming and building 

the two separate stadium shows while still 

handling the touring version nightly, and a 

joint effort between XL Touring Video Los 

Angeles, XL Touring Video London and XL 

Video Belgium helped with the fabrication, 

LED and labor requirements. 

The Wembley shows used over 5,000 

individual Barco MiTrix panels divided up 

into three different screen configurations. 

A circular screen above the stage had 3000 

of the MiTrix panels, and above that, a roof 

surround screen had 300 more. In addition, 

750 MiTrix panels were configured into four 

zipper screens to add to the 360° visuals. 

The City of Manchester show used 648 

MiTrix and 60 Lighthouse R16s on a rotating 

stage. The Lighthouse R16s were divided 

into two side screens. The MiTrix panels 

were split into three LED screens 

“We are blessed to have a band, management, 

design, and production team that gets 

it,” said XLTV’s John Wiseman. “They think big 

and act bigger. This is the kind of client and 

Located in the center of the three-acre casino floor is the 

Heart Bar, which has 32 of Panasonic’s 65-inch plasma displays. 

Arranged in two video walls, each with 16 plasmas, these multiscreen 

displays feature sporting events and hotel promotions. 

In the front lobby, 15 Panasonic plasma displays deliver 

promotional programming, including six interactive kiosks 

with touch screen technology to highlight hotel amenities 

and provide directions. Once guests find their way to hotel 

elevators, they can see ceiling-mounted Panasonic plasma 

displays, which also feature promotional messaging. 

Hanak noted the Panasonic system behind the scenes that 

drives the entire design. “Our NMstage content management 

software is an advanced system that lets Planet Hollywood’s 

management schedule and deliver targeted messages in real 

time,” he said. “Using this technology, we were able to create 

the kind of video-centric environment that owner of Planet 

Hollywood, Robert Earl, wanted.” 

NMstage content management software provides all of 

the HD video feeds and scheduling of all of the recorded 

and/or live video over a 1GigE fiber backbone networked 

system. At Planet Hollywood, Panasonic Systems Integration 

designed and installed a central server and 90 media players 

that store and play the video content throughout the resort. 

The central server also monitors all system components to 

keep glitches to a minimum. 

“It was Mr. Earl’s vision to use video to reinforce the Hollywood 

theme, and Panasonic’s digital signage technologies 

have allowed that vision to become a reality,” said Hanak. 

Video Panels Give Foo Fighters Visual Assist 

LED video helped 86,000 fans in Wembley Stadium see the band. 

team guys like me dream about working for.” 

Mark Ward, Phil Mercer and Jo Beirne 

handled overall video project management 

for stadium shows on behalf of XLTV. Rob 

McShane also played a role, touring on behalf 

of XLTV Los Angeles. 

The technical crew also included Rodney 

Johnson, production manager, Brian 

Kountz, stage manager and Clair Van Herck, 

production coordinator. The road manager 

was Gus Brandt. 

Splinter Films filmed the Wembley Stadium 

shows for an upcoming cinema and DVD 

release produced by Emer Patten and directed 

by Nick Wickham. The executive producers 

were John Cutcliffe and John Silva, with 

management by S.A.M. 


HD Projection Adds to 

Alicia Keys Tour Visuals 

continued from page 55 

VYV Corporation, a staging-dressing 

company based in Montreal, created the 

technical design and video elements of 

the set. Emric Epstein, co-founder and 

technology developer for VYV and lead 

technical designer of the set, said the projected 

images were able to “compete in 

brightness with LED screens but with better 

resolution and quality. The projectors 

deliver a super bright and extremely clear 

image with no rainbow effect, which is 

crucial for live performances. They really 

add another dimension to the show.” 

Emric added that “because the show is 

moving very fast with a lot of back-to-back 

performances on the road, quick set-up, 

alignment and blending of the projectors 

is essential.” The Christie projectors, he said, 

“are easy to use and set up with our Photon 

systems and software that automatically 

blends the triple stacked projectors and also 

manages all of the content for the show. 

With Christie’s latest remote control Road- 

Tools software, we have even more flexibility 

to do things like shutter the lenses and even 

write our own applications to control the 

projectors using ChristieNET protocol.” 



NEWS 


Giant LED Video Screen for F1 Race Course in Germany 

The screen measured in at 23 meters by 13 meters and weighed only 2.5 tons. 

HOCKENHEIM, Germany — It was probably 

the biggest LED video screen ever used 

at a major motor racing event, and one of the 

largest systems ever 

supplied by G-LEC 

— a 23-meter-by-13- 

meter assembly of 299 

Phantom30 frames 

which gave race-goers 

at Hockenheim Ring 

something akin to a 

ringside seat to the 

Formula 1 Santander 

Grand Prix. 

Some of those 

spectators were viewing 

the screen, positioned 

inside the track, from up to 400 meters 

away. But the screen was big enough to 

give them a television view of the race. 

Built specifically for the three day 

event, the screen needed to be easy to 

construct and de-rig, but also needed to 

withstand inclement weather, and the G- 

LEC screen withstood the strong winds 

and torrential rains that hit Hockenheim in 

the pre-race days. 

Using a system that comprised 52 PSUs, 

two S-Drives and two Folsom video converters, 

the video feed was supplied by the Ring 

as composite video over 150 meters of cable 

into the Folsom units. 

These then converted the signal DVI for the 

Phantom 30 S-Drives, which transmitted the LED 

drive signals over optical fiber daisy-chained to 

each of the 276 frames. Despite such a long feed, 

the video display performed as expected. 

“As well as showing the race on the day itself, 

the screen was also used with a solid white signal 

for announcements, timetables and weather 

forecasts,” said Lars Wolf, managing director of 

G-LEC. “I was delighted at how well the system 

performed, and we have received a lot of inquiries 

as a result. This is absolutely the best screen 

for outdoor events and I am sure we will see G- 

LEC used more and more at events of this type.” 

The freestanding truss structure, supplied 

and designed by Megaforce, included three 

levels of flooring on each side of the screen for 

special guests. The screen itself hung from a 

23-meter-wide single span truss frame. It was 

able to do so because it was 2.5 tons in weight, 

relatively light for a screen that size. 

