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Buyers Guide: Fog Machines, page 36 

PROJECTION 

CONNECTION 

Starts on page 41 

Vol. 11.10 

NOV 

2010 

LDI 2010: High Density Technology 

LDI 2010 is officially in the history books, and unofficially in the record books, as possibly the show 

with the most technology per square foot. The featured attractions were no surprise — LEDs, advances in 

consoles and media servers, automated lighting, video display panels, plus wireless, battery power, iPhone 

apps, and more — but there was plenty to see and much optimism about the industry. See the full report on 

page 24. 

Tait Towers and FTSI Announce Partnership; Tait 

Technologies Opens Rentals Business in Europe 

LITITZ, PA — Tait Towers and Las Vegas-based 

Fisher Technical Services, Inc. (FTSI) announced an 

agreement to share the resources and technologies 

developed by both firms, including integrated staging 

and automation technologies. Each company 

will continue to operate in their current locations 

with their current staff, and will continue to serve 

both existing and future clients without interruption. 

Tait Towers has been utilizing the FTSI “Navigator” 

control system on projects including the recent 

tours for Bon Jovi, Lady Gaga, and Roger Waters’ The 

Wall, giving Tait Towers the ability to equip clients 

with systems that are able to coordinate and control 

deck machinery, chain hoists, video walls and 

other motion effects while simultaneously sharing 

information with lighting and video systems. 

“Navigator continues to allow us to do things that 

would have otherwise been impossible,” said Adam Davis, 

VP of Tait Towers. “Tait and FTSI will be able to continue 

our culture of innovation and push the boundaries 

for the entire industry.” 

tuce yasak 

The 10th Annual Parnelli 

Awards Honors “Baja” 

Fletcher, Bornhorst and 

Other Luminaries 

LAS VEGAS — The 10th Annual 

Parnelli Awards ceremony, held Oct. 

22, 2010 at the Rio All Suites Hotel 

& Casino, paid tribute to engineers 

who developed moving lights (Jim 

Bornhorst of Showco, Vari-Lite and 

PRG) and the powered speaker (Al 

Siniscal of A1 Audio). Also honored 

was Randy “Baja” Fletcher, the son of 

a coal miner, who grew up to master 

something even more complex than 

lighting and sound gear — the people 

who make great shows happen. 

The awards dinner chronicled the 

decades Fletcher spent with Brooks & 

Dunn, who were on hand to present 

Baja’s Lifetime Achievement Award, 

and also included a look back at the 

technological advances made by Parnelli 

Audio Innovator Siniscal and Parnelli 

Visionary Jim Bornhorst, with a 

recap of past Parnelli winners as well. 

For full details and a complete list 

of winners, turn to page 31. 

GLP Announces Changes 

in North American Sales 

Distribution 

TORRANCE, CA — GLP (German 

Light Products) Inc., which recently 

announced representation agreements 

with regional sales managers 

Rick Fallon (East Coast), Carl Wake 

(Central) and Ed Cheeseman (West 

Coast), said it will be wholly responsible 

for the distribution of the full GLP 

product line in North America. 

That includes GLP’s Impression 

range of LED moving head fixtures, 

which had been distributed in the 

Americas by Elation Professional. GLP 

Inc. opened its North American operations 

in 2009. 

continued on page 5 continued on page 6 

18 

38 

46 

Lasers Turn Up 

the Voltage 

New laser effects from Lightwave 

International include the appearance 

of a layer of electricity that crawls all 

over Ghostland Observatory’s performing 

duo, Thomas Turner and 

Aaron Behrens. The band’s current 

tour, in support of their just-released 

album, Codename: Rondo, includes 

16 lasers. Synched to the electronic 

beat of the music, they create an immersive 

visual experience for fans in 

venues small and large. And the band 

can take their laser show on the road 

using only two passenger vans. 

For more, turn to page 40. 

XLTV vs. Wiseman 

The high-stakes legal battle between 

XL Touring Video and its former 

CEO, John Wiseman, founder 

of Chaos Visual Productions. 

Company 411 

SHS Global, a worldwide businessto-business 

provider of pre-owned 

entertainment lighting technology. 

The Biz 

The production capabilities within 

houses of worship have grown to 

be sophisticated — and versatile. 

PRO LIGHTING SPACE 

www.ProLightingSpace.com/join

WHAT’S HO T 

WHAT’S HO T 

www.plsn.com 

P R O J E C T I O N , L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S 

Production Profile 

LD Jason Bullock added his own brand of spontaneous 

visual combustion to the flame-spouting oil derricks on 

the Mayhem Festival’s set for Korn. 

LD-at-Large 

22 

Being a hack designer has two major drawbacks. First, your 

crew loses all respect for you. Second, Nook exposes your 

shortcomings in LD-at-Large. 

52 

novemBER 2010 

C o n T e n T S 

Features 

18 XLTV vs. John Wiseman 

A look at the full jury trial brought by XL 

Touring Video against its former CEO, 

John Wiseman, founder of Chaos Visual 

Productions. 

24 LDI Show Report 

LEDs, media servers, automated truss, 

lasers, iPhone apps and people flying 

through the air on harnesses — here’s the 

latest snapshot of an industry in motion. 

31 The Parnelli Awards 

Celebrity presenters Brooks & Dunn, Paul 

Anka and others made the 10 th Annual 

Parnelli Awards the biggest tribute yet to 

all those who keep advancing the state-ofthe-art 

in lighting, video, staging and audio. 

36 Buyers Guide 

Fog, haze and smoke can all add impact to 

a visual design. Here’s a look at some of the 

latest gear options. 

38 Company 411 

It’s the classic business opportunity: A glut 

here, a shortage there. SHS Global helps 

buyers and sellers of pre-owned gear find 

each other. 

40 Feature: Ghostland Observatory 

For Ghostland Observatory, lasers aren’t 

there to enhance the show visuals, they are 

the show visuals, electrifying arenas to the 

beat of the music. 

Columns 

4 Editor’s Note 

The perfect trade show’s only flaw is that it 

will never exist. 

45 Video Digerati 

VersaTubes: Totally tubular low-res looks. 

46 The Biz 

The gap in production values between 

theatres and houses of worship has almost 

disappeared. 

48 Feeding the Machines 

Some people get so good a programming 

they can do it with their eyes closed — or 

at least with the “Blind” key activated. 

Departments 

5 News 

7 In Brief 

7 Letters to the Editor 

8 Calendar 

12 International News 

15 On the Move 

16 Product News 

20 Showtime 

41 Projection Connection 

42 Projection Connection News 

44 Projection Connection Product 

News 

Ad info:http:// foh.hotims.com

TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION 

EDITOR’S NOTE 

P R O J E C T I O N L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S 

By RichardCadena 

The Zen of the Perfect Trade Show 

The Publication of Record for the Lighting, 

Staging and Projection Industries 

Publisher 

Terry Lowe 

tlowe@plsn.com 

Every year, the “lumenati” (the enlightened 

members of the lighting industry) 

come to the Big Trade Show (the 

BTS), hungering for a taste of the latest 

technology, thirsting for a long drink from 

the well of new products, and they go home 

with aching heads and sore feet. Next year, 

we all promise, we’ll all sing the praises of the 

BTS, but this year we’ve had our fill. Then we 

all beat a hasty retreat to the comfort of our 

stacks of virtual paper and our grand To-Do 

lists. 

But there is a better way. While it was 

still fresh in our minds — though our minds 

have been rendered soft and mushy from 

the slate of trade show activity — we journeyed 

to the mountain top (metaphorically 

speaking, of course — everyone knows we 

just Googled it) to meditate on the mystery 

of The Perfect Trade Show and how to 

achieve it. It turns out that the mystery is the 

door to understanding. In other words, it’s a 

Zen thing. Here are the keys to the mystery: 

The Perfect Trade Show has no 

beginning and no end. 

The Perfect Trade Show... 

...has no beginning and no end. There is 

never a right time to leave the office, and 

there is never enough time to see everything 

at a trade show. Can’t we just eliminate 

those two small details? 

...is infinitesimal in size but infinite in space. 

Trade shows are so spread out that it takes 

too much of your valuable time to traipse 

across the show floor to get from one side 

to the other. Yet we love our massive booths 

with obscene displays of vast numbers of 

moving colored lights. Let’s combine both 

big and small in the same location and be 

done with it. That’s what Einstein was working 

on when he stumbled upon e=mc 2 . 

...has no crowds but lots of people. If our 

trade shows continue to be so insanely 

crowded, pretty soon no one will go, and 

then we won’t be able to see all of our old 

friends and make new ones. Zen master Yogi 

Berra taught us that one. 

...takes no time at all, yet fills your day. Why 

does it take so much time out of the day to 

attend a trade show? And then when it’s 

over, why does it seem like the blink of an 

eye? Scientists call this the persistence of 

perception. We call it lousy clock management. 

Other people blame it on the hangover 

after the 4Wall party. 

...makes no sound and has no feel. If everyone 

wasn’t talking at the same time, it 

wouldn’t be so loud on the show floor, and 

we might get more accomplished. The PTS 

uses a talking token that is passed from exhibitor 

to exhibitor, and only those in possession 

of the token may speak. At the end 

of the day, your feet still hurt. Sometimes the 

PTS is the just like a plain old trade show. 

...is devoid of convention food, yet fills 

you up. Ten dollars for a cold sandwich? 

Really? At the PTS there is no convention 

food other than the information that 

fills your brain with all of the nutrients it 

needs, which is to say you’ll never make it 

past the RDM Pavilion. 

...is nowhere and everywhere at the 

same time. Holding a trade show in Las Vegas 

is like holding a Phish concert in a cow 

pasture. It just encourages the attendees 

to do what people do in Las Vegas and in 

cow pastures. The perfect trade show location 

is in a cow pasture (nowhere) during 

a Phish concert (they’re everywhere). 

...hungers for knowledge and thirsts for 

information. Let’s face it — trade shows 

are there to pay for a free trip to Las Vegas, 

get free swag, get you out of the office 

and to give you an excuse not to reply to 

e-mail for three days. And let’s not forget 

about the parties. At least that’s what our 

spouses think. But we all know we go for 

the intellectual stimulation. 

...imparts wisdom without invoking 

lines. Standing in lines is for grade school 

kids. Therefore, the PTS will never be in Las 

Vegas. (See #4 above.) 

...is both good and evil. The good: beginning, 

the middle, and the end; the evil: 

the beginning, the middle, and the end. 

For the LDI 2010 show report, turn to page 

24. For more riddles with no answers, e-mail 

Richard Cadena at rcadena@plsn.com. 


prolightingspace.com/join 

Editor 

Richard Cadena 

rcadena@plsn.com 

Managing Editor 

Frank Hammel 

fhammel@plsn.com 

Editorial Assistant 

Victoria Laabs 

vll@plsn.com 

Senior Staff Writer 

Kevin M. Mitchell 

Contributing Writers 

Paul Berliner, Vickie Claiborne, Dan Daley, 

David John Farinella, Steve Jennings, 

Morgan Loven, Rob Ludwig, 

Bryan Reesman, Brad Schiller, 

Nook Schoenfeld 

Photographer 

Steve Jennings 

Art Director 

Garret Petrov 

gpetrov@plsn.com 

Web Master 

Josh Harris 

jharris@plsn.com 

National 

Advertising Director 

Gregory Gallardo 

gregg@plsn.com 

Sales Manager 

Mike Devine 

md@plsn.com 

Sales Manager 

Matt Huber 

mh@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: 702.554.5340 

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 11, Number 10. 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 &


NEWS 

NEMA Manufacturers 

Voluntarily Reduce 

Levels of Mercury in 

Compact Fluorescents 

ROSSLYN, VA — Members of the Lamp 

Section of the National Electrical Manufacturers 

Association (NEMA) announced that 

they are voluntarily reducing the maximum 

allowable mercury content in the compact 

fluorescent lamps (CFLs) that they offer for 

sale in the U.S. 

This agreement builds upon the companies’ 

March 2007 voluntary commitment and 

is consistent with NEMA’s initiative to reduce 

use of hazardous substances whenever feasible. 

Under the new voluntary commitment, 

NEMA members will cap the total mercury 

content in CFLs of less than 25 watts at 4 milligrams 

(mg) per unit. The total mercury content 

of CFLs that use 25 to 40 watts of electricity 

will be capped at 5 mg per unit. 

Companies making the new commitment 

are listed at www.cfl-mercury.org. 

Nelson Enterprises Marks 25th Year in Business 

BLOOMSBURY, NJ — Nelson Enterprises, 

or as it’s more formally known, Nelson 

Enterprises Theatrical Supply Co., LLC, 

is celebrating its 25th year in business. 

Since it was founded in 1995, the company 

has grown to become involved in a 

wide range of theatrical supplies, including 

lighting, sound, draperies and rigging, 

and also stock and custom road cases. 

The company’s Nelson Custom Case 

Co. unit was founded in 1990 and now offers 

stock cases, custom cases, used cases 

and case repairs. Nelson Enterprises Theatrical 

Systems Integration Services (NET- 

SIC) was founded in 2007 to consult with 

architectural firms involved with theatrerelated 

construction projects or renovations. 

Nelson Enterprises’ Bill Nelson’s involvement 

with ESTA dates back to the 

founding members meeting for its predecessor, 

the TDA (Theatrical Dealers Association). 

He has since had an influence 

on backstage developments ranging from 

Robert Altman’s ODEC Outdoor Ellipsoidal, 

the Light Source Baby Mega Side 

Arm and the 2-inch and 4-inch Riser used 

along with the Telrad followspot sight. 

Bill Nelson, owner, shown with custom case manufactured for 

Neil Young 

Tait Towers and 

FTSI Announce 

Partnership; Tait 

Technologies 

Opens Rentals 

Business in Europe 

continued from cover 

“Our industry is moving in an 

increasingly more sophisticated 

technical direction,” added James 

Fairorth, Tait Towers president, “and 

it only made sense to form a tighter 

relationship with Fisher to allow us 

to keep moving forward and providing 

our clients with better and 

better show systems.” 

“We have enjoyed our work with 

Tait on many high-end projects thus 

far,” said Scott Fisher of FTSI. “Teaming 

up more closely with Tait will 

greatly expand our resource pool 

and allow us to introduce these 

combined resources, manufacturing 

skills, and expanded capacity to our 

theater and theme park client base. 

This will have a very positive effect 

on our overall manufacturing quality, 

service response, and our collective 

ability to take on big projects and 

execute them efficiently. It’s really a 

great marriage, and we’re very much 

looking forward to the future.” 

Separately, Tait Technologies, 

the Waardamme, Belgium-based 

joint venture between Tait Towers 

and System Technologies founder 

Frederic Opsomer, announced the 

launch of its rental division, which 

is headed by Dirk Dhulster. 

“The activation of our rental division 

is another milestone in the 

deployment of Tait Technologies’ 

full range of activities throughout 

Europe,” noted Opsomer.

NEWS 


Clearwing Productions Provides Moving Light Rig for Arizona’s Talking Stick Resort 

Clearwing Productions 

used a Martin rig for 

the Showroom at Casino 

Arizona. 

SCOTTSDALE, AZ — Talking Stick Resort’s Showroom 

at Casino Arizona has a new rig of moving lights 

installed by Clearwing Productions. Clearwing, a Martin 

dealer, chose Martin MAC 700 Profile, MAC 700 Wash 

and MAC 250 Entour moving heads along with MX-10 Extreme 

moving mirrors for performance lighting during 

live event productions and also for nightly club effect 

lighting throughout the multi-use venue. The crew also 

provided Martin FiberSource CMY150 fiber optic illuminators 

to power a backdrop fiber drape. 

Throughout the three-month design and engineering 

process, Clearwing developed an extensive infrastructure 

for both the lighting and motor system that 

can expand to meet the Casino’s future needs. 

“We chose the Martin products for the wide range of 

available fixtures in their product line — from the 150 

watt fixtures to 700 watt fixtures we’re using, there’s 

something for every application,” said Clearwing design 

and build manager Daniel Gourley. “The CMY mixing and 

animation wheels are a very nice tool for lighting designers 

to work with in this space. Also, the speed at which 

the 700s move is great for dynamic shows. Everything is 

working great with no problems at all,” he added. 

The Martin gear is located in a motorized rigging system 

on five main lighting trusses. The ability for the system 

to convert to a night club space was included in the 

design scope of the project. 

Casino Arizona’s Ray Rodriguez credited Clearwing’s 

crew for their skills, abilities and professionalism. “They 

have assisted us in creating one of the most dynamic and 

user-friendly systems available today.” 

Farm Aid Turns 25 

With Bandit Lites 

MILWAUKEE, WI — Of Farm Aid, which 

turned 25 this year, founder Willie Nelson said, “In 

1985, I never imagined we would be doing this 

ever again, let alone 25 years later!” Bandit Lites 

has been involved with the event since 1990. 

Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and 

Dave Matthews were the core group behind 

the charity this year, and special guests included 

Kenny Chesney, Norah Jones, Jason Mraz, Jamey 

Johnson and Steven Tyler. 

Bandit Knoxville GM JR Sander and crew 

chief Eric “Eroc” Shafferman worked with Ron 

Stern, Lyle Centola and designer Stan Crocker 

once again for the event. “We look forward to 

this event every year, though we wish there were 

no need for it,” noted Bandit chairman Michael T. 

Strickland. 

Crocker used a wide offering of fixtures including 

Martin MAC 2000 Washes, Martin MAC 

2000 Profiles, Martin MAC 250 Spots, Vari*Lite VL 

3000 Washes, VL 3500 Spots, Coemar Infinity XL 

Washes and Lycian 1271 spotlights. There was 

the usual mountain of trussing and cable also 

supporting PARs, ETC Source 4s and Thomas 8 

Light units. 

Lighting directors Mark Carver and Seth Rollison 

used Martin Maxxyz, Wings, M-1 and Maxedia 

consoles and media servers to control the 

show. Carolyn Mugar and Glenda Yoder led the 

behind-the-scenes staff. 

Neil Young, Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Dave 

Matthews all returned to support the cause. 

Paul Natkin/Photo Reserve, Inc. 

GLP Announces Changes 

in North American Sales 

Distribution 

continued from cover 

“It was a natural consequence as the product 

range of GLP grew and the product range 

of our partner grew that each company would 

want to take full responsibility for their own 

brands,” said Mark Ravenhill, head of the North 

American GLP Inc. operation. 

“We are indeed indebted to the hard work 

that has been put into the market already, and 

we look forward to taking it much further forward 

with all of our customers, designers and 

specifiers,” Ravenhill added.


NEWS 

Scott Chmielewski Tests Out New Console, Software at Virgin Mobile’s FreeFest 

COLUMBIA, MD — When Scott 

Chmielewski, president of Digital Media Designs, 

put a pair of grandMA2 consoles to 

work for Virgin Mobile’s FreeFest, a day-long 

music and dance extravaganza, he and several 

of the bands’ LDs used grandMA’s new 

2.0 software. 

FreeFest drew 40,000 to the Merriweather 

Post Pavilion on Sept. 25 to hear headliners 

Joan Jett, Ludacris and M.I.A., among others. 

Chmielewski, whose Digital Media Designs 

offers innovative concepts in lighting design, 

marketing and media presentation, served as 

the designer, programmer and production 

provider for the event and was responsible 

for the dance stage and one of the two primary 

stages. 

“Everything went exceptionally well,” he 

said. “I was able to previz the show about a 

week before the event and, with the use of 

grandMA 3D (MA Lighting’s free visualization 

software), I was able to have most of the show 

done before we ever loaded in. Running the 

software on my MacBook Pro I never saw a 

hiccup in the previz, which was surprising 

given the amount of fixtures we were using. 