With a level of brightness that exceeded 

the high-resolution screens used at the pit 

stops, the screen required no more than a 

100kW/150A power source. The structure as 

a whole was engineered to pass Germany’s 

TÜV standards, written with temporary building 

permits in mind. 

The project was managed for G-LEC by 

Achim Lehrke, who was assisted by Stephan 

Gerber, Markus Soroberto, Dario Santos and 

Stefan Jung. 

Video Helps All Points 

West Rock the East 


All Points West is named for a train station from yesteryear, 

not for the Statue of Liberty’s pointy crown. 

JERSEY CITY, NJ — Rumors about a 

“Coachella East” festival staged in 2008 

might have proved false, but only nominally 

so. The festival, held for three days 

in August at Liberty State Park, just behind 

the Statue of Liberty, was called “All 

Points West.” 

The event, organized by Coachella 

host Goldenvoice and AEG Live, included 

Radiohead, Jack Johnson and about 40 

other well-known indie bands. The festival’s 

name refers to an old Jersey rail yard, 

and the three stages were train names 

from the golden age of rail travel: Blue 

Comet, Bullet and Queen of the Valley. 

Video images from Upstage Video 

helped amplify the visuals, with images 

appearing on an 18-foot-by-32-foot video 

wall made from 48 Daktronics PST-12HD 

panels. Other gear onstage included two 

Toshiba 15-foot-by-23-foot 15mm video 

displays on stage left and right, five Sony 

DX50 triax camera chains and three New- 

Tek VT5 video switchers. 

There were also three mobile LED 

video screens in use: two Barco B10s, 

measuring nine feet by 12 feet, and one 

Daktronics ProTour 13mm screen measuring 

nine feet by 16 feet. 



NEWS 

Video and Lighting Loom Large in Singapore 

SINGAPORE — The Opening Ceremony 

at the Beijing Olympics may have taken 

the global spotlight this August (See story, 

cover), but there were other large spectacles 

fusing video and digital lighting in 

Asia last month, and one of the biggest 

took place just the next day, in celebration 

of Singapore’s National Day, Aug. 9. 

The National Day Parade marked the 

43rd year since Singapore gained its independence 

in 1965, beginning the tiny 

island state’s transformation from its 

humble origins to one of the world’s great 

cosmopolitan cities. 

The Show Company was the official 

LED Display & Multimedia Control Systems 

vendor for The 2008 National Day Celebrations 

and was appointed the task of providing 

everything to run the visual aspects 

of the show. Jo Gan, company director of 

The Show Company, specified the Barco’s 

T-20 outdoor LED display to meet the requirements 

of the show. 

‘‘Given the magnitude of the show 

and the stringent benchmarks associated 

with a national event like this, where the 

entire nation from the president, cabinet 

ministers to the common citizen is in attendance, 

the show demands nothing but 

the very best the industry can offer,” Gan 

said. In her view, “there was no alternative 

to a Barco system.’’ 

The T-20 system was installed on site 

and subjected to operational tests for 

two months prior to the show. “The stage 

was located just meters from the bay and 

we were wondering if drastic changes in 

temperature and humidity levels in our 

hot tropical weather might cause system 

stability issues.” Despite those concerns, 

the T-20 performed without fail through 

eight weeks of field testing through heat, 

humidity and occasional stormy weather. 

The Show Company’s 192 module T-20 

System was assembled quickly due to the 

large tile size and easy-assembly mechanics. 

Measuring 15.4 meters wide by 11.5 

meters high, it stood as the largest single 

daylight LED Display screen ever built for 

the National Day Parade celebrations. 

A Lesson in Streaming Media, Learned the Hard Way 

The recording studio at St. Olaf College faces fewer server 

capacity issues than it did in the past. 

NORTHFIELD, MN — St. Olaf College 

is relying on StreamGuys, Inc., a streaming 

media and content delivery provider, 

to manage its live and on-demand video 

streaming for live concerts featuring 

many of the college’s music ensembles, 

including the St. Olaf Choir and Sing For 

Joy, a weekly half-hour radio program. 

StreamGuys also hosts live and on-demand 

streams for daily chapel services, 

guest lectures and commencements 

among other events. 

St. Olaf is a liberal arts college founded 

in 1874 by the Evangelical Lutheran 

Church in America, which is known for its 

programs in music and academics. Jeffrey 

O’Donnell, the college’s director of 

broadcast media and the executive producer 

of Sing for Joy, turned to Stream- 

Guys after experiencing server capacity 

issues with a live concert stream that 

had an unusually high audience demand 

compared to previous events. 

“We learned the hard way,” O’Donnell 

said. “We held a big concert for a building 

re-dedication on campus and were using 

our own servers to stream the event live. 

There was so much demand for bandwidth 

that the entire campus network shut down. 

“I knew of StreamGuys from their reputation 

in the public radio industry, and 

our campus IT department found their 

pricing competitive and reasonable,” 

O’Donnell added. “They have focused 

specifically on our technical needs, and 

the server capacity they provide allows 

a large volume of users to access our 

streams around the world. They have 

eliminated any problems we had before 

in accommodating our online audience.” 

A Barco T-20 LED video display measuring 15.4 meters by 11.5 meters helped Singapore celebrate its 43 rd year of independence. 

Edinburgh Castle Animated with Projected Images 


of tiny dots of projected light out onto 

the architecture of the castle. This design 

gave the castle shapes a visual overlay of 

traditional Indian iconography, supplemented 

by a red lighting wash across the 

structure. 

Ashton also created a visual backdrop 

of Viking ships and warriors for 

the King’s Guard of Norway. They made 

their entrance amid smoke, flares and 

projections of two over-sized Viking 

styled sentries on both sides of the 

castle gates. 

The Queen Victoria School from 

Dunblane, founded to commemorate 

Scottish soldiers and sailors who fell 

in the Boer War, celebrated its centenary 

at the 2008 Tattoo with a display 

of piping, drumming and dancing. This 

was accompanied by projections of the 

school’s first pupil and its crest. 

More crests, taken from the castle itself, 

were projected during the Massed 

Military Band’s performance, which led 

to the show’s finale. 

The Evening Hymn precedes the 

Lone Piper who closes the show. For 

that performance, Ashton used images 

of the bronze friezes surrounding 

the shrine in the Scottish War Memorial, 

which is located at the top of the 

Castle. 

That frieze, designed by Morris and 

Alice Meredith Williams, contains about 

60 representations of men and women 

from all ranks and services who served 

in World War I. PIGI artwork created 

from the photos was projected across 

the castle walls, helping to make a closing 

statement. 

“The Edinburgh Military Tattoo is 

one of the highlights of E/T/C’s year, 

and of mine as a designer,” said Ashton. 

“It is a world class event.” The visual projections 

have become an annual part of 

the Tattoo since projected media were 

first added in 2005. 



59

VIDEO DIGerAtI 


The Master Raster Mapper 

Imagine this scenario. You are hired as the 

video director for a tour, and they want to 

use HD. You want to display different images 

on seven LED screens, and you are using 

a media server that, at best, supports two 

layers of 1080p resolution media. What would 

you do to make this work? There is a way, and 

it involves creatively mapping out the raster. 

The Effect 

VID 

The desired result is for each screen to 

display different content. How in the world 

can we do that? Start with the raster. The raster 

could be described as the usable area of a 

projection or image display. It is simply that 

— an easily divisible area of pixels that can 

be broken up into as many areas as necessary. 

Once the areas are defined and carefully 

plotted out, video clips can be dropped into 

each area and scaled according to the available 

pixels in that specific area. When it is rendered, 

all of the movie clips will play simultaneously 

as long as they are at the same frame 

rate, and the result will be the equivalent of 

layers of multiple video images. 

The Raster 

VID 

An HD 1080p raster refers to an area 

with 1920 x 1080 pixels of resolution and 

progressive scan (non-interlaced). Few media 

servers can play more than one or two 

layers of 1080p-rendered content currently, 

so the need for creatively breaking up the 

space can become an issue on large tours 

using multiple screens. But what goes into 

that usable area does not have to be all one 

image. It is possible to size your content 

accurately enough so that when the video 

signal is output to the display system, sections 

of the overall image are displayed on 

each screen instead of the entire image on 

every screen. This is a very creative use of 

the pixels being sent to the output. 

Advanced Pixel Mapping 

VID 

In a standard pixel mapping system, a 

single image would be projected on the 

display(s) with specific areas of the image 

aligned to fit precisely on the display. By 

using pixel mapping software, grids are 

drawn and the grid represents the usable 

areas of the image that are to be projected 

using the pixels. The example above differs 

from the typical pixel mapping application 

in that it doesn’t just map certain areas of 

one image to any number of displays. Instead, 

multiple images are mapped across 

multiple displays. But the multiple images 

are rendered into one image, so it actually 

appears that there are multiple images on 

multiple layers being output by the media 

server when the reality is that it is still only 

specific areas of one “image” being mapped 

to multiple displays. 

Content Preparation 

VID 

The secret to using pixel mapping in 

this fashion is in the rendering of the content. 

All of the content has to be carefully 

scaled so that once it is compiled into a 

single image, it doesn’t appear distorted 

or stretched. This is crucial because once 

the individual clip has been embedded 

into the master compilation, you won’t 

be able to edit its scale without affecting 

the entire image. The only option if you 

needed to adjust the scale of a specific 

piece of content would be to have each of 

Raster mapping in three easy steps: 

By VickieClaiborne 

the original individual pieces of content 

available and use one of them on another 

scaled layer on top of the original image. 

But that involves playing more than one 

layer of 1080p, which could cause the performance 

of the playback across the entire 

output to suffer, not to mention the very 

difficult task of keeping two layers completely 

in sync with each other while playing 

the same movie. 

Adding Live Video 

VID 

A huge advantage of using a media 

server is that most servers allow for live 

video to be input and mixed with the display. 

Since the media server was designed 

to put video at the controls of a DMX512 

lighting console, that means that the LD 

has the ability to output a live video input 

at any moment. Continued on page 63 

First, you divide the pixel map of the raster into separate areas. Here, the total 1920-by-1020 pixel raster area is divided into 

seven separate areas ranging in size from 400-by-300 pixels to 500-by-600 pixels. 

Next, you size the media to the areas. Here, the programmer has sized content to fit the pixel-mapped areas, taking care to 

avoid image distortion. 

The final result is a composite image of the original media. By saving these scaled layers as palettes or presets, the programmer 

can trigger live video on any screen in the multiple screen system at the touch of a button. 



FEEDING THE mACHINeS 


No Shirt, No Shoes? 

By BradSchiller 


No Way! 

Imagine this: I was working on a stadium 

concert for a big rock band in an indoor 

stadium. We had a well known LD and were 

just about to start the first rehearsal with the 

band. Our front of house technician came 

walking out to the consoles wearing only his 

shorts. With no shirt and no shoes he paraded 

across the floor and right up to the LD. Then 

he took his seat and waited for the rehearsal to 

start. I am sure you can guess the LD’s reaction; 

no one was surprised when the FOH tech was 

replaced just a few days into the tour. 

Presentation is Key 

FTM 

When you’re working on any production, 

it is important to understand what is expected 

of you. Sometimes this means dressing a 

certain way and other times it means turning 

off your cell phone at certain times. A professional 

lighting programmer should always 

present him or herself in the best manner 

possible. While this may seem obvious, I am 

afraid that to some people it is not. Unfortunately 

many programmers let their position 

of “control” go to their heads and they forget 

about how they are presenting themselves to 

the audience, client, LD, producer and others. 

The Dress Code 

FTM 

I have worked on many different types 

of productions from heavy metal concerts 

to church events and I have learned that the 

dress code varies. Some corporate events 

may ask you to wear certain clothing if you 

will be operating the console and mingling 

with the audience. Other formal events may 

even require a suit or tuxedo. Of course when 

you are working a rock concert you can pretty 

much wear whatever you want (as long as it 

includes a shirt and shoes), but I do not suggest 

wearing a “Shout at the Devil” Mötley 

Crüe shirt when you’re programming the 

church’s Easter pageant. 