I was even able to run grandMA2 on PC and 

grandMA 3D at the same time.” 

Chmielewski used “every aspect” of the 

console family and its new 2.0 software, including 

grandMA 3D, NPUs, VPU, Art-Net and 

multi-user sessions. “The new layout views 

were an amazing tool, especially when using 

large amounts of fixtures and data,” he said. 

“The whole process was very logical. You’re 

no longer limited to a ‘grid’ for placing fixtures; 

they can be placed and dragged freely 

and more logically, and the amount of information 

that’s provided is invaluable. Combining 

this with the new effects engine made for 

a whole new array of tricks and abilities.” 

He spoke favorably of features including 

open-ended macros, preset-based effects 

and cue-list commands and noted that the 

consoles and the software helped several of 

the bands’ LDs as well. 

“For most of them I provided console 

views that were executors and faders with 

the effects and cues that they requested,” 

he noted. “The Direct Action ability on those 

screens was a great feature and made operating 

for the touring guys very straightforward. 

The ability to set up worlds also meant I never 

had to worry about anyone going beyond 

their skill level or affecting other vital parts 

of the show, including key lighting or effects.” 

For FreeFest the grandMAs controlled 

12 High End Showpix fixtures, 24 Mac 700 

Profiles, 28 Stagebars, eight Mac 2K Performances 

which were used as key lights, a wall 

of 96 Mac 101s and eight Atomic Strobes with 

scrollers. The grandMAs also controlled media 

servers and 20 Martin LC+ 2140 LED panels. 

“The network sync-ability of the grand- 

MAs was flawless,” Chmielewski said, adding 

that “Freefest required us to use every aspect 

of the grandMA, and the system really delivered 

for us.” 

Virgin Mobile’s FreeFest gave the LD a chance to put the 

grandMA2 and new 2.0 software through its paces. 

GET YOUR 

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2010 NOVEMBER PLSN 

7

NEWS 


In Brief 

Martin Professional announced 

that its MAC 350 Entour, an energyefficient 

alternative to traditional stage 

lighting, has been awarded the 2010 

Confederation of Danish Industry Product 

Prize…Stage Research has partnered 

with the Fairmount Performing 

Arts Conservatory (FPAC), hosting Stage 

Research Sound and Lighting 411 open 

houses and giving FPAC access to new 

lighting and sound gear for an encore 

production of the musical, 13…Kinesys 

recently provided 160 of its new Digi- 

Hoist motor controllers to Production 

Resource Group (PRG). The new units will 

replace all PRG’s existing motor control 

stock in the U.K., effectively standardizing 

the control platform across PRG’s 

rigging department, which works with 

more than 2,000 motors…J.R. Clancy 

provided the 1,457-seat Teatro Bradesco 

in San Paulo, Brazil with automated 

stage rigging including 10 PowerLift 

automated hoists, controlled by Clancy’s 

SceneControl 500, and also a Zetex 

fire safety curtain…Lighting designer 

Peggy Eisenhauer, with Third Eye Studio 

in New York City, was featured in Variety 

Magazine’s Sept. 30, 2010 “Women’s 

Impact Report”…Milos’ technical training 

and safety awareness workshop at 

its facility in Guangzhou, China drew 

attendees from Thailand, Indonesia, 

India, Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong 

and elsewhere in China…Osram Opto 

Semiconductors is offering new tools, 

downloads, and technical information 

for solution providers and engineers via 

a new section of its website at http:// 

ledlight.osram-os.com/led-ssl-tools… 

4Wall Entertainment is stocking up on 

Chroma-Q Color Force LED battens as 

part of a plan to replace existing battens 

with newer washlight technology…LD 

Chris Bushell demoed an Avolites Tiger 

Touch console, bought one, and quickly 

put it to use on the Florence + The Machine 

World tour…Lightware U.S.A., 

a distributor of professional AV products 

manufactured by Lightware Visual 

Engineering in Budapest, Hungary, is 

sponsoring a series of online technical 

training initiatives that are aiming to demystify 

digital video. 

THE EDITOR 

Tape Gaffes 

I’ve just read your article “Tape Gaffes” (PLSN, 

“LD-at-Large,” Oct. 2010, page 76.) While I certainly 

agree there is a lot of tape wasted due to excess 

usage, you obviously believe the correct use is of 

great value. In over 25 years of selling and promoting 

a wide assortment of tapes we have also 

found both overuse and misuse of tape. As you 

have found, color coding your equipment is one 

of the most efficient methods of organizing and 

saving precious time. 

However, you stated you never use gaff tape 

to label trusses “because it leaves sticky residue…and it will likely stay on that truss for 

eternity.” I’m not sure what brand of gaff tape you have used, but one of the unique features 

of a premium gaffer tape is a dry adhesive which should lift up clean without leaving 

a residue. In addition, there are several adhesive removers, including Oil-Flo (which we 

sell) that will remove most of that sticky stuff if it occurs. We have also begun producing a 

label that is cut out of premium gaffer tape. This is a printable label which can be used on 

all types of surfaces, including metal, vinyl and wood. 

—J.R. Kliaman, president, Wholesale Tape & Supply 

Thanks for the info, J.R. — but we should stress that unless it’s designed for that purpose, 

gaff tape should NOT be fed into a printer! —ed. 

Lighting Geeks Unite! 

Really enjoyed the article! So much that I tore it out, highlighted what applied and 

posted it on my office door…I think I was a “yes” on about 42 or 43 of the items! 

Thanks for the chuckle, 

—Craig Pierce, Principal Show Lighting Designer, Walt Disney Imagineering 

8 PLSN NOVEMBER 2010

NEWS 

CALENDAR 

InfoComm Asia 2010 

Nov. 17-19, 2010 

Hong Kong, China 

infocomm-asia.com 

PLSN Academy of Production 

Technology 

Jan. 10-12, 2011 

San Marcos, TX 

productionseminars.webs.com 

The NAMM Show 

Jan. 13-16, 2011 

Anaheim, CA 

namm.org 

ONGOING: 

ETC Eos/Ion Training 

etcconnect.com 

Martin “Brighter World” Road Show 

http://tinyurl.com/martin-brighterworldtour 

Wybron Mobile Showroom 

wybron.com 

USITT—SW Winter Symposium 

January 15‐16, 2011 

San Antonio, TX 

usitt-sw.org 

Stage Lighting Super Saturday 

Jan. 22, 2011 

New York, NY 

hstech.org 

SIEL-SATIS 

Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2011 

Paris, France 

siel-expo.com 

USITT Conference & Stage Expo 

March 10-12, 2011 

Charlotte, NC 

usitt.org 

CORRECTIONS 

Some of the titles for crew members 

on Rush’s Time Machine tour were listed 

incorrectly in PLSN’s Oct. 2010 issue, 

page 55. They should have been listed 

as: Lighting Crew Chief and Dimmer 

Tech: Seth Conlin; L1: Martin Joos; FOH 

Tech: Matt Tucker; Moving Light Tech: Bill 

Worsham; Tech #5: Joey Bradley. 

Also, the spider truss manufacturer 

was not identified. The spider truss was 

made from Xtreme Structures & Fabrication’s 

(XSF) 26”x30” double hung pre-rig 

truss. 



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9

NEWS 


Dave Matthews Band Tour Returns with LED-Laden Rig 

The DMB touring rig includes Elation Design Wash LED Pros 

Dominic Fanelli 

LOS ANGELES — After Theatrical Media 

Services recommended Elation Professional’s 

Design Wash LED Pro fixtures to DMB lighting 

designer Fenton Williams and programmer Aaron 

Stinebrink, 16 of the compact and energyefficient 

fixtures were added to the touring rig. 

With 11.6 million tickets sold between 2000 

and 2009, the Dave Matthews Band ranked as 

the top-selling tour of the decade, with part of 

the appeal coming from the artists’ support for 

the environment and for disaster relief. 

So when it came to the decision of which 

lighting fixtures to use for DMB’s latest tour, the 

energy efficiency of was part of the reason TMS 

made the recommendation for using the Elation 

gear. 

The Dave Matthews Band was an early 

adopter of LED lighting technology, but another 

key factor for Stinebrink was the fixture’s 

size. At 17.2 inches by 13 inches by 8.6 inches, 

the Design Wash LED Pros are small enough 

to work as color-changing toners for the tour’s 

20.5-inch truss. 

Rated for 50,000 hours of use and equipped 

with 108 3W Rebel LEDs (52 red, 22 green, 22 

blue and 12 white), the fixtures can produce 

any color the designers want to use, and their 

3-phase motors offer speedy pan (630° or 540°) 

and tilt (265°). 

Other features include a built-in EWDMX 

receiver for wireless DMX; a 98-240v multi-voltage 

internal power supply; and a 15° lens that 

produces a 9° beam angle effect and a 23° field 

angle. 

“The Design Wash LED Pro has been a great 

addition to our tour lighting package,” Stinebrink 

said. “Their speed, durability, size and 

price make them an ideal fixture for large and 

small touring applications — the perfect fit for 

our touring needs.” 

Access Hollywood’s 

Live Emmy Awards Red 

Carpet Show Adds Glitz 

with LED Fixtures 

LOS ANGELES — A team from Access Hollywood 

produced the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards 

Red Carpet Special on NBC, broadcast live from the 

Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. 

San Fernando, CA-based Acey Decy provided 

LED fixtures this year, in the form of Prism Projection’s 

RevEAL Color Wash instruments. 

Carlos Sandoval, VP of operations for Acey 

Decy, credited the RevEAL Color Wash for “great 

tungsten, daylight, and RGB output with a CRI 

above 95. The beam field is very even from the 

center to the edges and the ease of changing 

beam angles is easy with the multiple lenses available.” 

The fixture also had an impact on the producers 

of the show. 

“For some time, we’ve been interested in 

moving toward energy-efficient LED technology 

for daylight/exterior red carpet-type applications, 

but the consensus has always been that LEDs just 

don’t have enough ‘punch,’” said Steve Holt, production 

manager with Access Hollywood. “Time 

and time again we heard from manufacturers 

that their products were the brightest LED on the 

market, but we remained underwhelmed until we 

saw the RevEAL Color Wash.” 

10 PLSN NOVEMBER 2010 

Acey Decy provided Prism Projection’s RevEAL Color Wash fixtures 

for the live television event.


Jay-Z and Eminem Home and Home Visuals Prepared in Prelite Studios 

Eminem performs in Detroit during the four-stop tour. Patrick Dierson and Daniel Boland relied on Prelite Studios 

for design support and previsualization. 

NEW YORK and DETROIT — Home and 

Home, the joint tour featuring Jay-Z and Eminem, 

only included four dates in the artists’ respective 

hometowns (New York and Detroit). But it was 

still essential that Patrick Dierson, lighting designer 

for the tour, and Daniel Boland, show designer 

for Eminem, create a full complement of 

lighting looks for both artists and video content 

for Eminem. 

Both designers called upon bicoastal Prelite 

Studios to get a head start and maximize their 

creative time in an offline environment. 

Dierson and Boland are longtime clients of 

Prelite, which helps lighting designers and programmers 

use emerging technologies to previsualize 

lighting and video elements for productions. 

“Prelite has saved my bacon on more than 

one occasion,” Dierson said. “For the Home and 

Home Tour there would have been no way the 

production was able to rent out Comerica Park or 

Yankee Stadium for the time it took to make the 

show sweet. So it was amazing to have Prelite’s 

technology at our disposal.” 

About a week before the band arrived, Rodd 

McLaughlin set up a Prelite system running Vision 

software and Autodesk 3ds Max along with 

grandMA lighting control consoles at New York’s 

SIR Studios. “That enabled us to do all the previz 

in the studio adjacent to where the band rehearses,” 

Dierson said. “I was able to get updates 

in realtime from the band when they came in, 

and we had the Pro Tools engineer, monitor engineer 

and Front of House engineer all in the same 

room, too. It was a very cohesive environment to 

work in, with obvious benefits to the workflow.” 

He found Prelite especially helpful for “musicians 

who tend to ‘see’ with their ears. They could 

walk into our room and see the previz on the giant 

screen, and I’d tell them, ‘This is what I’ll be 

doing when you play.’ They immediately got it. 

Even more mutual respect was built up during 

this process because the band saw how much 

effort we put into the show and how much we 

need each other to deliver a great show.” 

Dierson also partnered with Drew Findley, 

Jay-Z’s screen director, and Dirk Sanders, his video 

director, who managed all the rapper’s video 

content with their own system to create a “very 

cohesive” approach to Jay-Z’s performance. 

Dierson noted that he remembers what it’s 

like to sit in the cheap seats, and he used that recollection 

to the concertgoers’ advantage when 

designing show lighting. 

“I like to use Prelite to fly to the cheapest 

seats in the house and make certain those people 

get a really interesting concert experience,” 

he said. “I’m very cognizant of what it’s like to be 

up there, and I always try to design something 

within the show that can get out to them. For 

this show we had towers of audience lights that 

could extend the stage look to the back of the 

house. The gobos, templates and washes were 

equally powerful there as in the front row.” 

He hadn’t intended to use moving trusses 

for Jay-Z’s portion of the show, but discovered 

that there were “a handful of moments” where 

he wanted to deploy them. “Prelite let me drop 

in various moving trusses, play around and see 

what were the most interesting moves with a 

touch of a button,” he noted. “It was fantastic.” 

NEWS 

On the West Coast, Daniel Boland worked 

quite differently with Prelite. Tom Thompson 

shipped a Prelite system to Boland’s home office 

in Altadena, CA, where it worked in tandem with 

a pair of grandMAs and a rack of media servers. 

Boland programmed Eminem’s lighting on one 

console while Matt Shimamoto programmed 

the video content on another. 

“I felt the real theme of the show for Eminem 

was his recovery from his addiction to drugs and 

alcohol. It was his comeback tour,” Boland said. 

“I wanted a bold look — everything was bigger 

and brighter, with more powerful instruments. 

In fact, it was the first time I had used certain fixtures 

that Patrick had spec’d for the rig, like the 

Chromlech Jarags that rim the eyeball-shaped 

screens on stage. And I had never used PRG Bad 

Boys in a stadium context, so it was a matter of 

getting them to punch out. 

“It was great to mock up the rig and sit comfortably 

in my office and program any time I felt 

the inspiration. And I wasn’t wasting people’s 

time while I was creating color palettes and focus 

palettes on the new fixtures.” 

Boland also noted that he could “configure 

the moving trusses that Patrick designed so they 

weren’t in the way of the images on Eminem’s 

screen,” and added that, “working with Ben Johnson, 

who created Eminem’s video content, we 

used the previz software to take snapshots of the 

screens and email them to the rigger physically 

moving the trusses so he could configure the 

trusses to not get in the way of the images. When 

we arrived in Detroit, the trusses were already 

programmed — an added bonus I didn’t expect.” 


11

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 


LD for Indochine Fills Stade de France with Moving Light 

Olivier Payen used Martin fixtures to frame the five screens in the stadium. 

SAINT-DENIS, France — Olivier Payen, lighting 

designer for veteran French rockers Indochine, 

faced a challenge when lighting the band’s 

tour stop at the Stade de France earlier this year. 

Indochine was celebrating 30 years with the 

tour that ran from Oct. 2009 to Sept. 2010, and 

the 80,000-capacity Stade de France was filled 

with fans of the rock group. 

The lighting rig needed to fill the stadium 

with light, yet work with the 

five 16:9 video screens occupying 

the north curve of the 

stadium — a total area of 720 

square meters. 

Payen, who had also 

lit Indochine’s previous 

Alice&June tour, opted for a 

design that used fixtures to 

surround the screens in order 

to break up and soften their 

severity and help them blend 

in with their surroundings. 

Rental company Arpège 

recommended Martin Professional’s 

new MAC 2000 

Beam XB fixture, and supplied 

these along with a 

number of other Martin fixtures used on stage, 

both rigged and on the floor. 

Six MAC 2000 Beam XBs were placed on 

each side of the stage to complement the 

screen design, and had enough power to 

project effectively in front of the bright video 

screens. 

To fill the stadium across the audience for 

the various camera angles, Payen used 36 additional 

MAC 2000 Beam 

XBs. “I wanted to create some 

wash light effects among the 

audience,” he said. “Mission 

accomplished.” He also credited 

the affordability of the 

upgrade kit. 

Thomas Dechandon of 

Concept K, the tour’s console 

operator, also said he was 

“hugely impressed” with the 

fixture’s output, calling it calling 

it “perfect for stages of 

this size and for open-air use. 

“The MAC 2000 Beam XB 

beams made it easy to draw 

in the smoke, even though it 

was still very light,” Dechandon 

added, also crediting the fixture for versatility. 

“You still get the effects of the gobos, but 

you also keep the option of making the beam 

burst out using the honeycomb lens to obtain 

a true wash light.” 

Along with the 32 MAC 2000 Wash XBs 

and 36 Atomic 3000 strobes, 22 MAC III Profiles 

were used. Payen had chosen them for their 

“wide range of options” and effects. Sixteen of 

The fixtures also lit the crowd from high above. 

the MAC III Profiles were positioned above the 

central screen to add texture to the stage, to 

create special effects across the audience when 

the lead singer encouraged them to join in and 

to create aerial drawings above the stage. The 

other six MAC IIIs were installed on towers on 

both sides of the stage and used to create a color 

wash, or for special effect on the artists. 

PSI Supplies Moving Lights, LED Gear for BBC Proms In the Park Belfast 

Challenges included tight security at the mansion, an official residence. 

EDINBURGH, Scotland — More than 

100 Edinburgh Fringe Festival venues used 

Zero 88 for lighting control and dimming, 

with gear provided by Zero 88 dealers including 

Black Light, Northern Light, Stage 

Electrics, Hawthorn, HSL and Stage Lighting 

Services. 

Products in use varied from the Level 6 

DMX through to the ORB and ORB XF professional 

theatre consoles. The largest presence 

of Zero 88 products this year was once 

again at the Pleasance venues, which used 

23 Zero 88 control desks and 56 Betapack 

dimmers (including generation 1, 2 and 3 

varieties). 

The smallest venues at the Pleasance 

feature just six ways of dimming and a Juggler 

console, while the largest, the Pleasance 

Grand, included an ORB and 34 Martin 

Mac 700 moving lights. Chief electrician 

Dom Knight sad he chose the Zero 88s 

based upon their versatility and flexibility. 

“It was a logical choice to stick with 

Zero 88 for this year’s festival,” Knight said. 

“The support that Zero 88 give to the Pleasance 

has been invaluable to the success of 

this years fringe.” 

The presence of Zero 88 at the Pleasance 

extends back nearly a decade and is a 

relationship managed by Blacklight’s business 

development manager Phil Haldene. 

Zero 88 now provides on-site support 

throughout the festival period at the Pleasances’ 

venues and the multitude of other 

venues across the city. 

Blacklight’s crew has also been busy 

at the Pleasance during the year. A new 

Chilli dimmer installation was added to 

Pleasance One before the festival, featuring 

96 channels of Chilli 2410i dimming 

together with house light controls from 

a Chilli 410HF. This was cited as a muchneeded 

upgrade to the venue, which is run 

throughout the year by Edinburgh University 

Students Association (EUSA). 

The Blacklight team and EUSA LX chief 

Dave Moffatt specified the install. 

For the festival, this installation was 

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Production 

Services Ireland (PSI) supplied moving 

lights, LED surfaces, rigging and crew for the 

BBC Northern Ireland Proms In The Park event, 

staged at Hillsborough Castle, an 18th century 

mansion and the official residence of the 

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. 