Earlier this year I was working a large corporate 

event. I asked the client ahead of time 

if there were any dress requirements and I 

was told there weren’t. Even so, I made the 

choice on the show days to wear slacks and 

a nice button down shirt. Although I was not 

required to dress up, I felt it was important 

to match the attire of most of the attendees. 

Since I would be walking through the audience 

and standing where many of them could 

see me, I did not feel it would have been appropriate 

to wear shorts and a T-shirt. 

When a client does ask you to dress up 

even more than normal, you need to consider 

the cost as well as any problems that could 

occur. For instance, I was on a show where 

they were going to have all the crew wear tuxedos 

during the performance. The producers 

were going to rent tuxedos for all of us until 

they decided to save the money and asked us 

to wear standard “blacks.” (“Blacks” are black 

clothing with no print.) When dressing up for 

an event you need to consider if the clothing 

will interfere with your job. For example 

a necktie will usually get in the way of console 

operations and cufflinks may interfere 

with button pressing. In these situations you 

should explain to the client your reasoning 

for not fully complying with their request. 

Creative Clothing 

FTM 

Dave Rat is the audio FOH mixer for the 

Red Hot Chili Peppers and on a recent tour he 

came up with a cool idea. He decided to sell 

the back of his shirt during a concert! He is 

standing in the middle of the crowd for every 

show and figured that everyone behind 

him can see his shirt. So he created a page 

on EBay and sold the rights to the back of his 

shirt for one night. The winner could choose 

the message (certain wordings were banned), 

but they would still have to buy a ticket to the 

concert to see the shirt in person. I don’t suggest 

following 

his plan 

unless you get 

permission from the band or 

producers first. In a fun twist, I 

have seen many creative shirts 

with sayings like The Top 10 Answers 

to LD FAQs that you can 

find on the PLSN Web site. 

Avoid Distractions 

FTM 

In addition to being considerate 

with your attire, you 

should also always pay attention 

to non-lighting distractions. 

Most LDs will tell 

the programmer what to 

program and then go back 

to working on the plot for 

his next gig while the programmer 

is busy creating 

the look. This is acceptable 

for an LD, but a programmer 

should not spend 

spare time at a console 

working on another gig. 

I have heard stories of programmers who 

made an LD wait while he finished a phone 

call with a client for another show. Cell 

phones, e-mails, Blackberries, video games 

and the like should not interfere with your 

programming tasks. You are being paid for 

Top 10 Answers to LD FAQs 

10. No, I cannot get anything signed for you. 

9. Yes, I do know what all the knobs and buttons do 

(And yes, it took a long time to learn). 

8. No, I don’t know where the next show is 

(I’m not sure where I am right now). 

7. Yes, the “No Drinks” signs actually do apply to you! 

6. Yes, I travel with the band and talk to them every day. 

(Whether I want to or not). 

5. No, I’m not going to tell the band you’re here. 

(You know them, you call them). 

4. No, I don’t know where your seat is. 

3. No, I don’t know exactly how many watts we’re using. 

(We have more important @$!& to figure out). 

2. No, we don’t do birthdays, anniversaries or dedications. 

(After all, this isn’t a Bar Mitzvah!). 

1. Why would I want to take you backstage? 

the gig you are on, so you should give it 

your full attention. 

But It’s Really Boring! 

FTM 

When you’re running the lights on the 

third day of a corporate event, listening to 

doctors drone on about the latest medications 

might make you want to play a DVD 

on your laptop or surf the Internet and 

read PLSN’s breaking news. But you need 

to consider whether the distractions will 

cause you to miss a cue and consider who is 

watching you. If your FOH riser is backed up 

against the wall and no one can see, then 

surfing the Internet might be okay (check 

with your client first). However if you have 

audience members surrounding you, then 

it might be best to turn off the Simpson’s 

DVD and look interested in the production. 

Plus, if you happen to miss an important 

cue because you were not paying attention, 

then you will likely have lots of time to surf 

the Internet at home because you will not 

be working much longer. 

Common Sense Pays Off 

FTM 

Hopefully this is common sense for most 

of you. If it has given you new ideas then I am 

pleased to have helped. The important thing 

to remember is to act and dress as you would 

expect an employee of yours to do. Showing 

respect for your environment, audience, 

clients and LD are of the utmost importance 

when working as an automated lighting programmer. 

And remember, there is always 

something magical that happens when you 

allow your own light to shine. 

Brad Schiller can be reached at brads@plsn.com. 



THE BIZ 

Lighting Up Education 

The next time you see projection video 

in an entertainment venue, think of it 

as also mentoring a student in elementary 

or high school. That’s because the projection 

has been discovering potentially vast 

new fields to till in the education sector. 

The penetration of digital, widescreen, HD 

and other advanced projection technology 

into education environments are difficult 

to measure precisely but anecdotal 

evidence suggests it has become a huge 

trend. The International Society for Technology 

in Education (ISTE) estimated that 

at its annual convention in San Antonio 

the 40 projection systems manufacturers 

that exhibited there last July had doubled 

in a little over five years. 

Doing the Math 

BIZ 

John Glad, product manager at Hitachi’s 

business group, says that projection 

in the education market now accounts 

for 70 percent of the group’s revenues, up 

from about 30 percent a decade ago, with 

most of the growth coming in the last five 

years. At an average of $800 to $1,000 for 

a 2,200- to 3,000-lumens projector, and 

some school districts putting bids out for 

as many as 500 units, the numbers are significant. 

Glad says that schools often synergize 

their buying power into collectives 

in search of high-volume pricing, and the 

growth in the education projection market 

has significantly increased the number 

of companies making products for 

that sector, which adds to the downward 

pressure on pricing. 

Phoenix-based Troxell Communications, 

the largest privately held audiovisual 

distributor in the U.S., specializes 

in educational installations and has seen 

the level of projection in school environments 

increase steadily in the last decade, 

accelerating in the last couple of years. 

“The classroom is like every other kind of 

environment — it’s becoming interactive 

out of necessity, and projection systems 

are critical to that,” observes Dave Johnson, 

Troxell’s eastern regional zone manager. 

“Once school administrators see 

that you can engage an entire class of 40 

students looking at a projected slide of a 

plant cell on a 50-inch screen instead of 

having to line up to look through a microscope 

one by one for 10 seconds, there’s 

no turning back.” 

projection into every one of its classrooms, 

Johnson estimates. “One thing 

that we’re seeing is that the projectors, 

which used to tend to be on carts that 

could be moved from one classroom to 

another, are now being permanently 

mounted in classrooms,” he says. “It’s 

another way you can tell the trend is 

becoming entrenched, so the money 

has to be there one way or another.” 

Networking capability is increasingly 

being requested by school districts, 

both because the projection systems 

are increasingly becoming extensions of 

server-based learning content systems 

rather than closed systems within a single 

classroom and because a LAN’s ability to 

monitor usage and bulb life offers administrators 

a way to add value through costeffectiveness. 

Manufacturers are also 

touting the cost-effectiveness of placing 

bulbs and screen filters in easily accessible 

locations on the projector to minimize 

maintenance time. 

A Higher AV Standard 

BIZ 

But while the decision to implement 

advanced projection in schools is a financial 

one at its core, the trend is also 

being driven by a strong cultural force: 

when there’s a 52-inch high-definition 

plasma screen in the home, the standard-issue 

27-inch CRT still found in 

most classrooms looks dowdy by comparison. 

It’s the same dynamic that has 

driven projection, along with better 

audio and automated lighting, in the 

house-of-worship market. “Once you experience 

these kinds of systems in entertainment 

venues, it creates a demand 

for them in other markets,” says Scott 

Walker, CEO at Waveguide Consulting, 

an Atlanta systems designer that works 

often with university clients. “It’s not 

unusual in the last couple of years to 

go to a trade show like InfoComm and 

see educators and entertainment venue 

owners looking at the exact same projection 

systems.” 

Though the metal halide-illuminated 

projection technology currently in use 

will likely stay dominant for years, one 

alternative technology that is starting 

to be a factor is interactive whiteboards: 

the typically 77- to 82-inch surface is 

actually an active tablet-type interface 

for a computer that routes the image to 

an ultra-short-throw projector mounted 

above the whiteboard. This configuration 

eliminates shadows found in conventional 

projection. 

The education market promises to 

be huge market for projection in coming 

years. How the credit crunch will impact 

capital budgets for school districts 

remains to be seen, and that impact will 

be considerable in some regions like Nevada 

and Florida, which are already deferring 

maintenance, let alone buying 

1280 X 900-resolution screens. But once 

the economy is over that hump, it will 

be looking at a significantly changed infrastructure 

in education, and one with 

plenty of opportunities. 

Dan Daley can be reached at ddaley@plsn.com. 

The Master 

Raster Mapper 

Continued from Video Digerati on page 60 

You might be thinking, “Yes, I know 

this.” But have you thought about using 

live video images in your pixel 

mapping? It is entirely possible. Using 

the pixel map, you simply need 

to create a layer on top of the raster 

image for each of the usable “screen” 

areas in the raster and scale it to fit 

each of the screen areas in the pixel 

map. By saving these scaled layers as 

palettes or presets, this provides the 

ability to trigger live video on any 

screen in the multiple screen system 

at the touch of a button. (Okay, two 

buttons.) 

These are just a few of the advantages 

of rendering a single piece of 

content from multiple clips if the intention 

is to play it back at HD resolution. 

As most professional media 

servers begin to adapt to HD content, 

the need for multiple layers of 

images requires the programmer to 

be creative in how those images are 

physically managed. Any time a single 

piece of content can be used for 

display, it makes the workload easier 

on the media server, not to mention 

the programmer. Also, by using 

a single piece of content instead of 

many layers of images playing simultaneously 

means that the playback 

performance will be optimum and 

as the client expects. And everyone 

likes a happy client. 

Vickie Claiborne is a trainer at PRG. She 

can be reached at vclaiborne@plsn .com. 

Installed, Not on Wheels 

BIZ 

Projection systems are less expensive 

than a decade ago. They are also 

brighter, easier to operate and more reliable, 

thanks to refinements and economies 

of scale derived from commercial 

applications like corporate and product 

presentations. Nonetheless, they’re 

still relatively costly for school districts 

that depend to a significant extent on 

property taxes, which have been spiraling 

in the wake of residential foreclosures 

and other credit-crunch fallout. 

It’s costing a single county in Georgia 

about $13 million to install networked 



63

FOCUS ON FUNDAmeNtALS 


Streaming DMX 


Taming the Cable Monster 

“Oh no, it wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty 

killed the beast.” — Robert Armstrong as 

Carl Denham in the original King Kong (1933). 


There’s a new movie in the making that 

will soon be playing in theatres and 

performing arts spaces everywhere. It’s 

about a new protocol that goes up against a 

monster bundle of cable. The winners in this 

battle are the techies and end users of large 

lighting systems. 

The movie is actually a sequel. The original 

version came out in 1986 when 0-10V analog 

control was getting out of hand. Lighting 

systems went from tens of dimmers to hundreds 

of channels of control, not only for dimming, 

but also for automated lighting. What 

once was a very manageable bundle of cable 

because a huge ugly beast that terrorized 

roadies and techies everywhere. Along came 

DMX and suddenly there was a new hero who 

conquered the analog cable bundle beast. In 

its place was a single twisted pair that could 

control up to 512 channels — enough for 

even the larger lighting systems of the day. 

But as we all know, in the movies, even 

when the evil villain dies that’s no guarantee 

they’re gone forever. And that’s why 

we have sequels. 

Cable Monster — The Sequel 

FOF 

In this case, the monster cable bundle 

started rearing its ugly head again in the 

late 1990s when lighting systems reached 

epic proportions. But the thing went positively 

steroidal after 1998 when the monster’s 

sidekicks, the DMX-controlled media 

server and the RGB LED luminaire, entered 

the stage. Suddenly we went from hundreds 

of control channels to thousands 

of control channels. The single twisted 

pair was overthrown by a massive bundle 

of DMX universes and the monster cable 

bundle was back in power. 

Fortunately 

for us, the smart 

people in the 

Controls Protocol 

Working 

Group of ESTA 

saw the proverbial 

writing on the 

LED wall. The cavalry 

mounted and rode 

to meet the monster 

head on. Several years 

into the battle, ACN was 

born and the industry had 

a standard by which many 

DMX512 universes could be 

transmitted over a single cable. 