PSI worked with BBC Northern Ireland’s 

lighting department to fulfill the vision of LDs 

John Gallagher and Philip Brines. The Ulster 

Orchestra, The Priests, flautist Brian Finnegan, 

violinist Alexandra Soumm and Duke Special 

all performed. 

PSI shoehorned its 16-meter-by-13-meter 

box truss atop Star Events’ 18-by-13-meter 

stage, and because the design required its 

depth to be slightly greater than that of the 

roof, the whole construction was cantilevered 

by 75cm at the front. PSI also provided oval 

supplemented with a pre-release ORB 

XF console from Zero 88. The venue 

did not experience any problems 

with the prototype console throughout 

the run of the fringe. 

“I specified Chilli’s for the Pleasance 

Theatre, as I know they’re reliable, 

solid dimmers,” said Moffat. “The 

rest of the year, this venue is operated 

by students who need kit that just 

works.” 

Stage Electrics’ rental department 

was also busy specifying at lease 25 

Zero 88 consoles into venues this 

year, including Jesters for the Gilded 

Balloon and a number of Leap Frog 

48s, Jester MLs and Jester TLXtras for 

the Underbelly and Assembly venues. 

The Zero 88 team also provided 

support and training for these venues, 

working alongside the Stage 

Electrics’ support team led by head of 

technical and hire Adrian Searle. 

truss and drop arms to fill visual gaps. 

To supplement BBC’s moving and conventional 

light fixtures, PSI provided with 12 

Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs, Chroma-Q Color- 

Block LED battens, ColorWeb 250 and two 

Lycian 2.5K followspots, which the company 

acquired for the project. 

Content for the ColorWeb and Color- 

Blocks was stored on two Hippotizer media 

servers from PSI — a Hippo Express and a 

Hippo Stage. Gallagher made custom content 

for the event to run through these, 

which were triggered via his Compulite Vector 

Green lighting console. 

The PSI crew included Sean Pagel, Joe Byrne 

and Brian Crowe. They worked four BBC 

crew members and two others helping with 

the load-in and load-out. 

Most Edinburgh Fringe Venues Rely on Zero 88 for Lighting Control 

An appearance by Comedy Reserve at Pleasance Beyond. 

Photo courtesy of Andrew Hebblethwaite 


INTERNATIONAL NEWS 

VALASSKE MEZIRICI, Czech Republic 

— Robe gear may travel the world to light 

events staged in distant lands, but in the case 

of the 2010 Hrachovka Festival, the Robe fixtures 

were used in the backyard of the Czech 

factory where they were made. 

The festival featured Robe moving lights 

on the two main stages, supplied by locally 

based lighting company Stage Plus and run 

by Tomas Bierza. Robe also sponsored one of 

the stages, making their Robin fixtures available 

for use. 

The lineup was an eclectic mix of Czech 

bands, including 2010 Czech and Slovak Superstar 

winner Martin Chodúr, Airfare, Plastic 

People of the Universe, Žlutŷ Pes, Electric 

Mann, PSH, Cocotte Minute and others, representing 

a diversity of styles and genres — 

rock, urban, electro, pop, punk and dance. 

Lighting for both Ostravar and Robe 

Stages was designed by Bierza, and operated 

by him plus Dalibor Michenka from High Life 

Touring and Martin Valovy. 

The Ostravar Stage had six Robe ColorSpot 

2500 and six ColorWash 2500E ATs on 

its back truss and four ColorWash 2500E ATs 

on the floor. On the Robe Stage were four 

Robin 600 and four Robin 300 Spots on the 

back truss, eight ColorWash 700E ATs on the 

front and four ColorWash 700E ATs on the 

floor. 

The rig for the Robe stage was designed 

about three weeks in advance of the event. 

Robins were chosen for their durability in outdoor 

environments, and their low weight and 

smaller size meant that lighter duty trussing 

could be used and less crew were required for 

the build, saving on overall production costs. 

With little preparation and pre-programming 

time available and so many bands playing, 

lighting on both stages was designed to 

be operated “live” in improvised festival style. 

The biggest challenge of the overall designs 

was that the lighting was flexible and 

diverse enough to give each artist an individual 

look and lightshow, and Bierza said that 

having all the Robe fixtures was “invaluable” 

to this process. 

He has been using Robe XT and AT Series 

fixtures extensively on numerous shows 

and installations for about eight years, but 

this presented the first chance to use and see 

the new Robin range in action. He was most 

impressed with their extreme brightness and 

large palette of effects. 

Afterwards, he stated that his fixture 

inventory will definitely be expanded to 

include Robins, particularly the 600s. “The 

weight-to-size-and-power ratio is very important 

to me as I service many small-to-medium 

sized events.” 


Moving Lights Used Near Factory for Hrachovka Festival 

The rig included Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500s 

The Robe-sponsored stage at the Hrachovka Festival 

He also credited the color range, power 

and dimming of the ColorSpot 2500s, and 

the shows at Hrachovka were animated with 

many of the ColorSpot 2500’s gobo effects as 

well. 

This year marked a new chapter for the 

festival, which was presented by Občanské 

Sdružení Festival Hrachovka (a not-for-profit 

association), managed by Bara Černa and Terezie 

Diehlova, both students of the Faculty of 

Multimedia Communication at Thomas Bata 

Univerzity in Zlín. 

The one-day event drew about 2,000 

people from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, 

Hungary and Poland. 

Luzmila Supports Eros Ramazotti Concert in Mexico 

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — 

Mexican rental company Luzmila 

lit Italian singer-songwriter Eros 

Ramazotti’s concert at the Teatro 

Telmex recently with 30 Clay 

Paky Alpha Beam 1500 fixtures. 

The concert supported the artist’s 

latest album, Ali e Radici 

(Wings and Roots). The sold-out 

crowd exceeded 11,000. 

“When the lighting design 

team from Eros Ramazotti heard 

that Luzmila had the first Alpha 

Beam 1500s in Mexico, they 

called us right away,” said Luzmila 

lighting technician Federico 

Figueroa. “The fixtures did a phenomenal 

job. The beams are intensely bright 

and very fast. The effects were spectacular, 

and Mr. Ramazotti and his team were very 

pleased.” 

The Alpha Beam 1500 fixtures were 

placed in rows of five fixtures each on six 

movable truss sections positioned over the 

stage. The truss sections were raised, lowered 

and rotated during the performance to 

alternate between straight lines and crossing 

angles at varying heights, allowing for a wide 

range of looks. 

Lighting control came from a Martin 

Maxxyz. The stage was completed with a 

large seven-meter-wide-by-four-meter-tall 

high-resolution LED screen showing images 

of Ramazotti during the performances. 


ON THE MOVE 

American DJ 

named Edgar Bernal, 

a.k.a. DJ Etronik, 

product/sales 

specialist for American 

Audio. Bernal, 

a top professional 

DJ for over 15 years, 

will now handle 

inbound and outbound 

sales calls, 

Edgar Bernal 

showcase products and provide training for 

the company. 

A&O Technology 

named Claus 

Spreyer Executive 

Vice President. 

Spreyer, who has 

more than 20 years 

experience with 

sound and lighting, 

comes to A&O from 

L i g h t p o w e r / M A 

Claus Spreyer 

Lighting, where he 

was responsible for partner relationship management. 

He will report to A&O CEO Marco 

Niedermeier. 

sales managers Rick Fallon (East Coast), Carl 

Wake (Central) and Ed Cheeseman (West 

Coast), also announced that it will be wholly 

responsible for the distribution of the full GLP 

product line in North America from its offices 

in Torrance, CA, including the Impression 

range of LED moving head fixtures. 

HLB Lighting Design recently hired four 

lighting designers: Christina Andriole (Boston), 

Lindsey Paquette and Clifton Manahan 

(Los Angeles) and Bradley Sisenwain (who rejoins 

the New York office). 

Hoist UK Ltd. recently moved to larger 

premises at: Unit 2, Wrynose Road, Old Hall 

Industrial Estate, Bromborough, Wirral, CH62 

3QD. 

continued on page 19 

Artistic Licence 

Integration 

announced that 

Pete Earle, former 

co-founder of LED 

lighting specialist 

Vivid Effect and, 

more recently, business 

development 

director at Lighting 

Science Group, 

Pete Earle 

will join the company in December 2010. His 

main focus will be to develop the company’s 

international project portfolio and to work on 

product development within Artistic Licence 

Engineering. 

Creative Technology 

Group (CT) 

named AV industry 

veretarn Joe Quarto 

national sales 

manager. Quarto 

has worked with 

international industrial 

and political 

Joe Quarto 

leaders, financial 

and pharmaceutical 

summits, educational and governmental 

agencies and theatrical and entertainment 

headliners. 

GDS (Global 

Design Solutions) 

named Dave Harris 

design engineer. 

Harris, a 15-year industry 

veteran, was 

recently involved in 

designing, building 

and installing the 

searchlights used 

Dave Harris 

at the Burj Khalifa 

in Dubai. He has also created a number of 

custom products for bands including Muse, 

Tokyo Hotel and Coldplay. 

GLP (German 

Light 

P r o d u c t s ) , 

which recently 

a n n o u n c e d 

representation 

a g r e e m e n t s 

with regional 

Ed Cheeseman, Carl Wake and Rick Fallon 


15

PRODUCT NEWS 

American DJ Quad Phase 

The new Quad Phase from American DJ is a 

moonflower effect with a 10-watt, four-color LED 

source that can be mixed to produce 13 colors. It has 

a 65° dispersion angle and 160 individual beams are 

moved with stepper motors. It can be run in sound 

active mode or in master/slave mode (linkable via 

3-pin cable) with its own built-in programs. It can also 

be operated with DMX-512 using four channels for 

color, rotation, strobe and dimmer. It also has a 4-button 

display on the rear panel. The MSRP is $279.95. 

American DJ • 800.322.6337 • americandj.com 

Barco/High End Systems Intellaspot XT-1 

Barco/High End Systems’ new Intellaspot XT-1 

is a hard-edged moving yoke light featuring 20,000 

lumens output using an 850-watt HID lamp with a 

zoom range of 11°- 55°. Other features include iris, 

variable soft edge, electronic strobing, CMY color 

mixing, variable CTO, fixed color wheel with interchangeable 

dichroic filters, two rotating Lithopattern 

wheels, each with seven patterns plus open, rotating 

prism and animation wheel. A battery-controlled 

color LCD menu system enables fixture addressing 

without having to power up the unit. Control includes Remote Device Management (RDM), Art- 

Net and wireless DMX. 

Barco/High End Systems • 512.836.2242 • highend.com 

Blackbox Electrical MC24 

Blackbox Electrical Products has announced the 

release its MC24 line of electrical hoist controllers. 

The four-channel controllers are housed in a lightweight 

road-ready package and are available in both 

twist-lock and 7-pin Socapex versions. 

Blackbox Electrical Products • 323.528.7258 • 

blackboxelec.com 

Coemar Reflection Full Spectrum 

Coemar’s new Reflection FullSpectrum is an LED 

lighting fixture with an interchangeable LED light 

source that directs light from an array of LEDs onto 

a parabolic reflector and reflects it back towards 

the front of the fixture. The extended beam path 

eliminates the projection of individual RGB LEDs and 

multi-colored shadows. It can also zoom from 18° to 

37°. Two versions are available: the RGB version with 

full spectrum color mixing and a strobe/blinder effect 

that can be used in any color; and the VariWhite 

version with variable color temperature. Both versions include multiple dimming curve options. 

Coemar • +39 376 77521 • coemar.com 

Compulite iControl App 

Compulite’s new iControl App for the Apple 

iPhone and iPod can remotely control and edit basic 

functions of all Vector and Dlite lighting consoles. The 

App provides real-time information of the console 

through a friendly user interface. By using the iControl 

App, you are able to control moving lights, conventional 

lights, create and store cues and libraries, 

add groups, control highlight and lowlight and more. 

It also allows you to control pan and tilt through an 

interactive trackball as well as to control all parameters using an interactive wheel (pictured 

here), all from a remote location anywhere within your local area network. 

Compulite • +972 9 7446555 • compulite.com 

Field Template Metric Rules 

The Metric Rules Stencil from Field Template 

uses the patented Pro•Grid Metric 50 system. All 

cutout lighting symbols are pre-spaced 50 centimeters 

apart and aligned onto a horizontal axis 

like a batten. Manufacturers include ETC, Selecon, 

Strand, Robert Juliat, CCT, L&E, Reich & Vogel and 

the Strand Patt 23. Adjacent to every 1:25 cutout 

symbol is text displaying the metric weight, 

cut color size and beam spread information for 

that symbol. Also included are ancillary symbols: LED dots, HMI indicators, dimming shutters, 

scrollers, top hats, half hats, several sizes of circles, rectangles, squares, triangles and generic moving 

light symbols. 

Field Template • 310.832.4700 • fieldtemplate.com 



Martin MAC 101 

The Martin MAC 101 is a small, lightweight 

LED moving head wash light featuring 

an light output of 2200 lumens with a 

13.5° beam angle or wider with the optional 

wide angle diffuser. It has a calibrated RGB 

color mixing system, linear electronic dimming 

and strobe effects such as pulse and 

random effects. It weighs 3.7 kg (8.1 lb) and 

consumes 125 watts (0.6 A @ 230V or 1.2 A @ 

110V). Power can be daisy chained between fixtures using PowerCon cables, and it is 

available in an 8-unit flightcase. 

Martin Professional • 954.858.1800 (HQ); 818.859.1800 (CA); 702.597.3030 (NV) 

martin.com 

Mega-Lite Bright Stripe 

Mega-Lite’s Bright Stripe is an LED strip 

fixture that also works as a graphics display 

medium. Features include RGB color mixing, 

macros, dimmer and strobe, and it can be 

controlled via DMX. Either eight or 16 segments 

can be controlled at a time, allowing 

multiple units to be configured in a matrix. It 

has built -in programs and on-board controls 

accessible via a digital display. Three threaded 

mounting points allowing rigging using a 

C-clamp. It weighs five pounds and measures 

39.75 inches by 2.06 inches by 3.75 inches. 

Mega Systems, Inc. • 866.460.6342 • megasystemsinc.com 

Niscon Concerto 

Niscon’s new Concerto series of variable 

speed concert hoists has been engineered 

with the support and assistance of R&M Materials 

Handling using a Stagemaker Concert 

Hoist body and adding a rotary limit switch, 

load cell and three encoders. The two sets of 

safety limits act to prevent accidental overtravel. 

The rotary switch is monitored for rotation 

using an encoder which also functions 

as the backup encoder. The third encoder 

is attached to the load wheel to ensure the 

chain has traveled to its exact position. The 

values from each encoder are constantly 

compared against the others for errors. 

Niscon Inc. 905.828.5779 nisconinc.com 

Prism Projection Reveal Studio 

Prism Projection’s new Reveal Studio is 

an LED light source designed for TV studios, 

theatre, corporate events and concerts, film 

production, special events and architecture. 

It has an efficacy of 30.5 lumens per watt and 

outputs 7600 lumens. It features TrueSource 

optical and color LED management technology, 

a cut-and-shape beam, auto focus from 

20° to 70° and linear dimming. It has a Micro- 

Louver beam-shaping accessory and an extended 

color gamut using a five-color mixing 

process: red, green, blue, cyan and amber. It 

has a CRI above 92 with a CCT range from 

2700K to 8000K. 

Prism Projection 641.594.3356 prismprojection.com 

Sapsis Rigging ProPlus Rescue System 

Sapsis Rigging’s ProPlus Rescue System is 

designed to work anywhere a fall hazard exists 

and allow for the safe and rapid assisted 

rescue of a victim. The company calls it the 

first such system designed for the entertainment 

industry, and it meets the requirements 

of OSHA regulations for assisted rescue. It 

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FEATURE 


Loyalty 

on Trial 

The Case of 

XL Touring Video vs. John Wiseman 

John Wiseman, CEO and founder, Chaos Visual Productions 

By Bryan Campbell 

Phil Mercer, MD of XL Video’s Los Angeles office 

Sitting in the public gallery of the 

Los Angeles Superior Court, it is 

easy to see why the trial scene 

has been the trump card of dramatists 

for centuries. From the ancient Greeks 

to The Merchant of Venice to Twelve Angry 

Men to A Few Good Men, a good trial 

scene is hard to beat, and Los Angeles 

has seen some of the best. It’s hard to 

enter an L.A. courtroom without thinking 

that it holds the dark spirits of the 

Manson Family, the Hillside Strangler, 

OJ Simpson or the Black Dahlia. It’s also 

hard to avoid comparisons — the courtroom 

is smaller and less pristine than 

its counterpart on The Practice, and the 

lighting makes everyone look guilty. 

Civil, but Contentious 

plsn 

We are running late, and the threeman 

team for the plaintiff is wheeling a 

huge projection screen into place, trying 

for the best viewpoint for judge and 

jury. After three attempts, the screen still 

obscures the view of the public crowded 

into the gallery. Judging sightlines and 

focusing projectors is not their strong 

suit, an irony not lost on the industry 

veterans on hand to lend moral support. 

They would do it all differently, but this 

is not their show. 

The set design may lack luster, but 

even though this is a civil and not a 

criminal trial, we expect the script to 

be dynamite. In case we think this will 

be a trial by PowerPoint, a metal bookcase 

containing no fewer than 40 black 

three-ring binders of analog evidence 

sits within easy reach. 

This is a full jury trial, with discovery, 

depositions, jury selection and a defense 

team. Pre-trial legal costs for either side 

could buy you a good-sized lighting 

rig with some video thrown in. There is 

talk that this trial might go a month or 

more. In this town, murder cases have 

been wrapped up in half that time. That 

the trial is taking place at all means that 

back-room settlements, plea bargains 

and off-the-table deals have all failed. 

A High-Stakes Contest 

plsn 

Most cases reach a negotiated secret 

settlement long before a court date is 

set. Disputes rarely get this far for good 

reason. A trial by jury is only exciting for 

the onlookers. For the plaintiff and defendant, 

it has all the appeal of taking 

your life savings, business assets and 

your reputation, pushing them into the 

center of the poker table, and waiting 

for the final card to turn. For XL Touring 

Video and Chaos Visual Productions, the 

stakes are no less than their economic 

survival. Their internal practices and the 

characters of their executives will soon 

be laid bare. The plaintiff, Phil Mercer of 

XL Touring Video and defendant, John 

Wiseman of Chaos Visual Productions, 

dress rock ‘n’ roll formal (boots, jeans, 

dress shirt, crumpled jacket.) They stand 

out in a sea of suits and uniforms. 

At the heart of the XL Touring Video 

suit is the claim that the defendant, John 

Wiseman, now of Chaos Visual Productions, 

used company time and resources 

while he was still CEO and president of 

XLTV to set up a competing company, 

into which he siphoned tour business 

and clients. 

The Plaintiff’s Case 

plsn 

In a clipped monotone against a 

background of production stills and e- 

mails highlighted in yellow, the attorney 

for the plaintiff paints a picture of Wiseman 

as a man more concerned with his 

own business interests than those of his 

employer. The team for the plaintiff lays 

out the detailed timeline of Wiseman’s 

creation of Chaos in the months prior to 

his resignation from XLTV in November 

2008. Strong on Hollywood elements, 

the case includes secret meetings with 

tour managers, lavish meals with video 

designers, an NBA basketball star and a 

billionaire angel investor. One jury member 

seems to be writing it down verbatim. 

It is alleged that Wiseman used an 

ex-XLTV chief financial officer to craft a 

business plan to pitch to investors. The 

plan included the acquisition of CW Productions 

(an automated lighting company) 

and the creation of a video company 

with the extremely unfortunate name of 

Double Cross Video. The financial projections 

show immediate revenue from 

touring acts, whom the plaintiff claims 

were persuaded by Wiseman to commit 

to the new entity he was forming while 

still CEO of XLTV. Additionally, claims 

were made that Wiseman approached 

XLTV employees with job offers, one of 

whom reported this to XLTV’s Belgiumbased 

owners. 