They had slain the cable monster 

once again. Or had they? 

In an unexpected plot twist, 

manufacturers stayed on the sidelines 

in droves while the ACN train pulled out of 

the station. While it’s too early to say that 

few of them are on board with ACN, it’s not 

too early to say there’s not a lot of evidence 

to the contrary (other than ETC’s Eos console, 

which outputs ACN). Meanwhile, several third 

parties built their own platforms to slay their 

own cable monsters by streaming DMX over 

Ethernet with a proprietary protocol. Some 

of these solutions including Artistic Licence’s 

ArtNet, Pathway Connectivity’s Pathport, 

ETC’s Net2, Strand’s ShowNet and probably a 

few more. 

Streaming to the Rescue 

FOF 

So, while there are plenty of white knights 

ready to slay cable monsters everywhere, 

there is no single solution that plays well with 

all systems. If you were on a big job with lots 

of nodes, it would be much easier if you could 

mix and match across manufacturers. With 

proprietary protocols, that’s not an option. 

But the folks at ESTA aren’t satisfied to sit 

on the sidelines and watch the parade go by. 

Instead, they re-mounted their trusty steeds 

and they are now working on a standard to 

stream DMX over ACN. 

The draft version of BSR E1.31 — Lightweight 

streaming protocol for transport of 

DMX512 over ACN is out for public review, and 

it promises to slay the monster cable bundle 

once and for all (or at least until the next sequel 

— Streaming DMX512 Versus ACN: The 

Cable Monster’s Revenge). As the title says, 

this protocol will allow the transmission of 

DMX512 data over an Ethernet network using 

part of the ACN suite of protocols. It can also 

send and receive RDM data as well. 

New Cables, Old Gear 

FOF 

The advantage of streaming DMX512 

over Ethernet is that an Ethernet network is 

a much bigger pipe than a DMX512 network. 

Ethernet can handle dozens and dozens of 

DMX512 universes across a single cable, 

which is how the monster cable bundle is finally 

put to rest. You’ve heard of Cat5 cable, 

no doubt. A Cat5 cable can support data 

rates of 100 megabits per second, which can 

reliably run up to 200 DMX512 universes, or 

1,000 megabits per second, which can run 

up to 2,000 DMX512 universes. Cat5e cable 

is a better choice for 1,000BASE-T, or “gigabit” 

Ethernet, which is what we call Ethernet 

running at 1,000 megabits per second. 

The disadvantage is that Ethernet networks 

can only be run a maximum of about 

300 feet before they run out of gas. Ethernet 

also has a star topology, meaning that a cable 

has to be run to each device, negating the advantage 

of slaying the monster cable bundle. 

The best of both worlds is to use a combination 

of DMX512 and Ethernet infrastructure. 

We start by using an Ethernet network 

over which we stream DMX512, but then we 

change it back to DMX512 before we distribute 

it to all the devices on the network. This 

allows us to take advantage of off-the-shelf 

hardware like routers, switches, hubs and Wi- 

Fi, but we still get the advantages of DMX512, 

the biggest of which is probably the fact 

that there are millions and millions of dollars 

worth of DMX512-compatible gear already in 

use every day. We don’t have to trash our gear 

to take advantage of the new technology, 

as was largely the case in the original movie 

when DMX512 supplanted analog control. 

The Beast — R.I.P. 

FOF 

For these reasons, DMX512 will probably 

be around for a long, long time while 

the monster cable beast might rest in peace 

for as far into the future as our crystal ball 

will allow us to see. Is streaming DMX512 

over Ethernet for everybody? Not necessarily. 

But for applications where there are multiple 

universes of DMX512, like the Opening 

Ceremony of the Games of the XXIX 

Olympiad in Beijing where over 2,300 

DMX512-controlled devices used more than 

45,000 parameters — the equivalent of 88 

DMX512 universes — it’s a an Oscar-winning 

technology. 

What does a bundle of 88 DMX512 cables 

look like? Thanks to Ethernet, we may never 

know. 

Stream an e-mail to the author — rcadena@ 

plsn.com. 


Olympics Designers 

Share Their Insights 


make this project run smoothly. 

“Personally, this has been an amazing 

experience. Even though culturally China 

is very different from many other countries 

I have worked in, the level of knowledge 

and willingness to learn has been quite 

refreshing. Everyone I have come in contact 

with on this project has been friendly, 

caring and above all most professional. 

I’d come back to China in a heartbeat to 

work on another project…if only for the 

fantastic food!” 

Beijing Olympics 

Opening Ceremony: 

CREW 

Lighting Designer: Sha Xiao Lan 

Programmers: Feng Bin, Wu Guoquing, 

Huang Tao 

Control System and Broadcast Lighting: 

Paul Collison 

Followspot Director: Xiao Lihe 

Lighting Assistants: Quan Xiaojie, Zhang 

Wei, Wang Zhiyi, Wang Tong, Ma Jiebo 

Artistic Director: Zhang Yimou 

Scenic Designer: Mark Fisher 

Lighting Production Companies: CCTV – 

Central China Television in conjunction with 

Quan Jiang, Shang Hai Television, Gong Ti, 

Bei Ao, Feng Shang Shi Ji 

Projection Production Company: Leifull 

Creative: Andre Verleger 

Projection Operators: Dennis Gardner, 

Stephen Kellaway 

Assistants: Zhang Shi Qian, Steven Cai, Zach 

Technical Realization: Advanced Communication 

Equipment Co Ltd. 

Axon Media Server Programmer: 

Dennis Garner 

Projection Design: Scott Chmielewski 

Manufacturer Support: Mark Ravenhill, Vice 

President of Television & Theatre Lighting; 

Søren Storm, Managing Director of Martin 

Singapore; Claus Jensen, Product & Application 

Specialist (all of Martin Professional); 

Zach Peletz (High End Systems) 

GEAR 

980 Martin MAC 2000 Wash 

162 Martin MAC 2000 Wash XB 

112 Clay Paky Alpha Wash 

308 Vari*Lite 3500 Spot 

316 Vari*Lite 3000 Spot 

180 Vari*Lite 3500 Wash 

12 High End Show Gun 

200+ PR Lighting Century Color 2500 and 

XL Wash Fixtures 

20 Ushio 2K Xenon Followspots 

16 Kupo Super Sol 3K Xenon Followspots 

204 PureLight City Color 

32 FineArt LED PAR Cans 

46 Sliver Star LED banks 

3 MA Lighting grandMA Full-size Consoles 

plus 3 backups 

2 MA Lighting grandMA Light Consoles 

Visualization Software: E.S.P Vision, MA3D 

Visualization Hardware: MA Media 

PCw/ Nvidia Geforce 8800GTX 

HP Pro-Curve 2626 Field Switches 

Main Switch HP Pro-Curve 8212zl 

Kilometers of Multi Mode Fiber 

110 High End Systems Axon MediaServers 

86 Christie Roadster S+20K Projectors 

with H.E.S Orbital Head 

63 Christie CP2000-ZX Cinema Projectors 

High End Wholehog 3 Control System 


The fireworks display was designed by Cai Guo-Qiang, who teamed up with pyro expert Phil Grucci to create the 29 aerial “footsteps” that led to the “Bird’s Nest” from Tiananmen Square. 

NEWS 



65

To Advertise in Marketplace, Contact: Greg Gallardo • 702.932.5585 • gregg@plsn.com 

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A.C.T Lighting 29 818.707.0884 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-100 

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Applied Electronics 37, 55 800.883.0008 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-105 

Atlanta Rigging Systems 40 404.355.4370 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-107 

Bulbtronics 27 800.227.2852 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-110 

Chauvet Lighting 7, 45 800.762.1084 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-111 

Checkers Industrial Prod. 22 800.438.9336 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-112 

Christie Lites 64 214-637-3535 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-279 

City Theatrical Inc. 10 800.230.9497 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-114 

Clay Paky 21 609.812.1564 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-115 

Coemar C3 39 0376.77521 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-295 

Cooling & Power Rentals/ CPR 4 888.871.5503 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-216 

Creative Stage Lighting Co., Inc. 12 518.251.3302 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-118 

Daktronics 39 800.843.5843 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-217 

Doug Fleenor Design 32 888.436.9512 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-119 

ADVERTISER’S INDEX 

COMPANY PG# PH URL 

Precise Corporate Staging 41 480.759.9700 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-207 

PRG 13, 33, 61 845.567.5700 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-275 

Pyrotek 57 905.479.9991 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-196 

R&M Materials Handling 27 800.955.9967 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-140 

Robe Lighting s.r.o. 5 954.615.9100 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-141 

Roc-Off Productions 23 877.978.2437 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-142 

Scharff Weisberg 16 212.582.3860 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-174 

Selecon 56 410.638.0385 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-239 

SGM 2, 3 +39 – 0721 – 47 64 77 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-271 

Stage Tops USA/ World Show International 46 818.765.7527 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-261 

Staging Dimensions 25 866.591.3471 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-145 

Strong Entertainment 32 800.262.5016 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-142 

Swisson 7 805.443.7834 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-242 

Syncrolite 11 214.350.7696 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-176 

Techni-Lux C2 407.857.8770 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-147 

Tyler Truss Systems 19 317.485.5465 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-148 

USHIO 47 (800) 838-7446 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-280 

Xtreme Structures & Fabrication 20 903.473.1100 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-159 

Edirol by Roland 58 800.380.2580 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-155 

Elation/ American DJ C4 866.245.6726 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-121 

ESTA 60 212.244.1505 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-123 

Full Sail 54 800.226.7625 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-124 

GE Specialty Lighting 9 800.435.2677 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-167 

High End Systems 15 512.836.2242 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-126 

Leprecon/ CAE 24 810.231.9373 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-130 

Leviton 17 800.736.6682 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-230 

Light Source, The 6 803.547.4765 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-305 

Lightronics 1 757.486.3588 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-132 

Martin Professional C1, 31 954.858.1800 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-135 

Mega Lite 23 210.684.2600 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-202 

Milos Structural Systems 14 800.411.0065 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-186 

Ocean Optics 65 727.545.0741 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-137 

Osram Sylvania 51 888.677.2627 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-139 

Philips Lighting 63 800.555.0050 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-187 

PR Lighting/ Pearl River 35 253.395.9494 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-138 

MARKET PLACE 

4 Wall Entertainment 66 702.263.3858 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-181 

Arena Drapery Rental 67 404.713.3742 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-221 

City Theatrical Inc. 67 800.230.9497 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-114 

DK Capital 66 517.347.7844 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-151 

Light Parts 67 512-727-2885 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-278 

Light Source Inc. 67 248.685.0102 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-180 

Lightronics 66 757.486.3588 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-132 

New York Case/Hybrid Case 67 800.346.4638 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-298 

On The Mark Creative 67 818.294.1000 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-277 

Production Toolbox 66 954.463.4820 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-269 

RC4 Wireless Dimming/ Theatre Wireless 66 866.258.4577 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-153 

Roadshow 66 800.861.3111 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-154 

Special FX Lighting 66 435.635.0239 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-161 

Theatrical Lighting Systems, Inc./ TLS 66 866.254.7803 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-157 

Upstaging, Inc. 67 815.899.9888 http://plsn.hotims.com/18519-158 



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If you think classifieds 

don’t work... 

why are you 

reading this? 

Call Greg at 

702.932.5585 

2008 SEPTEMBER PLSN 67

LD-AT-LARGE 


Heavy Metal Thunder 

By NookSchoenfeld 

I’ve been having a lot of fun 

this year doing something 

I don’t often do — lighting 

heavy metal tours. While it’s 

not my favorite kind of music, I 

am having a blast. I mean, what 

other genre of music enables 

you to hit 160 cues in a threeminute 

song? 