The plaintiff’s lawyer takes pains to 

explain the efforts and expertise it has 

taken to recover deleted e-mails from 

Wiseman’s laptop. Ironically some of the 

e-mails instructed the recipients to delete 

and destroy the incoming mail. 

An impressive client roster, including 

Beyonce, Keith Urban and Jay-Z, were 

alleged to have been illegally diverted 

from XLTV to Chaos. The suit claims, 

amongst other things, the loss of revenue 

from seven tours. An additional suit 

claims that Wiseman shared secret proprietary 

information about artists and 

their tour plans. 

The opening statements fell short 

of attaching a dollar amount to the allegations. 

By now the sight of all that 

“deleted” e-mail has everyone in the 

courtroom re-considering the long term 

effects of hitting the “send” button too 

hastily and the woeful misnaming of the 

delete command. 

Speaking for the Defense plsn 

After a brief recess, the attorney for 

the defense strikes a more folksy tone 

exploring the themes of loyalty in its various 

guises. Loyalty to employer, to coworker 

and to customers is examined. 

In a presentation more impassioned but 

less polished, the defense presents Wiseman 

as a man hired for the very qualities 

that XLTV so badly needed. A climbing 

graph chronicles the immediate sales 

success that Wiseman scored, taking 

XLTV from $3 million in U.S. revenue in 

2004 to over $25 million by the end of 

his term in 2008. Wiseman also showed 

his stripes as a company man by cosigning 

lease guarantees to the tune of 

$2.8 million during his term as CEO. His 

industry and loyalty take XLTV from nowhere 

to the big time in four years. 

The point is made repeatedly that 

Wiseman was hired for his sales skills 

and his Rolodex (a circular rotating device 

containing white cards, for those 

born after 1990). In one of many colorful 

sports analogies, Wiseman is variously 

described as the MVP, team captain and, 

finally, the reluctant free agent. In a town 

obsessed by local teams, he is looking 

less like Manny Ramirez and more like 

Kobe Bryant. Stretching the sports metaphors 

to the limit, the defense attorney 

asks if the Cleveland Cavaliers should 

sue the Miami Heat if the loss of their 

star player gives them a bad season. 

(Let’s hope there are no Cleveland fans 

on the jury.) 

It seems that, in the rush to get the 

shows on the road, Wiseman’s threeyear 

management contract with stock 

options has expired, and may not be 

renewed. Wiseman is then, according to 

the defense, left with no choice but to 

look out for his own interests. The defense 

has deposed, or intends to bring 

as witnesses, a team of Wiseman’s longtime 

designer, director and producer 

friends, who will confirm that the concert 

industry is service- and personality-driven, 

and they like what Wiseman 

has given them for the past 25 years. 

They will follow him regardless of his 

employment status. 

In this game, that is the loyalty that 

is bankable, unlike that other loyalty 

that is merely expected. Customer service 

and tech support is everything — 

the rest is just gear in road cases. 

The defense concludes that XLTV 

neglected their star player, even trying 

to fire him seven months after he 

resigned, allegedly to avoid payment of 

stock options, and has a terminal case 

of “sour grapes.” They are trying to recover 

lost touring revenue through the 

legal system. 

The concert industry is characterized 

as a free market environment 

where no proprietary secret can live 

for long. The defense does not so much 

deny Wiseman’s actions as seek to explain 

them. It takes a “wouldn’t-you-dothe-same” 

tone. 

Not surprisingly, recovered “deleted” 

e-mails return to play a starring role 

in the defense strategy. 

The Gray Zone 

plsn 

Regardless of the outcome, this 

case will shine a light into the gray ar- 

This is a full jury trial, with discovery, depositions, jury selection and a defense team. 

Pre-trial legal costs for either side could buy you a good-sized lighting rig with some 

video thrown in. 


eas of the concert industry. Like lowresolution 

video, those may look better 

viewed from a distance. On trial are the 

assumptions we make every day as designers, 

account executives or business 

owners. 

When your star salesman leaves, 

will your customers follow, or will 

they stay loyal to the company? Is the 

concert industry a web of influencepeddlers, 

with the ability to subvert 

the rules of conventional business and 

get away with it? Should we have more 

(or fewer) employment contracts? Is 

a handshake no longer worth the paper 

it’s written on? Is it okay to take a 

quote from one vendor and disclose it 

to a competitor to drive a better price? 

Is it okay to write an equipment spec 

that purposely excludes a vendor from 

being able to quote competitively? 

The bidding practices of military 

contractors are subject to high levels 

of scrutiny — a Google search will 

show that they are permanently in 

litigation. Most retain full-time legal 

counsel passing the costs on to their 

customers. Is this our future? If you 

think the fun is seeping out of our 

industry now, just wait. Nothing can 

erode your bottom line quicker than 

paying legal costs. 

Big Eggs, Small Baskets 

plsn 

For the two companies facing off in 

court, the situation is made more intense 

because their client pool is small, their capital 

investment enormous and their equipment 

has an obsolescence curve that is 

downright scary. They may only do 10 major 

jobs a year and are completely at the whim 

of artists’ schedules, show cancellation and 

other variables that cause insomnia and 

anxiety. Losing a customer for whatever 

reason is serious business — losing three or 

more customers is life-threatening 

A successful company at this level 

needs to have top-notch gear, endless 

technical support and the ability to make 

very nervous high maintenance customers 

feel that they are getting what they are 

paying (a lot) for. There may be a contract, 

there may even be vestigial traces of customer 

loyalty, but mostly it’s a leap of faith. 

Behind the wall of technology and production 

techs, it’s one guy trusting another to 

get the job done. It’s a blend of charisma, 

confidence and longevity, and it’s hard to 

attach a dollar figure to it. That, however, is 

the task for judge and jury, who will never 

look at a concert quite the same way again. 

For the rest of us, we are planning to 

dunk that old laptop in sulfuric acid 

and hurl it into the Grand Canyon. 

The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and not necessarily those of PLSN or Timeless Communications. 

ON THE MOVE 

continued from page 15 

Intensity Advisors (intensityadvisors. 

com) is a new design firm staffed by LD 

Jeff Ravitz and longtime associate Kristie 

Roldan, formerly with Visual Terrain. 

GoVision L.P. named Scott McKinnon 

vice president and partner. McKinnon has 

worked with many Fortune 500 companies 

as clients in his 18-year career. He will 

manage GoVision’s sales and marketing 

activities and company operations. 

Lighting and Production Resources 

has named Scott McColm sales manager. 

He will run the company’s Tampa 

office, located at 5474 Williams Rd., 

Tampa, FL 33610; Tel: 877.648.4841; Fax: 

888.847.3454. 

Lightswitch is hiring independent 

marketing and public relations representative 

Holly O’Hair to represent the company. 

LMG Systems 

Integration, a division 

of LMG, Inc., 

opened a new office 

within the 

Thompson Center 

at 6302 Benjamin 

Road, Suite 409, 

Tampa, FL 33634. 

It houses office, Pamela Gelletly and Robert Allen 

warehouse, and 

audiovisual demonstration 

space. LMG hired Robert Allen 

and Pamela Gelletly as sales engineers for 

the division. 

Martin Professional A/S opened a 

representative office in Moscow. The new 

organization will promote the Martin 

brand and handle non-commercial activities 

in Russia and the former Soviet republics. 

Martin products have been available 

in Russia for 20 years through its exclusive 

distributor, A&T Trade. Under the new organization, 

A&T Trade will be an authorized 

dealer in Martin’s Russian dealer/ 

partner network. The head of the new office 

is Mikhail Kuznetsov, formerly brand 

manager with A&T Trade. The Moscow office 

staff also includes Anton Anufriev and 

Elena Zhulidova. 


19

SHOWTIME P 

R O J E C T I O N L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S 

ST 

B1 Block Party featuring Guster with 

Mayer Hawthorne & The County 

Venue 

B1 Stadium Lot 

University of Notre Dame 

South Bend, IN 

Crew 

Promoter/Event Director: 

Aaron Perri 

Production Manager: Shannon 

Stewart, Stewart Independent 

Production 

Technical Director: 

Dan DeVisser, SIP 

Stage Manager: 

Mati Johnson, SIP 

Lighting Design: Michael 

Corcoran, Shannon Stewart, 

Russell Armentrout 

Lighting Programmer/Operator: 

Michael Corcoran, Tony Travado 

Systems Tech: Matt “Rabbit” Harr 

Staging Companies: Ghost Light 

Enterprises, Chicago; Performance 

Staging, Detroit 

Staging Carpenters: Joe 

Andersen, Mick Kelly 

Riggers: Andy Gilbert, 

Justin Wilcox 

Video Director: Ray Cyganiac 

Video Company: DataVision 

Milwaukee 

Gear 

1 Avolites Diamond 4 Elite 

10 Martin MAC III Profiles 

6 Martin MAC 2000 Washes 

4 High End Systems Showguns 

8 ETC Source Four Lekos 

2 8-light Molefays 

1 Reel EFX DF-50 hazer 

2 LeMaitre Radiance hazers 

2 Barco B10 video walls 

3 Canon XL2 cameras 

CM Lodestar hoists 

Lighting Co. 

Performance Lighting 

Chicago 

Shorecrest Preparatory School Theatre 

ST 

Lighting Co. 

MWLPS Inc. 

Venue 

The Janet Root Theatre, 

St. Petersburg, FL 

Crew 

Promoter/Producer: Shorecrest 

Theatre 

Production Manager: Jeff Norton 

Lighting Designer: Mike Wood 

Assistant Lighting Designers: Ian 

Faurote, Garion Cazzell 

Lighting Technicians: Madi Verbeek, 

Tyler Blomquist, Lindsay Harris, 

Max Roberts 

Set Design: Tandova Ecenia 

Set Construction: Tandova Inc 

Director: Bill Leavengood 

Gear 

1 ETC Insight III lighting console 

2 High End Systems Studio Spot 

CMYs 

2 High End Systems Studio Beams 

4 Ocean Optics SeaChangers 

10 Wybron Coloram IIs 

34 6” Fresnels 


12 ETC Source Four PARs 

4 MR16 Zip Strips 

10 PAR64 strip lights 

12 Altman focusing cyc lights 

6 MR16 Birdies 

1 Reel EFX DF-50 hazer 

1 Sigma Services low smoke 

generator 

ST 

Luke Bryan Farm Tour 

Venue 

Various (Tour) 

Crew 

Promoter/Producer: Luke Bryan 

Production Manager: Pete Healey 

Lighting Designer/Director: 

Darien Koop 

Lighting Technicians: Ben Shockley 

Set Construction: Setco 

Staging Company: CTS Audio 

Staging Carpenter: Charlie Bowker 

Gear 

1 Jands Vista S3 lighting console 

1 Catalyst Pro media server 

12 Martin MAC 700 Profiles 

6 Martin MAC 700 Wash fixtures 

96 1000-watt PAR 64s 

4 8-Lite Molefays 

2 4-Lite Molefays 

4 Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes with 

Atomic Colors 

ETC Sensor Dimming 


Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 

LED fixtures 

CM Lodestar chain hoists 

Tyler Truss systems 

Xtreme Structures trussing 

10 Panels G13 LED curtain 

1 Mega-Stage mobile stage 

Lighting Co. 

Elite Multimedia 


ST 

Redken 50th Anniversary Show 

Venue 

Theatre St-Denis 

Montreal, QC, Canada 

Crew 

Promoter/Producer: Redken Canada 

Lighting/Set Design: Gil Perron 

Automated Lighting Operator: 

Pierre Roy 

Lighting Technicians: Mathieu 

Beaulieu, Kim Larouche, Fred Lamquin 

Staging Company/Set Construction: 

Atelier JD 

Rigger: RigRite 

Gear 

1 Martin M1 Lighting Console 

30 Martin MAC 600s 




12 Pulsar Chroma Batten 200s 

CM Lodestar chain hoists 

110 15mm SC panels 

1 Martin Maxedia Pro media server 

Lighting Co. 

Productions Reno 

ST 

Lighting Co. 

East Coast Lighting & Production 

Services (ECLPS) 

Venue 

Various (Tour) 

Crew 

Promoter/Producer: Jeff Sharp, AEG Live 

Production Manager: Bryon “Hot Dog” Tate 

Lighting Designer/Director: Eric Marchwinski 

Lighting Technicians: Nathan Almeida, 

Gear 

1 Flying Pig Systems Whole Hog III console 

1 Flying Pig Systems Hog iPC with Superwidget 



16 Martin MAC 250 Entours 


31 Martin Stage Bar 54 LED fixtures 

12 Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12 LED fixtures 

4 Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 48 LED fixtures 

30 ETC Source Four PAR fixtures 

8 ETC Source Four ellipsoidal fixtures 

4 James Thomas 8-Light Mole Fixtures 

16 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes 

2 Reel EFX DF-50 hazers 

2 Motion Labs 24-way 208V power distros 

1 Applied Electronics 3K 48-channel dimmer 

88’ Tomcat Pre-Rig truss 

48’ James Thomas 20.5” box truss 

1 James Thomas articulated corner 

12 CM Lodestar 1-ton chain motors 

1 Motion Labs 8-way controller 


21

PRODUCTION PROFILE 


All Photos by Steve Jennings 

Korn LD Jason Bullock Helps Turn Up the Heat in Texas 

By MorganLoven 

Jim Lenehan’s set design for Korn included pump jacks and derricks built by Accurate Staging. 

Jason Bullock 

It’s hot. No, not just hot, it’s scalding. It’s 

baking. It’s miserably, intensely, enormously, 

horribly, hot! It’s Dallas in August. 

The mercury has hit 110 and it’s still climbing. 

On the Superpages.com Center’s outdoor 

stage for the Rockstar Mayhem Festival, 

Jason Bullock, LD for Nine Inch Nails, Slayer, 

and now Korn (among others) is searching for 

somewhere that’s dark and cool to hang out 

before the show. 

The stage, which Korn’s headline act will 

share with Five Finger Death Punch, Lamb 

Of God, and Rob Zombie, is out. It’s covered 

with gear, (the lighting portion includes 

Martin MAC 2000 Wash fixtures, MAC 301 

LED Wash fixtures, Atomic Strobes, Barco/ 

High End Systems Showgun 2.5s, Coemar 

LEDPars, and some Philips/Color Kinetics 

Colorblaze 72 LED strips) guitars, pyro, and 

the industrial strength fans that are nonetheless 

losing the battle against the midafternoon 

heat. 

Overhead in the rig (the flying portion of 

which was designed by one of Bullock’s early 

mentors, Richard “Nook” Schoenfeld) the 

rising heat is baking fixtures which include 

MAC 700 Profiles, MAC 2000 Wash fixtures, 

Coemar Infinity Wash fixtures and some custom 

designed (for NIN’s 2009 tour) retinal assault 

in the form of big squares of 144 5-watt 

white narrow beam LEDs called “Headlights.” 

Bullock finally settles for the relative 

cool of the tour bus, knocking off another 

couple degrees with an icy, adult beverage. 

He knows he needs to save his energy. Korn’s 

show is an aggressive and ambitious display 

of hard hitting, in-your-face rock, and Bullock 

matches the band hit for hard-hitting 

hit. 

Break a Leg 

plsn 

As a teen, Bullock was drawn to theatre 

and music, and attended a high school with, 

according to him, “a great performing arts 

department.” Recovering from a broken leg 

his freshmen year gave Bullock the perfect 

chance to become the go-to guy for the 

newly installed lighting system in the school 

theatre. 

“I was the geek sent to the booth to 

figure out the new toys,” he says ruefully. 

Unsurprisingly, Bullock found in the “toys” 

a love and passion for the technical side of 

entertainment. After three semesters of college, 

Bullock decided the best way to really 

learn the business was by actually working 

in the business. 

He left school and began looking for 

a job doing what he loved. “It was months 

and months of resumes and interviews for 

an 18-year-old kid,” he says. “During this time 

I was working with Jim Macpherson of SK 

Light Shows in Syracuse, N.Y. and National 

Audio run by Mark Gummer in Baldwinsville, 

N.Y. “I was doing lighting and sound 

(mixing monitors at the time), getting real 

experience and, more importantly, making 

enough money to live on. Finally, I got a call 

from Dan English at Morpheus lights asking 

me to come interview.” Bullock got the job at 

Morpheus. 

“Three days later, I flew out to California, 

and seven days after that, I moved from New 

York to San Jose, and suddenly I was really 

a lighting guy in training. My days at Morpheus 

I remember fondly. Working at a place 

that builds its own gear affords opportunities 

that you just can’t get anymore. So my 

geekiness really was given a place to flourish. 

All of the people there took an interest 

in my enthusiasm for lighting. Like any other 

shop, though, there are times you just want 

to walk away and not come back for one 

more day of this crap. But if you do, the door 

to the future closes.” 

Bullock persevered, always keeping his 

goal to be a designer in mind. “Finally, I went 

out on tour. I was with some of the best 

teachers you could ever have. I was mentored 

by Nook Schoenfeld. He took me from being 

a tech to working as a programmer. During 

this time, I met and worked for some of my 

still-favorite people; Michael Ledesma, Nick 

Sholem, and programmers like David Chance. 

Eventually, I moved from Morpheus to Lighting 

Technologies in Atlanta. Then, after a few 

years there, and finally getting my first LD gig 

(311), I moved on to Upstaging after Lighting 

Technologies merged with LSD. At Upstaging, 

I continued to work with Nook, and began to 

work with John Huddleston, John Bahnick 

and Chuck Spector. To this day, Upstaging 

is still the company where I’ve been made 

to feel the most welcome, and it has always 

been like a family to me.” 

From NIN to Korn 

plsn 

The Korn tour came about through a connection 

he made while Bullock was working 

with NIN. “Korn is managed by the same 

people who manage Jane’s Addiction,” he 

explains. “I’ve been working with them since 

they toured with NIN in the summer of 2009. 

NIN first began back in 2000 on the Fragility 

2.0 tour. Roy Bennett, programmer Rob Smith, 

and myself redesigned and programmed a 

system in four days in Cleveland. After the 

first show, I was left to direct the U.S. and following 

European festival leg. Fast forward to 

2007, I was going to direct a tour for then-designer 

Paul Normandale. Due to scheduling 

conflicts, I was asked to take over the performance 

2007 tour for NIN. I continued to run 

Roy’s designs and later some of my own for 

Trent [Reznor of NIN]. This became one of the 

most influential times in my career, since I 

was working with some of the best music and 

best designers in the industry.” 

The preproduction for Korn’s performances 

on the Mayhem Festival tour was short. 

“I went to Upstaging and spent about two 

days putting in a framework for the festival. 

We then flew out for one night of rehearsal 

in California before the first show. It wasn’t 

anywhere near enough, but the reality is 

you must make do with what you’re given — 

whether it be five minutes or a month — you 

must figure out a way to allot your time to get 

the programming setup that allows you to 

create a show.” 

Fortunately the band was already familiar 

with Bullock’s work, and he with theirs, as 

Bullock had just finished work on a 70 minute 

HDnet shoot with the band playing in the 

middle of a giant crop circle. Bullock makes 

efficient use of his prep time and turns out an 

intricate show that looks as if someone spent 

weeks on it rather than a matter of hours. Every 

hit is taken, every hit is motivated, turning 

the Jim Lenahan-designed set by turns from 

an in-your-face blast of power and light to a 

deep and moody nighttime scene, as if painted 

by a Renaissance master. Huge set pieces 

in the shape of oil rigs loom ominously in a 

sea of tiny lights. 

Showtime 

plsn 

At showtime, Bullock pours every bit 

of his own energy into his lights. “I’ve literally 

seen Jason stage dive off the desk,” says 

ChamSys product specialists Esteban Caracciolo. 

Watching Bullock run the show in Dallas, 

that claim is easy to believe. He is now known 

for his high energy presence at FOH, working 

his favorite cherry-red board. 

“I’ve worked on a lot of consoles,” says 

Bullock. “I can sit down at just about anything 

and create a show I can use. For me personally 

the ChamSys works for my style — a lot of 

key short cuts, a straight, streamlined OS that 

is fast, reliable, and powerful. It’s got great 

people writing the software, Chris Kennedy 

in particular. And it has a combination of features 

that aren’t available anywhere else.” 

In terms of programming, Bullock stresses 

the importance of accuracy as well as speed. 

“You need to be sure that the buttons you 

press are achieving what you are seeking. Going 

along with that, you need to know what 

you want to program before you start, otherwise 

there is a lot of wasted time trying to get 

your brain up to speed with what is going on 

around you. 


Adding to the Mayhem: Other Festival Perspectives 

Here are some excerpts from others who 

helped orchestrate the Mayhem Festival 

tour featuring Korn and Rob Zombie. 

They were interviewed by writer/photographer 

Steve Jennings. For an expanded view 

of these perspectives, please visit www.plsn. 

com/mayhem. 

Nook Shoenfeld, Mayhem Production 

Designer 

“The sheer size of the set designs took a 

lot of advance work. Jim Lenahan designed 

a beautiful replication of an oil field on fire. 

Getting 25-foot tall oil derricks with matching 

pumps onto any stage is a struggle, especially 

if it’s a co-headline bill. Obviously, 

Zombie did not wish to play in front of 

someone else’s set, so it was my job, along 

with [stage manager John] Firpo, to figure 

out a way to get all the stuff on stage in a 

25-minute set change. The same goes for 

the giant video wall Zombie wanted to use. 

I couldn’t just leave it hanging in front of 

Korn’s custom designed LED strewn backdrop. 

So I end up playing with a giant jigsaw 

puzzle on numerous CAD programs until I 

find a way for it all to fit and make everyone 

happy.” 

Jim Lenahan, Korn Set Designer 

“The requirement from the band was 

that the set be a burning oil field. Now that’s 

something I can take and run with. The textures 

of old, dirty, industrial equipment were 

the first thing that came to my mind. I love 

textural scenery. The three pieces I wanted to 

include, which to me are emblematic of the 

oil industry in a visual sense, are oil derricks 

— the old fashioned kind in particular — 

pump jacks with a rising and falling motion. 

“Accurate Staging built the set on a very 

tight schedule and this way they only had to 

create the cross braces and platform at the 

top. The derricks had to be on fire for much 

of the show, so Show FX installed copper tubing 

up the center of the two derricks and propane 

tanks at the bottom to create a 25-foottall 

flame. 

“Each pump jack has a variable speed 

electric motor and a well head into which 

a pipe fits. A larger diameter pipe section 

sleeves over this pipe and slides up and down 

giving the illusion that the pipe is actually 

dropping into the well. Both the derricks and 

the pump jacks were scenically painted by 

Heidi Luest for Accurate Staging. The rust textures 

and dripping shades of red and brown 

were my favorite part of the pieces. 

“Finally, the backdrop was custom made 

by Sew What? Inc. It’s a piece of art I created 

out of many different photographic sources, 

primarily of chemical plants. I manipulated all 

this in Photoshop, then made a huge digitally 

printed version which was cut out, then sewn 

to scrim by Sew What?. 

“In addition they sewed a couple hundred 

LED lights into the drop where lights 

might be on a refinery — catwalks, etc. 

Tubes were run up the back of the digital 

pieces and connected to two manifolds at 

the bottom. Two smoke machines were 

fed into the manifolds so that smoke rose 

from the tops of the towers. Behind this a 

white cyc, hung so that lighting designer 

Jason Bullock could silhouette the spires 

of the refinery for yet another effect. It 

made for a very 3-D image. 

Damian Rogers, LD & Lighting Director 

for Rob Zombie 

“Rob and I have been collaborating for 

almost six years, so I know what he wants, 

and that makes my job easier. I can appreciate 

his artistic tendencies. Each year 

we create an even better look than the 

previous year. The first time I met Rob, he 

asked me if I liked spots. I told him ‘No,’ 

and his response was, ‘Good, me neither.’ 

I’m not a big fan of front spots, as I want 

complete responsibility and control over 

how the stage looks. I prefer to have the 

ability to use multiple fixtures, as Rob is 

very active on stage, playing in and out of 

light. He knows when he is lit, and I think 

spots would ruin the show and make him 

uncomfortable.” 

Cap 

The crew juggled the big video wall for Rob Zombie with the oil derricks for Korn. 

Propane tanks in the derricks fueled flames that rose 25 feet for Korn’. 

A “Symbiosis Thing” 

plsn 

As far as running the board, Bullock notes, 

“It’s hard to watch myself objectively while 

running a show.” (Search Youtube.com for “NIN 

lighting guy,” however, and you’ll notice that 

others have been doing that for him — and 

filming him in the process.) “I have my own way 

of expressing myself through my work I guess. 

Some people act and feel the way I do. But for 

that hour and a half I pour out my emotion and 

my anger and my vision into a visceral format. 

People in the crowd feed off of that, the band 

feeds off that and I feed off the energy of the 

crowd and the band. It’s a big symbiosis thing. 

“Lighting without good music to work with 

doesn’t really exist,” Bullock continues. “You 

need to have clients like NIN and like Korn who 

are looking mainly for something they haven’t 

already seen. They want to be doing what hasn’t 

been done. When the artist sees the work you 

do for them and considers you a part of their 

performance and onstage presentation, it’s really 

satisfying. That, and those moments of connection 

between you, the artist, and the crowd 

sharing a feeling for one second. Searching for 

that infinity point is what drives me.” 

In Dallas it’s nighttime now, and the afternoon 

heat has finally wandered off to bother 

someone else. The crowd has been here 

throughout the hottest parts of the day and, 

in spite of that, they are still going crazy. The 

energy coming from the stage is intense. The 

combination of the music of Korn, nearly constant 

big pyro hits, and the relentless, insistent, 

dizzying display of lights has given the crowd 

exactly the outlet it needs to express everything 

it’s been holding back for far too long. 

People are screaming themselves hoarse, 

drinking like fish, and raising their middle 

fingers to the world in general. The release is 

a relief, something important that can’t be 

defined except to say that it’s rock ‘n’ roll mayhem. 

2010 Mayhem Festival Crew 

LD Jason Bullock changed the mood for Korn’s fiery red looks with a cooler nighttime palette. 

Lighting Co: Upstaging Inc. 

Production Designer: 

Nook Shoenfeld 

Video Director: Phil Keller 

(Delicate Productions) 

Video LED Technician: Curtis 

Miller (Delicate Productions) 

Pyro Company: Strictly FX 

For Korn 

Lighting Designer & Director: 

Jason Bullock 

Lighting Crew Chief: 

T-Roy Smith 

Lighting Techs: Blake “the Flake” 

Elkin, Jason Blaylock, James R. 

Harris, John Bailey 

Production Manager: 

Ray Picard 

Tour Manager: John Reese 

Set Design: Jim Lenahan (Jim Lenahan 

Production Design), Chris 

Kantrowitz (Frank The Plumber) 

Rigger: Kurtis Grossen 

For Rob Zombie 

Lighting Designer & Director: 

Damian Rogers (Gemini Stage 

Lighting) 

Lighting Tech: John Bailey 

Set Designer: Rob Zombie 

Production Manager: 

Mark Woodcock 

Tour Manager: Sully “the Bull” 


23

SHOW REPORT 


LDI 2010 

More Tech Per Square Foot 

By Richard Cadena 

Photos By Tuce Yasak 

For over two decades, the annual Lighting 

Dimensions International trade 

show has been our window into the 

world of live event production. And this 

year, there was a big elephant staring back 

through that window. The elephant in the 

room, of course, was LED technology. 

With all the gallium arsenide (GaAs) and 

phosphors in the Las Vegas Convention Center, 

how can any LDI 2010 show review not begin 

by an in-depth discussion of LEDs? They 

were introduced in new products, discussed 

on the show floor and in dozens of seminars, 

displayed in demo rooms and vendor’s 

booths and marketed to thousands of attendees. 

They came in new color wash fixtures, 

PARs, Fresnels, architectural luminaires, studio 

lighting, video displays, effects lighting, 

strobes, blacklights, and even console lights. 

They range from the tiny Omnisistem Jr. 

moving yoke LED fixture to the eight-pound 

Martin MAC 101 moving yoke LED fixture to 

the giant Christie Nitro LED 100-40K with 450 

3-watt LEDs. But one of the most interesting 

areas of new development on the LED front is 

in profile spot fixtures. 

LED Variations 

ldi 

Robert Juliat’s Aledin was one of the first 

LED profile spot fixtures with enough power 

and focused optics to project beautifully rendered 

images. Now there are a number of 

new LED profile spots including GLP Impression 

Spot One, Elation Platinum Spot LED, 

Chauvet Q-Beam 260-LED, Strong Entertainment 

Lighting Neva, Mega Systems Axis LED 

Spot and Techni-Lux VectorLED 160 Spot. 

LEDs are also finding their way into other 

new form factors such as Coemar’s Reflection, 

Prism Projection’s Reveal Studio, which 

has the look of a Fresnel fixture, and Arri’s 

Caster series of broadcast lighting. And they 

are quickly moving into areas previously reserved 

for conventional lighting such as key 

lighting and fill lighting. Just check out ETC’s 

new Selador Pearl and Prism Projection’s Reveal 

CW. 

All of this has changed the conversation 

about LEDs. When Jim Bornhorst was collecting 

his Parnelli Lifetime Achievment Award 

at the Oct. 22 ceremony (see related story, 

this issue), he quoted a friend who said, “LEDs 

are the future of lighting and always will be.” 

After this year’s LDI, his friend might want to 

amend his quote. We suggest, “LEDs are the 

future of lighting, and the future just might 

be here right now.” If not now, then perhaps 

tomorrow mid-morning. 

But LEDs aren’t the only new game in 

town. New fixtures are popping up with new 

light sources like the 850-watt HID lamp in 

the Barco/High End Systems Intellaspot XT- 

1, the 800-watt discharge lamp in the Robe 

MMX Spot under development, the 300-watt 

Philips MSD Platinum 15R lamp in the Elation 

Platinum Spot 15R Pro, the 190-watt Philips 

MSD Platinum 5R in the Clay Paky Sharpy 

and Elation Platinum Spot 5R, and the 480- 

watt Luxim LiFi-ENT 31-04 plasma lamp in the 

Robe 600 Plasma Spot. 

Automation and Control 

ldi 

All of these fixtures represent real progress 

in the steady march towards more efficient 

lamps and luminaires. Marching at an 

even more rapid pace is another group of 

technologies including networking, automation, 

controls, media servers, wireless, consoles 

and video displays. A prime example of 

state-of-the-art networking technology was 

on display in the PRG demo room where their 

new V476 lighting console was networked 

with the new Commander motion control 

console and the newly upgraded MBox EXtreme 

v3. The system was controlling motorized 

carts and trolleys on which video display 

panels fed by the media server were moving 

through a stationary video display. Think 

about that for a moment; the video image 

was not moving, but the display device was. 

That’s networking and systems integration at 

its finest. 

Another sign of the increasing prominence 

of automation was the presence of a 

growing number of automation companies. 

Some of them included Fisher Technical Services 

Inc. (FTSI), who has recently entered 

into formal collaboration with Tait Towers, 

Kinesys, Show Distribution, XLNT Advanced 

Technologies, Eilon Engineering, ETC, J.R. 

Clancy, ZFX, Serapid, Stage Technologies and 

Vortek. Automation just might represent the 

most exciting area of the live entertainment 

industry right now. 

Networking and Visualizers ldi 

Or is it networking? It’s a tough call, especially 

when you see what companies like Cast 

Software are doing with their BlackBox and 

BlackTrax systems, or what total integrations 

systems like Midiator and High Resolution 

Systems are doing to tie together disparate 

technologies. Then there are all of the new 

generation of wireless technologies from City 

Theatrical, Wireless Solution, RC4 Wireless, 

and Lumen Radio. Entertainment networks 

are as ubiquitous as entertainment, and 

they’re becoming more reliable and powerful. 

Then again, the most exciting area of the 

live entertainment industry right now might 

be media servers, visualizers and the devices 

that are blurring the lines between them. 

Take, for example United Visual Artists’ D3. Is 

it a visualizer, media server, controller, or all 

of the above? Or LightConverse, a visualizer 

which now has the ability to blend and warp 

video inputs in the virtual world and in the 

real world. 

Consoles and Software 

ldi 

All of this technology would be worthless 

without a power command center to 

control it all. Not to fear — the industry 

is spending its brain capital on a number 

of new consoles and software updates. 

Some of the new consoles include Avolites 

Titan Mobile and Sapphire Touch 

consoles, Jands Vista V2 Byron (still under 

development), PRG V476 and Martin 

M1. Meanwhile, MA Lighting continues to 

add features to grandMA2 and Zero 88 

has updated software for their Frog and 

Orb consoles. Though the industry is still 

waiting on more manufacturers (other than 

ETC and Zero 88) to catch up with fixtures 

on the RDM front, it seems that more of 

them are implementing streaming ACN, 

and that’s good news. 

Other notable technologies that are 

having an impact on the industry include 

battery-powered LED fixtures like Chauvet’s 

Wireless Event LED Luminaire (WELL) and 

OmniSistem’s Wireless DMX Uplighting System 

as well as a plethora of LED display panels 

in hi-res (Christie Digital Microtiles, Elation 

EPV6, Pixled F-6, Mega Systems Enigma), 

low-res (American DJ Flash Panel 16, G-LEC 

Phantom 15), curtains (Pixzel Z-Pix, G-LEC 

Solaris+), transparent (Clay Paky Mirage QC, 

Martin EC-20), flexible (Pix2o Video Reel) and 

flexible/transparent (TMB CurveLED, RGB 

Lights FlexiFleXL) varieties. 

Looking through that window, besides 

the elephant in the room, we see a very active 

industry. Several manufacturers came to the 

show with armloads of new products including 

American DJ, Elation, Robe, Omnisistem, 

Chauvet, TMB, Pulsar, and probably many 

more. All of this means that there is now more 

technology per square foot than ever before 

in the history of LDI. 

Clay Paky rolled out several new moving lights including the Sharpy, Shotlight Wash, and Alpha Profile 700. 

The new Tour Lift variable speed chain motors and trolleys on the Show Distribution stand. 


Vari-Lite, Color Kinetics, Strand, Selecon and Philips Specialty Lighting on the stand of their parent company, 

Philips. Selecon’s new PL1, PL3, and PL5 fixtures use the same LED light engines as the Vari-Lite VL. 

ETC showed their new outdoor Source Four and Selador Pearl fixtures. 

Elation highlighted their EPV video display panels and their moving yoke video panels, among many other products. 

Chauvet launched more than a dozen new wash lights, moving yokes and event lighting fixtures. 

City Theatrical demonstrated the new Vectorworks Spotlight 2011, Lightwright 5, and the integration of the two. 

AC Lighting demonstrated the Chroma-Q Color Force 12 LED color wash and the Color Charge, a 600-lumen, 

NiMH battery-powered portable LED light source with wireless control and interchangeable head. 

GLP added to their line of LED fixtures with the Impression Spot, Meisterstück, and Volkslicht. 

Daktronics showing the flexibility of their video display products. 


25

SHOW REPORT 


Syncrolite featured its new CMH 400 exterior luminaire with integrated OmniColor Dichrofilm color scroller. 

Among Coemar’s new products was the Reflection fixture with a unique reflector system and replaceable LED engine. 

The Martin stand was brimming with the eight pound MAC 101 moving yoke LED fixture. Other new products 

included the M1 console and an upgraded Maxedia 4 media server. 

OmniSistem displayed an array of gear for lighting, video and fog effects. 

Among the new products on the Techni-Lux stand were the VectorLED 160 Spot, Studio Due’s StudioLED 

600, and the Swefog Xeon II Intellahazer haze machine. 

Doug Fleenor Design was busy showing, among other products, their new DMX24DIM single rack space 24-channel 

dimmer for low power lamps like LEDs, fluorescent, and Christmas lights. 

Applied Electronics hosted LSC, who was showing the latest updates to the Clarity PC-based console and their 

new EKO 24/2400 Dimmer. On the opposite side of the stand was Staging Dimensions, who showed innovative 

hardware including Quick Clamp, which rigs lights to columns or tent structures, plus Truss Picks and Truss 

Dollies. 

Ultratec busted out their new Mega Fog Burst, which works with the G3000 fog machine to 

emulate CO2 blasts of fog. 


SHOW REPORT 


Creative Stage Lighting exhibited products from Compulite, JB Lighting and Entertainment Power Systems. 

J.R. Clancy showed their PowerLift and Niscon’s Raynok MK2 motion control system. 

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11/5/10 7:09 PM

Lightronics revealed four new LED products including a color wash, a cyc light, and two PAR fixtures. Rosco Labs celebrated its100th birthday at LDI 2010. 

Eric Von Fange showing his 

wares on The Light Source stand. 

Pixled expanded their line 

of video display panels 

with the new F-6. 

Cast Software previewed 

WYSIWYG R25, BlackBox, and 

BlackTrax.

SHOW REPORT 


Bryan Cheevers, left, and Rob Baxter of BCI showed their new Pocket Console DMX Wireless and iPhone app. 

LeMaitre USA showed their line of fog and haze machines, 

as well as the Chameleon Flame Projector and the Comet 

Flame Projector. 

Bulbtonics showed a range of lamps, tapes, batteries, and accessories. 

RSC Lightlocks on the Total Structures stand. 

Along with new gear, Robe emphasized its “Think of The Future — Consider Nature” environmental initiative. The SGM Idea series of moving lights on the Techni-Lux stand. New is the Idea Spot 700.. 

PixelRange’s LED offerings at LDI 2010. 

LEX Products displayed its EverGrip cables. 



PARNELLI AWARDS 

The 10th Annual 

Record-breaking turnout of over 600 came to see 

“Industry’s Highest Honor” 

By Kevin M. Mitchell 

On the Friday night of LDI, live event industry 

professionals crammed into the 

Rio Hotel and Casino’s main ballroom for 

the 10th Annual Parnelli Awards. The highlights 

were many, including the presence of Paul Anka, 

Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, who came to honor 

and present Parnellis to people who were important 

to their career. 

An early highlight was when Jim Bornhorst 

received the Parnelli Visionary Award for leading 

the team that developed the first commercial 

moving light, the Vari*Lite VL-0, among other 

contributions. A great deal of fun was had with 

Bornhorst throughout the evening. In his opening 

remarks, Parnelli Executive Producer and 

PLSN publisher Terry Lowe said: “Sure, everyone 

in this room thought of color-changing lights. 

Most of us thought of lights moving and changing 

colors. But only one of us put the bong down 

long enough to make it happen.” Then, various 

quips were made about Bornhorst having started 

as an audio engineer who in the 1970s made 

the transition into lighting. Lighting designer 

Allen Branton, who with PLSN editor Richard Cadena 

presented the first set of lighting awards, 

joked that he knew Bornhorst in the beginning 

of his career when he was a sound guy, but 

“thank goodness he turned his life around and 

made something of himself.” 