Every year I am hired to design 

total productions for music 

festivals. This summer I designed 

a touring metal festival called 

Mayhem. Lots of up-and-coming 

rock artists showcased their talents 

before the bands Disturbed 

and Slipknot hit the main stage 

after the sun went down. When I 

design these festival shows I usually 

have to speak to LDs from all 

the bands and then design something 

that everyone is happy 

with. It was helpful that I already 

had spoken with Disturbed and 

had been asked to program their 

lights for the upcoming year-long 

tour. Now I just needed to talk to 

Slipknot’s designer so we could 

design something. The problem 

was that they did not have an LD 

— or a production manager. 

Designing the Rig 

LD@L 

The first thing I had to do was 

to figure out if we could afford 

any video elements. I tried to 

talk the tour sponsors into using 

some Martin LC Series low-res 

LED display panels. From 30 feet 

away they look great. The plan 

was to use them for all the bands 

to play media content and then 

advertise the sponsors between 

acts. But they nixed it, so I went 

back to thinking about 1980s rock rigs. 

I did have a budget before I sat down to 

draw up my ideas, which made life easier. 

COMING NEXT 

MONTH... 

LDI At-Show Issue! 

The year’s most 

widely distributed and 

anticipated issue. 

Automated Lighting 

Buyers Guide explores 

the workhorses of the 

industry. 

Production Profile: 

Intocable 

Mega production from 

down south puts lighting 

and video on the road. 

I love the old huge PAR rigs the metal bands used to 

have, but they’re not cheap anymore. 

I like to use a lot of lights for rock bands. 

They don’t have to be expensive moving 

lights, but a lot of them with a 30-foot trim 

height works great. The next thing I did 

was look into using a bunch of moving LED 

fixtures. These things can throw some light 

these days and they move incredibly fast. 

I got about 70 modified Martin MAC 300s 

with LEDs out of Chicago’s Upstaging Inc. I 

chose to put bunches of them in traveling 

pods that could roll in and snap into place. 

Plus, one multi-cable can power 24 of the 

things. 

I used these fixtures in place of PARs. I 

love the old huge PAR rigs the metal bands 

used to have, but they’re not cheap anymore. 

To use PARs, you need massive amounts of 

cable and dimmers, building power, guys 

to put it up, and hours to focus each light, 

everyday. It’s just not economical to run a 

festival that way. Korn proved that last year 

on their own festival tour. The lighting crew 

went to work every morning and didn’t get 

a break until the headliner hit the stage. My 

guys loaded in at 9 a.m. and had little to do 

from noon until load out. 

For the remaining lights, I put bunches 

of Robe Color Spots and Coemar Infinity 

Washes into Swing Wing truss and scattered 

them around. The secret to making it 

look big is to use a bunch of metal. Truss is 

cheap. If you spread your lighting fixtures 

a few feet apart, you can make 25 moving 

lites look a whole lot bigger than it is. 

Spotlights 

LD@L 

I love calling spotlight cues and using 

them in place of a front truss. Unfortunately, 

the two headline acts on this bill 

would rather never use them. But they are 

okay with being lit by lights on the front 

truss. So I came up with a viable solution. 

I hung 13 Martin MAC 2000 Washes from 

the front truss to front light the band and 

set, and then I overhung some spot seats 

with another four MACs. I put handles on 

them and disconnected the pan and tilt 

motors. I now had spotlights controlled 

by my console and the band was not 

blinded like a deer in the headlights. 

Focus Time 

LD@L 

Focus? There is none. We load into outdoor 

amphitheaters and the show starts 

before the sun goes down. Each band wants 

a house drape to block their set during set 

change, so focusing during set change is not 

an option. So I put the majority of lights into 

Swing Wing truss and designed something 

where the rigging points would be the same 

in every gig. By not hanging each fixture every 

day, they remain in the same place, hung 

at the same angle every gig. We focused 

one night during rehearsals and have not 

touched a moving light focus since. 

Backdrops 

LD@L 

With no video, every band has to have 

at least one backdrop. You can count on 

this just as you can count on the 

fact that each singer will use 

the word mother f@#$%r every 

time they talk to their audience. 

I ended up with three separate 

traveler tracks and a bunch of 

kabuki solenoids. For reliability, 

I ended up renting solenoids 

made by Chabuki, a “little guy” 

with his own company from the 

Northwest, who guaranteed his 

gear to work every night. They 

performed flawlessly. 

Visual Assault 

LD@L 

Two weeks before the tour 

started, I got a call from my old 

friend Loz Upton. He had been 

hired by Slipknot. This is great 

since we are friends, but we 

have never worked together. 

Loz loves the rig, but wants to 

add his own package of floor 

lights and set lights. This is 

wonderful because it will make 

his show look different than 

mine. I already have a bunch of 

MAC 700 Wash fixtures and extra 

strobes for Disturbed. Now 

Loz adds in bunches of Color 

Kinetics Color Blaze LED strip 

lights as well as strobes and 

movers to his massive set. All 

these fixtures face the crowd 

head on. 

It’s quick to see that the two 

separate bands have distinctly 

opposite looking shows. We 

both chose MA Lighting grand- 

MA consoles, but that was the 

only similarity. Disturbed’s light 

show was all written in tight 

sequential cue lists with lots of 

extra bump cues for flashes and 

eye candy. Everything was well scripted 

and tight. I hired Rob Smith to direct 

the show because of his pinpoint timing 

and the fact that the band would be on 

tour for a year and I can’t commit to that 

schedule. 

Loz didn’t have much programming 

time with Slipknot. He had three days to 

throw his show together so he chose the 

punt path. He had a programmer come 

out and help him get started. But after 

a week, that didn’t pan out and the kid 

quit, leaving Loz in a lurch. So I helped my 

buddy out and ended up cleaning up the 

programming he was left with and getting 

his cues set up correctly. 

The best way to describe Slipknot’s 

show is that it is a visual assault. The band 

desired a flashy bright show where they 

could see the audience most of the time. 

So Loz placed Mole Fey blinders all over 

the place. He also pointed all the strobes 

and heaps of Color Blazes directly at the 

audience. We wrote about five different 

looks for each song and relied on about 

40 variations of cues to overwhelm the 

audience’s visual senses. He did exactly 

that. For the first time, I left a heavy metal 

show where my ears didn’t ring, but my 

eyes hurt. 

Nook Schoenfeld is a freelance lighting 

designer. He can be contacted at 

nschoenfeld@plsn.com.

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