The guy who gave him his first industry job 

and current PRG VP Rusty Brutsché presented 

Bornhorst with the award. “Jim led the engineering 

team at Vari-Lite and later PRG to invent the 

many automated luminaires that have formed 

the basis of the lighting industry as we know it 

today,” Brutsché said. “His name is on numerous 

patents and he has been the driving creative 

force behind this technology that has meant so 

much to our industry.” 

Capping the pro audio section program, 

Anka came out and gave a short, funny, selfdeprecating 

speech honoring the founder of 

A-1 Audio, Al Siniscal, who received the Parnelli 

Audio Innovator Award. He then brought up a 

visibly moved Siniscal, put him on a stool, and 

with his pianist backing him up, sang a version 

of his song “My Way” with altered lyrics to match 

the event. 

At the end of the evening, in honor of their 

longtime production manager, Randy “Baja” 

Fletcher, Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn took the 

stage. Before launching into a warm and funny 

anecdote-laden speech about Fletcher, Brooks 

did a shout out to all live event professionals in 

the room. “I just want to say that sitting here with 

all of you, I’m amazed at what you do,” he said. 

“Every time I see you hook up your cables and 

hang your lights, even though I’ve been around 

it all for years, I still feel like I’m just looking at the 

back of television.” 

The Parnellis shattered all records — over 

600 attended the sold out event. It began with 

a cocktail hour that featured fun items from the 

past related to the ceremony’s big three honorees. 

Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award’s 

Randy “Baja” Fletcher had his old concert T-shirts 

from days of yore on display; Parnelli Visionary 

honoree’s Jim Bornhorst had the first VL-0 moving 

light on display; and Sinsical’s posters from 

his career were there to admire. 

And the Parnelli Goes To… 

Branton and Cadena first handed out the 

Lighting Designer of the Year Award, which went 

to Steve Cohen for his work on Star Wars — In 

Concert. Upstaging and East Coast Lighting and 

Production Services won, respectively, for Best 

Lighting Company and Hometown Hero Lighting 

Company of the Year, respectively. Lighting 

and media server programmer Vickie Claiborne 

and video director Mark Haney came up next 

to give Bruce Rodgers the Set/Scenic Designer 

of the Year award for his work on the Super Bowl 

Halftime Show. 

Later in the program, Parnelli Executive Director 

Patrick Stansfield came out to introduce 

the video created to honor the live event professionals 

who passed away this year. He began 

with a poignant and touching speech about 

Wally Crum of NEP Screenworks. Quoting Crum’s 

wife, Nadine, he said, “Wally loved, and laughed, 

with a heart that had never learned shame. He 

wondered and learned with a mind that never 

understood the word ‘no.’” 

Jeanette Farmer of Fisher Technical Services 

Inc. and isquint.com blogger Justin Lang came 

up next. “Live entertainment is increasingly 

about video,” Farmer said at the podium. “It’s visual. 

It’s a lighting source. It’s a set design.” Then 

the two gave Mark Haney the Video Director of 

the Year Award for Star Wars — In Concert. Best 

Video Rental Company of the year went to Chaos 

Visual Productions. 

Video director Carol Dodds came up next 

The 2010 Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award went to Randy “Baja” Fletcher. 


31


Parnelli Visionary Award Winner 

Jim Bornhorst 

Lifetime Achievement Award: Randy “Baja” Fletcher 

Audio Innovator Award: Al Siniscal 

Parnelli Visionary Award: Jim Bornhorst 

Lighting Designer: Steve Cohen, Star Wars: In Concert 

Set/Scenic Designer: Bruce Rodgers, Super Bowl Halftime Show 

Video Director: Mark Haney, Star Wars: In Concert 

FOH Mixer: Robert Scovill, Tom Petty 

Monitor Mixer: Mike Adams, Brooks & Dunn 

Audio System Tech: Matt Fox, Star Wars: In Concert 

Production Manager: Kevin Freeman, Brad Paisley 

Tour Manager: Ron Doroba, Star Wars: In Concert 

Lighting Company: Upstaging Inc. 

Sound Company: Sound Image 

Hometown Hero Lighting Company: East Coast Lighting & 

Production Services (ECLPS) 

Hometown Hero Sound Company: Beachsound 

Staging Company: Stageco 

Rigging Company: Atlanta Rigging Systems 

Set Construction Company: All Access Staging & Productions 

Video Company: Chaos Visual Productions 

Pyro Company: Strictly FX 

Coach Company: Hemphill Brothers 

Trucking Company: Stage Call 

Freight Forwarding Company: Rock-It Cargo 

Indispensable Technology “IT” Awards: 

Lighting: Vari*Lite VLX Wash 

Video: Martin Professional EC-20 LED display panels 

Staging: Atlanta Rigging Systems ARS Flying V trolley system 

Audio: L-Acoustics K1 Systems

Vari-Lite’s Bob Schacherl and George Masek with the 

Indispensable Technology: Lighting award for the 

VLX Wash luminaire. 

Steve Cohen won the 2010 Parnelli Lighting Designer 

of the Year Award for Star Wars: In Concert. 

Upstaging’s John Huddleston with the Parnelli 

Lighting Company of the Year award. 

and presented the Staging Company of 

the Year award to Stageco, and the Rigging 

Company of the Year Award to Atlanta Rigging 

Systems. Industry legends Mike Brown 

and Joe Branam came up next — both 

contemporaries who were in the business 

from the very beginning. “Can you imagine?” 

Branam said. “When we were starting 

out, there were hardly any new products for 

what we did, and now they give awards for 

it.” 

“It really blows my mind,” Brown responded, 

adding: “Then again, so does 

email.” The two then gave All Access Staging 

& Productions the Set Construction 

of the Year Award and Strictly FX the Pyro 

Company of the Year Award. 

Ed Wannebo, the production manager 

for Kenny Chesney, came to give out 

the transportation awards. “As a production 

manager, I’m absolutely honored to 

be handing out these awards,” he said. 

“Coaches are important. If the artist shows 

up cranky, it’s one more pain in my ass.” 

Coach Company of the Year went to Hemphill 

Brothers; Trucking Company of the Year 

went to Stage Call; and Freight Forwarding 

Company of the Year was given to Rock-It 

Cargo. 

Star Wars — In Concert was won the 

most awards, including Tour Manager of 

the Year (Ron Doroba). For his work with 

Brad Paisley, Kevin Freeman received the 

Production Manager of the Year honor. 

The Indispensable Technology “IT” 

Awards went to the Vari*Lite VLX Wash 

(Lighting); Martin Professional EC-20 (Video); 

Atlanta Rigging Systems ARS Flying V 

(Staging) and L-Acoustics K1 System (Audio). 

The Artists Give Back 

When Anka took the stage to honor 

Siniscal, he was funny, poignant, and sincere. 

He had fun with the fact that Siniscal 

had taken his motto and made it his own. 

“He gives me credit for giving him his personal 

motto, ‘the stakes are too high for 

amateurs,’” Anka mused. “What I really said 

that day was, ‘your rates are too high, said 

my managers!’” 

Brooks and Dunn sat with Fletcher 

and his family for the show, and on taking 

the stage, told funny stories, particularly 

of Fletcher’s obsession with baseball. But 

after declaring they couldn’t do it without 

him, Fletcher took the stage and told how 

while he never got to meet him personally, 

he first heard of Rick “Parnelli” O’Brien when 

he was with ZZ Top. Fletcher was notably 

moved, thanking the Parnelli Board for the 

honor. 

Video tributes to all three of these honorees 

are found on parnelliawards.com. 


33


More than 600 of the industry’s best and brightest attended the cocktail party and awards dinner. 

Mats Kalrsson of Martin Professional (left) accepts the 

Indispensable Technology: Video award for the company’s 

EC 20 LED display panels. 

All Access Staging & Productions’ Erik Eastland and Clive Forrester 

with the Set Construction Company of the Year Award. 

Kix Brooks & Baja Fletcher & Ronnie Dunn 

The room, and agenda, were packed full. 


BUYERS GUIDE 


Antari M-5 Stage Fogger 

Barco FQ-100 

Le Maitre GForce3 

American DJ Dyno-Fog II 

Antari M-5 Stage Fogger 

Chauvet Hurricane Haze 2 

Manufacturer 

North American distributor(s) 

Model Fluid name and type Method of vaporization Method of propulsion Control 

Dyno-Fog II 

1,000W heater 4,000 CFM pump 10 ft. cable with controller (included) 

American DJ 

americandj.com 

ADJ F-UN/GAL 

Fog Storm 1200HD 1,200W heater 7,000 CFM pump 25 ft. cable remote (included) 

Antari 

Elation Professional - NA Distr 

elationlighting.com 

M-5 Stage Fogger 

Elation X-Fog Pro; non-toxic, de-ionized 

water-based fluid 

1500W heater 

20,000 CFM piston pump 

Z-20 timer remote included; built-in DMX; optional 

Z-30 wireless remote 

DNG-200 Low Fog Generator Antari FLR (light fog liquid) 1,500W heater 40,000 CFM pump D-20 timer remote included; built-in DMX 

Barco 

Barco / High End Systems - NA Distr 

barco.com, highend.com 

FQ-100 

Water-based Atmospheres 

fog generating fluid 

1500W heater Fluid pump DMX-512, manual volume control, timers 

Chauvet 

chauvetlighting.com 

Hurricane Haze 2 

HFG - water based 

1200 CFM Multi-function remote and DMX on board 

Heater 

Hurricane 1800 Flex FJU - water based 25,000 CFM Remote incluced; wireless remote optional; DMX 

Hazebase 

Inner Circle Distribution - NA Distr 

icd-usa.com 

Base Battery Fog Machine 

400W 

Battery-operated internal 

pump 

Local, wired and wireless remote option 

Base Highpower Fog Machine 2600W Internal pump Local, DMX512, wired and wireless remote option 

Le Maitre USA 

lemaitreusa.com 

MVS 

G300 

Neutron Haze fluid - glycerol based 

Variety of Le Maitre glycol-based fluids 

Stainless Steel Vaporization 

Tube - No Heater Block 

Dual heater, dual pump 

Genesis block 

Air pump, fluid pump, dual 

internal fans 

Dual internal pumps 

DMX512 standard - manual control from machine 

0-10V; selectable parameter master/slave; DMX512 

or Timer remote options 

Look Solutions 

Look Solutions USA, Ltd - NA Distr 

looksolutionsusa.com 

Tiny F07 Fog Machine Tiny Fluid (glycol-water based) 70W heat exchanger Fluid pump 

Wired remote w/ optional DMX 512 or 

radio remote 

Unique 2 Hazer Unique Fluid (glycol-water based) 1500W heat exchanger 

Air pump, fluid pump plus 

internal fan 

Stand-alone mode, built in DMX, with optional XLR 

remote or radio remote 

Martin 

Martin Professional, Inc. - NA Distr 

martinpro.com 

Magnum 1800 

Jem ZR44 Hi-Mass 

Pro Smoke Super (ZR Mix), Regular DJ 

(DJ Mix), Pro Smoke High Density (SP 

Mix) 

Different fluid options for different applications 

1150W heat exchanger 

Dedicated remote w/ on-board DMX512 interface 

1800W heat exchanger 1200 m³/min output DMX; RDM compatible 

MDG Fog Generators Ltd 

A.C.T Lighting, Inc. - NA Distr 

actlighting.com 

Atmosphere APS Haze Generator 

MAX 3000 APS Fog Generator 

MDG Neutral Fluid (mineral oil-based) 715W heat exhanger CO2 or N2 gas Remote control; optional DMX512 interface 

OmniSistem 

omnisistem.com 

DF-V6 PyroFog 

DF-D1500 Ice Fogger 

OmniFog water-based fluid 1500W heater Internal pump 

DMX-512; timer; wireless remote controller; output 

volume control 

DMX-512; on-board LCD timing controller; wireless 

remote controller optional 

Rosco Laboratories 

Rosco dealer network 

Swefog 

Techni-Lux 

techni-lux.com 

Ultratec Special Effects 

Global Dealer Network 

ultratecfx.com 

Delta 3000 

Glycol water-based fluid 

Delta Hazer 1000W heater Piston pump + blower 

1500W heater Piston pump Dedicated remote: DMX, volume control, timers 

Ultimate 2000 Mineral oil Mechanical cracker Forced ventilation Local, DMX512 

Radiance Luminous 7 Haze Fluid 500W heater Piston pump DMX512 standard, optional remotes 

Power Fog Industrial & 9D Version Ultratec Special Effects fog fluids 1500W Piston pump 

DMX512 standard, several optional remotes 

available 


Jem ZR44 Hi-Mass 

Rosco Delta Haze 

Ultratec Special Effects Radiance Hazer 

Look Solutions 

Unique 2 hazer 

DF-V6 PyroFog from 

OmniSistem 

Swefog Ultimate 2000 

Features Accessories Size Weight 

ETL and ETLC listed; one-quart removable fluid container; 5-minute warm-up time; fluid 

consumption - 10 min/ltr @ 100% output 

Heater system - large diameter copper tube; electronic thermo sensing; constant temp heater 

w/ no warm-up time between blasts; cut-off system warns when fluid level is low, stops pumping 

when fluid reaches minimal level; external fog control switch 

10-liter tank; automatic pump shut-off for low fluid level 

Self contained unit - no dry ice required; 3M fog conducting hose; aluminum heater block; 

3 selectable fog outputs; 10-liter tank; 12-minute first heat-up; self-contained case w/ 

wheels and handles 

Retail 

Price 

Hanging bracket 7” x 6.25” x 15.25” 10 lbs. $139.95 

Optional F-Timer FS 1200 timer control; 

optional FS-DMX-T DMX timer; optional 

F Wireless FS1200 wireless remote control 

Optional Z-30 wireless remote, optional 

FM-5 flight case 

12” x 8.75” x 6.5” 12 lbs. $1,99.95 

Comments 

26”x12.5”x6.7” 33 lbs $979.95 Two carrying handles 

30.7” x 24” 27” 

265 

lbs. 

10,999.95 

Complete ground fog effect in self-contained unit; 

low-noise fan system. 

9.5 liter ( 2.5 gallon) removable fluid reservoir; LCD menu w/ timer (interval, duration, and 

volume); continuous fog; manual ON/OFF; 3-pin and 5-pin XLR DMX in/out; fluid level sight 

gauge; user replaceable fluid filter; 20,000 CFM output; 10 min/liter fluid consumption; 11 

min. warm-up time; optoelectronic liquid sensor w/ auto shutoff 

25.4”x11.9”x6.6” 

34 lbs. 

(15.5 

kg) 

$699 100-120 VAC 50/60 Hz or 200-240 VAC 50/60 Hz 

2 channels of DMX w/ adjustable continuous output from low to medium haze; low fluid 

indicators; auto shut off on low fluid 

Included 

11.1”x10.5”x14” 

DMX-controllable; low fluid indication w/ auto shut down Optional wireless remote control 23”x13.6”x14.7” 

12V battery; 10ml/min; continuous operation Wired and wireless remotes 22.5cm x 10cm x 21cm 

240 ml/sec output; internal timer; stand-alone mode; continuous operation; microprocessor 

controlled; heater block/thermostat and pump thermal switch 

Wired and wireless remotes; road case 

58cm x 23cm x 25cm 

18.7 

lbs 

27.6 

lbs 

13.2 

lbs 

(6kg) 

44 lbs 

(20kg) 

$299.99 

$1,632 

2-year warranty; 140 mins operation per charge; 

1-second warm up time. 

$1,992 2-year warranty; optional road case.. 

Built-In DMX controls haze output and both internal fans; steerable haze stream, with oscillation 

(sweep) mode, IEC modular power cable and multi-angle bracket - VERY efficient use 

of fluid, low residue formula 

Two flight case models 13.5” x 6.25” x 13.5” 31 lbs $1,582 

Built for continuous use - 2.5 L of fluid provides 40- 

60 hours of maximum output, continuous haze, 

self cleaning; requires no routine maintanence 

Dual mode fog & haze machine; highest output in the range; ties directly into Freezefog/ 

LSG chillers; two remote control options 

Battery operated, small enough to be built into props and costumes; 1/2 second heat up 

time; includes carrying case, battery, battery charger, wired remote, fluid tank and 250 ml 

of fluid; programmable fog time. 

Built in DMX , timer and haze density control system to program individual profile; 60-second 

heat up time; pump and fan can be adjusted separately in steps of 1% to create fine 

mist or thick haze; haze coverage of 10,000 square feet. 

Continuous output; 580 m³/min fog output; 9 min heat-up time; optional flying kit; 3.8 liter 

fluid capacity; variety of fluid options for different applications; on-board DMX; internal remote 

control storage; timer and output level remote control 

Continuous output; 7.5 min heat-up time; floor standing or truss mounting; Neutrik PowerCon 

connector; indirect fluid sensing system; proprietary Pro Steam Simulation fluid solution; 

3- & 5-pin DMX interface; prepared for multifunctional digital remote; RDM capable; 

“Soft Start” technology 

Creates haze/fog, particle size 0.5 -0.7 microns; Automatic Purging System (APS) purges the 

heating module preventing residual build up and clogging; continous operation (100% 

duty cycle) 

Simulates pyrotechnics w/ 25’ vertical plume; 20,000 CFM; synchronize up to 100 units; 0.6- 

gal tank capacity; thermal safety switch 

Simulated dry ice effect; on-board LCD time and output controller; electronic temperature 

control; external tank; continuous output; 20,000 CFM; 2.5-gal tank capacity; wheels and 

handle installed; uses regular or dry ice; for indoor use only 

Air input (for cleaning); low fluid sensor; variable output; Delta Technology; 0-10VDC input 

Air input (for cleaning); low fluid sensor; Delta Technology; 0-10VDC input 

Instant on; continuous operation; 0.06 liters consumption/hr; auto drain; DMX controllable; 

aluminum and copper construction. 

Flight case; standard and DMX remotes; 

associated cables; ducting adapter 

Ducting adapter, Y-splitter, timer, radio 

remote, DMX 

Diverter, travel case, rigging set, XLR 

remote, radio remote 

24” x 11.5” x 10.25” 41 lbs $2,948 Built for continuous use. 

4”x2”x2” 

18.5”x10”x10” 

11 

ounces; 

16.5 

ounces 

w/battery 

19 lbs 

Rigging bracket 19.7”x9.1”x10.5” 33 lbs $686 

Digital Multi-function remote control; 

ducting kit,; drip tray kit 

Self-contained portable kit; remote 

timer; aluminum CO2 bottles 

27” x 13.5” x 9” 41.8 lb $1,195 

27”x7”x12” 51 lbs $3,300 

24”x7”x12” 43 lbs $3,025 

Wireless remote kit 13” x 11” x 8” 17 lbs $318 

30” x 18” x 18.25” 47 lbs $758 

N/A 8” x 15” x 15” 41 Lbs 

Demo unit available upon request. 

2 liters of fluid provide up to 50 hours of continuous 

output; no regular maintenance required; demo 

unit available upon request; available in 120 or 230 

volt 

5-year warranty; slow output for natural diffusion; 

high output version available 

5-year warranty; high fog output; Max 5000 and MAX 

5000 High Output versions available 

Utilizes the same Delta Technology as the Delta 3000 

including DMX control as standard equipment. 

Built-In DMX controls haze output and internal fan; onboard variable settings or optional remote; 

IEC removable power cable and multi-use bracket; 4-port rapid clean vaporizer; 110-220V 

Radiance Hazer Remote; Radiance Touring 

System 

19”x13”x9.5” 28 lbs $1,325 

Uses only water-based Ultratec Luminous 7 Haze 

Fluid. 

Stainless steel chassis; rapid change heat exchanger; built-in DMX control; variable fog 

level;includes rapid change replacement kit; 110-220V 

Show Control remote; air option; fog 

burst; LSG compatibility standard 

20”x10”x9” 

29 lbs 

$1,166- 

$1,750 

Continuous use; designed for under stage, close, 

and confined spaces; uses only various types of 

Ultratec water-based fog fluid. 


37

COMPANY 411 


SHS Global 

Connecting Buyers and Sellers 

By Thomas S.Freeman 

Twenty-five years ago, faxes were 

becoming popular, but there were 

no websites, very limited e-mail, 

no industry-wide tradeshows and moving 

lights were in their infancy. Today, of 

course, the world is a much flatter and 

smaller place. But it still has its bends 

in the road and corners at the end of 

the block, and it can be challenging to 

navigate the twists and turns and to see 

around the bend. That’s where SHS Global 

(formerly Second Hand Solutions) and 

its two owners, Leigh-Anne Aiken and 

Jean Lariviere, can help smooth the ride. 

SHS Global is a worldwide businessto-business 

provider of pre-owned entertainment 

lighting technology that acts 

more like a people-to-people provider. 

As a broker of lighting and staging equipment, 

the company puts buyers and 

sellers together by using their years of 

experience in the industry and their considerable 

contacts they have cultivated. 

Into the Industry 

plsn 

Some people choose to enter the 

lighting world; others, like Jean Lariviere, 

are compelled to enter it. When Lariviere 

was only 13 years old, his uncle took him 

to the Olympic Stadium in his hometown 

of Montreal, Quebec, to see an Emerson, 

Lake, and Palmer show. The show made 

an impression, but it was the backstage 

tour that sealed the deal for Lariviere. He 

was hooked. He decided he had to be in 

the lighting business. 

Like most people in the industry, his 

journey took a circuitous route. He started 

spinning records in one of the biggest 

nightclubs in Montreal, a place called Metropolis. 

Though he was one of the top 

DJs in the city with regular appearances 

on the radio, he felt that something was 

missing. One day he called the owner of 

Éclairage Tanguay, one of the most prominent 

production companies in Quebec, 

and within a short while he was working 

there. Under the tutelage of Jacques Tanguay, 

Lariviere worked his way up from 

novice to lead tech. In a couple of years 

he was tech-savvy enough to take his 

game to Prague, where he helped rebuild 

the lighting in several nightclubs. It was 

there that he met his first wife, who was 

instrumental in his relocation to Houston, 

Texas. Through her connections, Lariviere 

ended up moving to Austin and working 

at High End Systems, now part of Barco. 

Meanwhile, Aiken was busy with her 

own career at High End. She had answered 

a newspaper advertisement for 

an entry-level position at the growing 

company and was working her way up in 

the organization. As the assistant to vice 

president of sales and co-owner Bob Schacherl, 

she quickly established herself as 

Jean Lariviere and Leigh-Anne Aiken 

an indispensable part of the sales team. 

At the same time, she got her first taste of 

international sales, dealing with customers 

around the world. 

“It was exciting to be a part of something 

that was so strong and successful,” 

she said. “We were growing, and I was 

“I realized that, not only is there a language 

barrier, but there’s also a technological 

barrier and a cultural barrier as well.” 

—Jean Lariviere 

meeting new people all over the world.” 

In a few short years, Aiken took over 

many of the accounts on her own and 

started traveling internationally, making 

sales calls and managing distributorships. 

While Aiken’s career was thriving, 

Lariviere was learning various aspects of 

the business, working in research and development 

and managing product development. 

Little did they know they were 

both training for a crash course in an entrepreneurial 

venture. 

Birthing a Business 

plsn 

Changes at the company led both Aiken 

and Lariviere to seek opportunities 

elsewhere. But how could they best parlay 

their skills to another enterprise? Both 

had acquired considerable experience in 

the field that they were reluctant to leave 

behind. 

During her tenure with High End, Aiken 

realized that a number of business and 

individuals around the world could use a 

third party who is well connected to help 

“People don’t always feel comfortable 

dealing with someone they’ve never met. 

As an intermediary with a deep contacts, 

I was able fill a need.” —Leigh-Anne Aiken 

locate buying opportunities, evaluate the 

quality of the equipment and price, and 

offer advice to fledgling companies as 

well as to established companies. 

“I noticed that there was a strong 

demand for good quality, inexpensive 

gear in certain countries and a glut of the 

same gear in other countries,” she said. “A 

lot of that commerce involved the sale of 

this gear across borders and sometimes 

across the world, but people don’t always 

feel comfortable dealing with someone 

they’ve never met. As an intermediary 

with a deep contacts, I was able fill a 

need.” 

Aiken knew she had found a niche in 

the industry. Taking a leap of faith headlong 

into international waters, she established 

SHS Global. 

In setting up the business, Aiken instinctively 

knew she had a prime opportunity 

for growing a solid business, but 

would be challenging to do all on her 

own. She would need help. Turning to 

Lariviere for that help was a natural thing 

to do. Lariviere could provide the technical 

expertise as well as the artist balance 

essential to success in this industry. His 

background in music and programming 

was the perfect yang to her yin. 

“Not only are we sourcing gear,” Lariviere 

said, “but we have also been providing 

a lot of support services too. We do 

design work, we can help write specifications, 

we offer consulting services, repair, 

and training as well.” 

Symbiotic Solutions 

plsn 

Since 2005, SHS Global has been placing 

gear by connecting people and businesses. 

Much of their business involves 

international travel to source gear, meet 

their clients, and educate themselves 

about current trends in technology and 

international business practices. Sometimes 

it’s a simple matter of becoming accustomed 

to local customs and cultures. 

“When I lived in Prague, I had a translator 

who spoke French and Czech,” Lariviere 

said. “I would give him instructions 

in French and he would give his crew 

instructions in Czech. But I realized that, 

not only is there a language barrier, but 

there’s also a technological barrier and a 

cultural barrier as well. So I learned early 

on that you have to be sensitive to the 

culture as well as to the technological 

differences or more precisely, the differences 

in the understanding of the technology.” 

Aiken drew similar conclusions from 

her days at High End when one of her 

first assignments was to cover the Middle 

East, a region often dominated by men 

and where women are sometimes at a 

disadvantage. 

“I found that doing business in the 

Middle East was not quite as big of a 

challenge as I originally thought,” she 

said, “especially if you know what you’re 

talking about. I found that people around 

the world respect your knowledge, and 

if you’re in a position to help them be 

successful, then it doesn’t much matter 

which sex you are.” 

“It all comes down to trust,” Lariviere 

added. “With the Internet, there are lots 

of ways to find offers, but you never know 

who you might be dealing with. When we 

connect a buyer and a seller, we’re not 

only providing a means of commerce 

but we’re also providing the security of 

knowing that you’re dealing with reputable 

people. And as part of our service we 

make sure the transaction goes smoothly 

from start to finish. We’ll be there long after 

the check clears the bank.” 

A “Good Year” 

plsn 

As a result, SHS Global has thrived 

despite the anemic economy. In the past 

few months alone they have closed several 

large deals in various corners of the 

world. Recently, at a typical lunch meeting, 

Aiken and Lariviere were holed up in 

a booth at a local Austin landmark, enjoying 

the cuisine and discussing business. 

In the course of 30 minutes Lariviere’s 

phone rang twice, and each time he answered 

it after checking the caller ID. The 

second time he stepped outside so he 

could hear better. When he came back in 

he announced that he had just closed a 

big sale he had been working on. Aiken 

pauses to high five her partner before 

they both turn their attention back to 

their sandwiches. 

“It’s been a good year,” Lariviere added. 

“We’ve added an office in New York, 

which is run by Carlos Fragio, and we’re 

expanding into audio and video sales as 

well. It’s not exactly as I envisioned as kid 

watching my first concert, but in many 

ways, it’s a lot better.” 


FEATURE 


Lasers Turn Up 

the Voltage 

for 

G hos t l and Observatory 

lasershows.net 

CJ Foeckler at Jfoeckler.com 

lasershows.net 

Travis bowles 

By FrankHammel 

More than just green beams: Full color and gold/blue looks for Ghostland Observatory 

Words can’t describe it. Photos don’t 

really do it justice. Even videos 

posted on Youtube after every one 

of their concerts can’t quite capture the immersive 

laser experience at a Ghostland Observatory 

concert. 

The visuals for the band’s current tour, 

in support of the just-released album, Codename: 

Rondo, are almost wholly derived from 

laser effects synched to the electronic beat 

of the music, which work with simple house 

washes, haze machines and occasional strobe 

effects to electrify the atmosphere in venues 

typically seating 5,000 or less. 

“We now have 16 lasers on this tour, and 

over 120 watts,” notes George Dodworth, 

owner of Lightwave International, who also 

works directly with Ghostland band members 

Thomas Turner (electronics) and Aaron Behrens 

(guitar and vocals) to create laser looks 

synched to the beats of the songs, which are 

performed live without timecode with laser 

tech Derek Abbott manning the cues. 

Synching Lasers to the Beat plsn 

For the band’s current tour, Dodworth 

programmed the laser looks in Ghostland 

Observatory’s studio in Austin in late October, 

meticulously matching the visuals, beat 

for beat, to each of the six new songs Turner 

and Behrens added to their performance list. 

“The trick was slicing the main program 

into beat-accurate loops that follow 8, 16 and 

32 count measures,” Dodworth notes. “As long 

as you nail the downbeat, the content follows 

perfectly.” 

“We do about 20 songs per show, and 

that runs maybe an hour, hour and a half or 

two hours, depending on the number of encores,” 

says Ghostland’s Turner. “We have maybe 

40 songs in our repertoire.” Lightwave has 

synched laser looks for each of those songs. 

While the lasers are precisely timed to the 

beat of the electronic music in programmed 

“building blocks” for a look that is consistent, 

show to show, Dodworth emphasizes that 

“the show is absolutely 100 percent live and 

100 percent operator-controlled. There is no 

timecode; it does not fit the personality of the 

band or the music.” 

In that regard, Dodworth adds, the laser 

operator “performs like a third member of the 

band. The setup at FOH is more like a musical 

instrument than a control system. 

“It’s very intense,” Dodworth adds. “A 

90-minute set flies by in what feels like minutes, 

and it’s an absolute rush.” 

Although Abbott is the laser tech for the 

tour in support of Codename: Rondo; Jesse 

Parker, currently out with Tom Petty and the 

Heartbreakers, has manned the laser cues for 

Ghostland Observatory as well. 

Minimal Lighting Effects 

plsn 

Turner and Behrens have long taken a 

minimalist approach to their show visuals. 

“When we got started, we just had a red wash 

on stage, for a raw, punk rock feel, and we 

try to keep that element,” Turner notes. The 

shows also eschew additional musicians and 

video walls, so there’s no real need or interest 

in keylighting for I-Mag, followspots or a big 

moving light rig. 

“Sometimes we run into situations where 

the house lighting designer wants to show off 

all his lighting fixtures and what they can do,” 

Turner says. “We’ll have to tell them, ‘No, we 

don’t really need all that.’ We would need to 

make sure the lighting is positioned to stay 

out of the laser zones. 

“In the past,” Turner continues, “we tried 

[Martin] MAC 2Ks and MAC 700s for a tight, 

white beam, for sort of a spaceship headlight 

effect, on fixed positions. But it took a lot of 

time to make sure everything was working 

the way we wanted it to be. Night after night, 

it got to be a big hassle. It was exhausting.” 

Maximum Laser Power 

Although the shows now travel with 

little more than laser equipment, relying 

on house wash lights and backline equipment, 

there is plenty of linear firepower. Past 

Ghostland Observatory tours have featured 

two to five laser projectors. The current tour 

uses 16. 

And while Ghostland Observatory’s touring 

shows are modest in size, they dwarf 

much bigger touring productions in terms 

of lasers rented from Lightwave International. 

The runner up, according to Lightwave 

production manager Alan Fuehrer, is Korn 

with 13 laser machines. 

Since throw distance isn’t really much 

of a problem for lasers, the visual design 

works well in larger and smaller venues. “If 

you have a 60-foot ceiling and three balconies, 

there’s a new ‘awe’ factor, but as long as 

they’re synched to the music, they look cool 

either way — whether you’re up close or farther 

away,” Turner says. 

“More is better,” Dodworth adds, contending 

also that “small venues are the very 

best places to see this show. The density of 

laser equipment and laser beams is staggering 

when packed into a small house.” 

Compact but Powerful 

plsn 

New visual concepts — using laser effects 

to create what looks like a layer of electrical 

energy covering Behrens and Turner, 

for example — have evolved, along with the 

ability to find “new ways to hide lasers in set 

designs” now that the laser gear imposes 

very few limits on placement, Dodworth 

notes. 

“In the water-cooled days,” he adds, “a 

tour often had to reduce to green microyags 

when the proper water and power was 

not available for the full-color ion systems. 

Now we operate with no restrictions and no 

handicap for the smaller venues.” 

Turner recalls the concerns some venue 

managers would have when hearing 

that a laser show was heading their way. 

“They would be freaking out, because they 

thought we needed water hoses and generators. 

Now it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s a powerful, 

full-color laser, and it fits into a large suitcase, 

and it doesn’t take much juice.” 

The smaller, but still-powerful lasers 

have also streamlined touring logistics. “We 

have two 15-passenger vans, one fully loaded 

with lasers, the other with music equipment 

and merchandise,” says Turner, noting 

that he, Behrens, laser tech Abbott and tour 

manager Alex Brown can still find a seat. 

“The band carries the entire show with 

them,” Dodworth says. “In water-cooled 

days, a show this scale would require one 

to two full semi trailers, many hundreds of 

amps of three-phase power, and water usage 

measured in double-digit gallons per 

minute.” 

Direct Visual Control 

plsn 

Lightwave International is now in the 

process of giving Turner, who has become 

something of a laser expert himself, more 

direct control over the visual show. 

“We just added a JazzMutant Lemur as a 

control device,” Dodworth notes, of a “multitouch 

system that generates OSC commands 

over a network.” He credited Eliav Kadosh, a 

new Lightwave employee, for writing the interface 

for it to work with the lasers. “Thomas 

is already using one in his performance.” 

Lasers have become an integral part of 

the aesthetic of a Ghostland Observatory 

concert experience — and one the band is 

not likely to abandon anytime soon. 

“It used to be that lasers were seen as 

‘old’ technology,” Turner says, noting the rise 

of LED video displays. “But we dug them. 

What’s cool about them is that they’re retro 

and futuristic at the same time.” 


43 

Inside... 

The Pope’s Visit 

45 

Video Digerati 

The Projection Studio, White Light Support York Festival 

with Rose-Themed Projections on Gothic Cathedral 

Parkway Christian Church 

Equips New Sanctuary with 

HD Video Gear 

The 40-meter-high projections looped for three hours during the four-night event. 

YORK, U.K. — The Projection Studio’s Ross Ashton 

and sound artist Karen Monid recently collaborated 

on a son et lumière titled Rose. The 40-meter-high projection 

lit up York’s Gothic cathedral and its large rose 

stained glass window, serving as a centerpiece for the 

2010 Illuminating York festival of light. 

Working on the artwork with Paul Chatfield and 

Steve Larkens, also with The Projection Studio, and with 

lighting company White Light (which provided a Robert 

Juliat 2.5K followspot to back-light the window from 

TORONTO — CAST Software Ltd. welcomed Coolux 

Media Systems as its 50th Registered wysiwyg Developer 

(RWD). CAST’s RWD program encourages manufacturers 

of high-tech automated, robotic and console 

hardware to connect through wysiwyg. 

Along with the opportunity to “piggy back” on wysiwyg 

to save development costs, manufacturers who 

have taken advantage of CAST’s RWD program have also 

within), Ashton and Monid spent close to a month developing 

the four-part show. It looped for three hours 

each evening for the four-night event, drawing close to 

65,000 visitors to York’s city center. 

“It was a fantastic piece of art that really made the 

Minster come alive,” said The Archbishop of York, Dr. 

John Sentamuse. 

Ashton’s projection system included four Pigi 7kW 

projectors with double rotating scrollers, each of which 

was loaded with about 14 continued on page 42 

Coolux Media Systems Becomes CAST Software’s 50 th 

Registered wysiwyg Developer (RWD) 

been able to leverage wysiwyg to gain broader access to 

the market. CAST noted, for example, that its bi-monthly 

e-newsletter, the wysiwyg PLAN, is distributed to nearly 

20,000 e-mail addresses. 

Coolux Media Systems has locations in the U.S., Germany 

and China and is the producer of the Pandoras 

Box media and show control system, used for realtime 

video editing and image 


The new system includes Vaddio ClearVIEW HD-18 cameras and a FOR-A HVS-300HS 

HD/SD portable video switcher. 

SURPRISE, AZ — Challenge yourself to live life to the fullest 

— that’s one of the key messages that Trent Renner, pastor 

at Parkway Christian Church, tries to impart to the growing 

congregation. 

Working with Audio Analysts, the church’s AV staff seems 

to have taken that message to heart, equipping the new 

sanctuary with a fully HD video system including Vaddio 

ClearVIEW HD-18 cameras and a FOR-A HVS-300HS HD/SD 

portable video switcher. 

“We were averaging 1,600 to 1,800 in attendance on a 

weekend in a 10,000 square foot building,” noted Tyler Ingram, 

Parkway’s AV coordinator. “Now that we are at 50,000 

square feet total, we added newer technology to go along 

with the building upgrade. It made no sense to upgrade 

technology and put in 4:3 SD, so we went high def to create 

a better video experience.” 

Four Vaddio ClearVIEW HD-18 cameras are being used 

throughout the main sanctuary to provide a tele-presence 

feed to the other auditoriums on the church’s campus, as well 

as I-Mag for the multi-screen configuration in the sanctuary. 

The new sanctuary’s configuration of projection screens 

now includes a large unit that serves as a backdrop to the 

stage, two large screens on continued on page 42 


41

NEWS 


The Projection Studio, White Light Support York Festival with Rose-Themed Projections on Gothic Cathedral 

Projection artist Ross Ashton focused on enlarging 

the fine details found within the cathedral’s 

artistry. 


meters of film. These were housed in a purpose-built 

tower in front of the cathedral’s 

south façade. 

The projectors had 15.5cm wide-angle 

lenses to maximize coverage from relatively 

short throw distances onto the long but shallow 

viewing area. The extreme angles made 

image alignment a real challenge, with significant 

keystone correction required. 

Ashton, Monid and Michael Barry, who 

worked with Illuminating York’s production 

manager Ben Pugh, installed the equipment. 

Monid programmed and ran the show using 

an OnlyCue system, and that process required 

four full nights of preparation on site. 

Ashton and Monid had an open brief and 

no shortage of ideas for the four-part show 

once they decided to concentrate on the rose 

and its visual and symbolic relevance to the 

city’s ancient and contemporary history. 

The first part of the show focused on the 

rose as a symbol of Yorkshire, complete with 

Latin inscription taken from the Cathedral’s 

chapter house and sounds bringing Yorkshire’s 

wild nature to life. 

The second section, “Rose Garden,” combined 

love poetry spoken by local volunteers 

with images of climbing rose trees. This led 

into “Mary,” which combined images of the 

Virgin Mary with an extract of the York Minster 

choir singing “Magnificat Septimi Toni” by 

Lassus. 

The final part was a study of perfection, 

both mathematical and tonal, as glass sounds 

accompanied stained glass imagery and geometrical 

shapes and patterns. 

The York Glazier’s Trust’s Nick Teed gave 

Ashton access to the cathedral’s intricate 

stained glass, some of it up to 800 years old, 

and also opened up the Minster’s archive and 

photographic library. From this massive resource, 

Ashton pursued a strategy of enlarging 

fine details. 

Ashton and Monid were commissioned 

to produce this latest work following their 

collaboration for the 2008 Illuminating York 

event. Called Accendo, it lit the facades of the 

Yorkshire Museum and Abbey Ruins in York’s 

Museum Gardens. 

The Projection Studio had also recently 

worked with White Light on the Edinburgh 

Tattoo, a project that required four Pigi 6kW 

projectors with double-rotating scrollers. 

(For more details on that project, which 

involved a projection on the full 90-meter 

width of Edinburgh Castle, see the related article 

in PLSN, Sept. 2010, page 33.) 

Coolux Media Systems Becomes CAST Software’s 50 th Registered wysiwyg Developer (RWD) 


processing. Pandoras Box Media Servers and 

Players are a scalable network system with 

access to all common control protocols from 

within their Media Net platform. 

With Coolux joining its RWD program, 

CAST also hopes to reinforce its goal of having 

its previsualization work seamlessly with 

the equipment of any manufacturer. CAST 

has 50 RWDs and over 25,000 objects in its 

growing library, which includes automated 

and robotic lights, mechanical devices, consoles 

and controllers. 

The company noted that wysiwyg R25 

lets users display video on LED walls and 

split into sub sources, while also facilitating 

modification of images or video sources and 

intensity, enhancing the advantages for media 

server manufacturers who join the RWD 

network. 

Gilray Densham, President of CAST noted, 

“The mantra of both Coolux and CAST Software 

is to listen to our customers and then 

to develop / innovate solutions that work for 

them. Such was the case with wysiwyg R24’s 

new CITP Protocol for Video, which made it 

possible for consoles supporting this protocol 

to stream video content across a network into 

wysiwyg to be displayed on video screens or 

projected out of all video type light fixtures. 

It follows that CAST and Coolux working together 

makes particular sense given the current 

creative direction in the industry. 

“We make it simple for accepted RWDs,” 

Densham added. Although CAST does not 

develop, or have access to, a manufacturer’s 

code, “a new RWD develops DLL in concert 

with CAST’s RWD Kit, which CAST then tests. 

Once acceptance tested, CAST adds the RWD 

to its website and provides guidance about 

how to use certain trade names and trademarks 

owned by CAST to promote the RWD’s 

hardware / technology. CAST even helps 

RWDs at tradeshows by providing Demo Version 

CDs and loaner dongles and sometimes 

onsite tech support. 

“What’s more,” Densham added, “RWDs 

can use the new wysiwyg DV for free, without 

a dongle, to demonstrate their hardware 

using one of the five different custom-built 

demo files included. Built to be plug-andplay 

with a patch onboard, these sample files 

are extremely easy and reliable to use. DV is 

a tremendously useful tool; use it in showrooms, 

classrooms, testing labs, trade shows 

From left, Gil Densham of CAST Software, Jan Hüwel of Coolux and Bruce Freeman of CAST Software. 

— anywhere you want around the world. 

Densham also noted another advantage 

for RWDs: the ability of wysiwyg to be used 

with CAST BlackBox Corporation products 

like BlackBox and BlackTrax. 

Jan Hüwel, general manager of Coolux 

said, “It has always been our goal to interface 

with any technology out there and providing 

solutions that improve traditional workflows.” 

The company’s new RWD status brings that 

commitment “to a new level.” 

Parkway Christian Church Equips New Sanctuary with HD Video Gear 


side walls adjacent to the stage, and a fourth 

screen set up on the rear wall of the sanctuary 

that can be easily seen by presenters on stage 

for confidence monitoring. 

The church is also equipped with Christie 

projectors, and a 360 Systems video server 

records the services and can be used for playback. 

Other auditoriums on campus currently 

receive a simulcast, and the number of remote 

viewing locations is expected to grow. 

The camera setup starts with the one 

main center camera shot from FOH. There are 

two side-angle cameras, and a fourth camera 

is used for effects shot from the ceiling above 

the stage, according to Preston Smits, project 

engineer with Audio Analysts. 

The cameras capture the imagery and 

send it back to the production room for control 

and monitoring. There, a Vaddio Precision 

camera controller works in conjunction with 

the FOR-A HVS-300HS portable video switcher 

for joystick and CCU control. 

“They are using the HVS-300HS to switch 


among sources and provide content for all 

the screens,” noted Smits. “I love the aux bus 

controllers,” he added. “Being able to daisy 

chain multiple controllers to the same switcher 

means that multiple people can switch aux 

buses at the same time and produce content 

for other areas of the building.” 

The AV crew is also using Vaddio PreVIEW 

Rack Mount Monitors to stay on top of preview 

and program outputs. Smits credited 

the Vaddio gear for being “a good fit with 

Parkway’s needs” — affordably priced, and 

also “easy to install and intuitive to operate,” 

and the HVS-300HS video switcher for its expandability. 

The FOR-A switcher offers optional I/O 

cards that allow more inputs and outputs to 

be added as the facility grows — and as Ingram 

noted, that’s more a question of “when” 

than “if.” 

“We are experimenting with the possibility 

of eventually maintaining 12 to 15 small 

auditoriums around campus, while keeping 

an intimate feel within the services,” Ingram 

said. In preparation for that expansion, he has 

been busy recording, broadcasting and podcasting 

weekend services. 

“One of the biggest benefits of using Vaddio’s 

HD cameras is the clarity,” Ingram added. 

“We are using huge projections screens, so 

high definition was really the only way to go.”


NEWS 

Pope Benedict XVI’s Visit to U.K. Supported by XL Events 

BIRMINGHAM and GLASGOW, U.K. — 

XL Events supplied LED screens and camera 

systems to Pope Benedict XVI’s recent 

state visit to England and Scotland, including 

video support at three of the four 

major sites where the Pope made formal 

appearances. 

The sites included Cofton Park in Birmingham 

for the beatification of the now 

Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman; 

Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, celebrating 

an open air Mass; and for a meeting 

of religious leaders and school students 

at St Mary’s University College in Twickenham, 

Surrey. 

XL Events was working for production 

companies WRG in Birmingham and 

Twickenham and DF Concerts in Glasgow 

and had been involved in the planning for 

this project for over seven months. XL’s 

Guy Vellacott was lead project manager 

for the Papal visit and also coordinated 

the site at Cofton Park, with XL’s Steve 

Greetham and Dave Lawrence taking care 

of Glasgow and Twickenham respectively. 

“The production requests were both 

specific and fluid as they unfolded,” said 

Vellacott. “We put a lot of energy and 

detail into getting everything organized 

in advance so it would flow smoothly on 

each of the sites.” 

Pope Benedict XVI in Crofton Park 

International Event Agency WRG was 

the event organizer and contracting 

body for The Cofton Park site. The event 

was managed by executive producer 

Alie Tilley, technical director Cliff Zenker 

and produced by Justine Catterall. The 

135-meter-wide main stage held some 

2,970 people during the Papal mass and 

beatification ceremony, including 2,340 

choir members, 580 Bishops, 50 Cardinals, 

plus his Holiness The Pope and his 

entourage. 

This was the biggest and most complex 

site for the XL team, which also required 

full integration with the BBC, who 

televised the Beatification Mass live in 

HD. 

A total of eight screens were installed 

in the Park - two columns of Pixled F11 as 

the backdrop behind the Altar, two 9-meter-wide 

Lighthouse R7 I-Mag screens 

behind the choir, with another Lighthouse 

R7 and a Mitsubishi DV8 screen 

for disabled Pilgrims offstage left and 

right, along with two field delay screens 

of Mitsubishi DV8. The delay screens all 

required video delay lines so the audio 

could be time-aligned. 

XL supplied one of their HD Grass 

Valley Kayak PPU systems along with 14 

cameras for the I-Mag mix that was fed to 

host broadcasters, the BBC. In turn, the 

screen mix directed by Nick Fry received 

eight additional camera feeds from the 

BBC for integrating and outputting to the 

live screens. 

Of the 14 Sony HXC100 HD cameras 

that XL supplied, four were fitted with 

long lenses for in-the-field coverage, and 

three consisted of hot head cameras on 

stage. Positioned backstage, there were 

two RF backed cameras and one wired 

camera to capture the excitement of The 

Pope’s arrival. An additional three cameras 

were used to cover the Morning 

Service on the B-Stage, and another was 

locked-off in the Orchestra tent for conductor 

monitoring. 

Nick Fry cut his mix using a GV Kayak 

console. Additional playback content for 

the main stage screens was stored on two 

Hippotizer media servers and XL also supplied 

an Aston Cap Generator at the racks 

position for titles and on-screen text. 



43

Pope Benedict XVI’s Visit to U.K. Supported by XL Events 


Twelve different monitor feeds were 

supplied to 22 different production areas 

around the Park. 

In total, XL provided a total of 7,000 

meters of triax camera cable, 10,000 meters 

of HD BNC and five 45-foot trailers of 

video equipment. 

The Birmingham show was technically 

managed by XL’s broadcast director Malcolm 

Whittall and engineered by Dicky 

Burford and Simon Lyon. XL’s in-house editor 

Jack Dickinson took some pressure at 

the end of the live show, when he had to 

create an instant replay highlights package 

for relay on the screens within 30 minutes 

of the close of proceedings. 

The Great Assembly at St Mary’s University 

College, Twickenham, was again 

event managed by WRG, coordinated by 

Howard Craig, Simon Warne & Ron Gallagher. 

This celebrated Roman Catholic education 

and took place on the college’s athletics 

track, attended by around 2,000 school 

students and prominent officials in the 

Catholic education establishment. 

The event stage featured a central area 

for the Pope, with two Mitsubishi DV8 

screens left and right, each measuring 7 

by 4.5 meters, plus a 3.5-meter-wide Pixled 

F11 screen onstage behind the Pope. 

A compact four-camera HD PPU was 

supplied, complete with a Panasonic 

HS400 mixer and four Sony HXC100 cameras 

directed by Chris Keating. A TX feed 

of the cameras was sent to a webcast provider, 

and during the show, they received 

a live link from Gambia, which was fed 

into the XL system and output to screen. 

Scottish promoter DF Concerts was 

the event organizer for the Papal Open 

Air Mass in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park, 

managed for them by Graham Filmer and 

Keeley Wills. 

Approximately 70,000 followers 

packed into the site on a clear, sunny but 

very cold and windy day to hear the Pontiff 

celebrate an open air Mass and Homily 

along with pre- and post-Mass entertainment 

with performances from Susan Boyle 

and Pop Idol winner Michelle McManus. 

XL supplied two Lighthouse R7 LED 

I-Mag screens, each measuring 8 meters 

wide, together with a 50-square-meter 

truck-based screen, which acted as the 

field delay screen. The three surfaces 

were connected to the broadcast system 

via two fiber links and a microwave back 

up for double redundancy. 

Commenting on the whole event, XL’s 

Guy Vellacott said, “It was a privilege for 

XL and myself to be involved in such an 

influential project broadcast on a global 

scale. The event management at Cofton 

Park and the professionalism of all the 

crews involved made it exceptionally 

memorable.” 

NEW PRODUCTS 

ArKaos MediaMaster 2.2 

MediaMaster from ArKaos is a software solution 

for control of real-time video and effects specifically 

developed for lighting designers and operators. 

Version 2.2 is available as a free upgrade to all MediaMaster 

Pro 2 users and features curved screen 

technology. The geometry correction transforms the 

video output and works on top of MediaMaster Simple 

and Fixture mode. A test pattern is available to 

help precisely align the real-time video content over 

non-planar or curved screens. Edge blending can be 

edited globally, or individually for either side of each 

projector. Distributed in North America by PRG Distribution. 

PRG Distribution 214.819.3202 prgdistribution.com 

FOR-A HVS-4000HS Video Switcher 

FOR-A’s new HVS-4000HS multi-format video 

switcher is available in 2 M/E or 2.5 M/E models and 

features support for HD/SD mixed inputs, as well as 

optional support for 3 Gbps and stereoscopic 3D 

production. With its optional stereo 3D function, 

the HVS-4000HS can handle the left and right video 

from a stereo camera as a pair, which allows the operator 

to switch or invert video, add delays, execute 

horizontal shifts and transitions, and more. While 

the switcher supports 1080i, 720p, NTSC and PAL 

signals, its optional 3G-SDI input provides support for 1080p signals. 

FOR-A Corp. of America 714.894.3311 for-a.com 


Madrix 2.10 

The third major update this year has been released 

for the LED lighting control software Madrix. 

The new version 2.10 is a free update for current 

users. It has several new features including MIDI remote 

editor, Windows audio session API, SCE video 

with de-interlacing support, Madrix Key DVI start and 

more. With free MIDI mapping, users are able to assign 

controls freely and individually for any MIDI console. 

The MIDI remote editor provides tools to create 

simple or complex configurations to control the software 

remotely. Several new MIDI maps have been added to the selection of pre-defined MIDI 

maps. 

Madrix +49 351 4820563 0 madrix.com 

Multidyne Lightcube 

MultiDyne’ Lightcube is designed for the fiber 

optic field transport of composite, HD video, PL, IFB, 

audio and more. It can be configured for as many as 

80 HD-SDI, SDI or composite video paths, with 225 

AES or analog audio channels. It is compatible with 

DVI, RGB and HDMI and can be AC or battery powered. 

With an HD monitor and signal generator, users 

can test the circuit before the camera arrives. The 

HD test signal generator option also allows users to send a test pattern or to send the signal 

from the studio end directly to the Lightcube. 

MultiDyne 877.685.8439/516.671.7278 multidyne.com 

Zinman HD Loops 

The Zinman Co.’s latest product, “In 

Your Back Pocket,” is a collection of 400 HD 

loops for LED screens, digital lighting and 

HD projection. The royalty-free loops have 

been designed specifically for media servers 

and are categorized into 14 file folders, 

sorted by color and pre-rendered in MAC 

or PC format. The original source files created 

in Adobe AfterEffects are provided for 

customization. A companion iPhone/iPod 

touch viewer application is available free 

on the iTunes App Store. Download the free 

iPhone app, “IYBP Viewer,” www.zinmansoftware.com 

or http://itunes.apple.com/us/ 

app/iybp-viewer/id393975679?mt=8. 

The Zinman Co, LLC 323.333.4270 

zinmanco.com 



VIDEO DIGERATI 

By VickieClaiborne 

The Video Display Workhorse 

Editor to author: Nice article, very informative. 

But I might have preferred an article 

about LED tubes in general instead of a particular 

brand. 

Author to editor: I see VersaTubes in 

shows even though they are almost six years 

old. That’s a great track record in our industry, 

and it speaks to the versatility and longevity 

of the product. 

Editor to author: As I was saying, I 

wouldn’t change a thing. 

Since moving to Las Vegas a little over 

two years ago, I’ve had the opportunity 

to work on a wide variety of projects 

including corporate industrials, conventions, 

private casino parties, televised 

broadcasts and concerts. One thing that 

I’ve seen consistently is that production 

quality continues to improve with technology. 

As this evolution occurs, so does 

the integration of video into scenery, or in 

particular, LEDs. Set designers constantly 

explore interesting ways to incorporate 

video into scenic elements. And one of the 

most common LED/image display devices 

is the VersaTube (or the LED workhorse, as 

I like to call it). 

What’s a VersaTube? 

vd 

The VersaTube is an LED display fixture 

developed by Element Labs, which was acquired 

by Barco. Each tube contains a row 

of 36 RGB LED pixels. The tube has a special 

diffusing lens ensures smooth light output 

and durability. They can easily be mounted 

to any surface and in pretty much any configuration. 

There are a couple of options 

for tube lengths ranging from half a meter 

to one meter in both standard and HD 

resolutions. While not a new fixture by any 

means — it has been around since 2004 — 

it has little direct competition. 

What Makes It Unique? 

vd 

As some might describe this LED fixture, 

it’s like having a fluorescent tube that 

can display a row or column of video images. 

What that means is that instead of a 

single tube of color, you get moving colors, 

patterns, and dynamic visual effects. 

This is what makes the VersaTube unique. 

Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band featuring 

Cheap Trick, David Foster and Friends, and 

the ESPN “ESPY” awards show. 

On the Sgt. Pepper’s/Cheap Trick show, 

the VersaTubes were arranged around the 

perimeter of a two-story set, much like a 

frame. The VersaTubes added both solid 

color outlines as well as visual energy to 

the stage framing the band. 

On David Foster and Friends, five custom-built 

aluminum racks of VersaTubes 

— two tubes wide by 48 tubes high — 

flanked both sides of the stage, creating 

LED walls surrounding the orchestra. Because 

of their prominent location onstage, 

the racks became a virtual set without the 

use of flats or drops. 

And on the ESPY Awards, multiple large 

racks of VersaTubes six tubes wide and approximately 

10 feet tall were positioned 

prominently upstage beneath large video 

display screens to provide visual backdrops 

that supported the images on the 

main screens.t 

Mapping Pixels 

vd 

When you are creating a pixel map, careful 

attention must be given to pixel flow 

direction. If not, the results will be incorrectly 

displayed and chaotic looking. For 

instance, the pixel map created for the 

Cheap Trick show required the tubes to 

be mapped in three sections so that the 

VersaTubes on the individual sections of 

the set could chase colors and patterns independently 

from the rest of the set. And 

the pixel map for the David Foster show 

required the tubes to be mapped flowing 

horizontally so any image applied would 

flow either downstage or upstage on opposite 

sides of the stage while a center 

vertical section of VersaTubes had to be 

mapped vertically so that the pixels flow 

upwards and downwards independently 

of the tube racks onstage. 

Media Server Friendly 

vd 

VersaTubes can be used with practically any 

video device once it is converted to DVi. In the 

lighting world, more and more LDs are specifying 

media servers. When they are combined with 

VersaTubes, it makes a great LED display package. 

For instance, the VersaTubes on the Cheap 

Trick show were fed content directly from a 

Barco/High End Systems Axon media server controlled 

via an MA Lighting grandMA lighting console. 

The video control providing images on the 

David Foster show was a Martin Maxedia being 

controlled by Martin’s new M1 lighting console. 

And on the ESPY Awards show, the VersaTubes 

were driven by a PRG Mbox media server. 

For many reasons, the VersaTube is a practical 

choice for an LED fixture, and it is finding 

its way into more and more stage and lighting 

designs as designers seek to create more excitement 

onstage. Its flexibility and versatility mean 

that it can be configured into a design in a multitude 

of ways and always with dramatic impact. 

And for an LD, having such a reliable workhorse 

in the toolkit is always welcome. 

Send your glowing thoughts to Vickie Claiborne 

at vclaiborne@plsn.com. 

How Does It Work? 

vd 

VersaTubes work by allowing pixels 

from an image to be mapped directly to 

the pixels in the tube. The tubes are connected 

to one of two types of image processors 

called a VersaDrive. VersaDrive C1 

is more of a stand-alone image processor 

with content onboard. VersaDrive D2/ 

D3 is the more commonly used processor 

and allows an external video source to be 

mapped to the array of Tubes connected 

to the output ports of the drive. A pixel 

map must be created using proprietary 

software called RasterMapper, and it is 

easily uploaded to the D2/D3 via RS232. 

Once the map has been loaded, the D2/D3 

accepts an incoming video signal and then 

displays it across the VersaTubes according 

to how the pixels in the tubes have been 

mapped. 

Applications 

vd 

VersaTubes are well-suited for just 

about any application where a low-resolution 

video display is needed. Recently, I’ve 

seen them used on shows including Sgt. 


45

THE BIZ 


Psst, God — You’re On Next 

By DanDaley 

There is very little difference between what 

many churches and commercial theatres 

are doing these days.” —Hector La Torre 

In a world where it’s harder than ever to be 

surprised, don’t be shocked if Live Nation or 

AEG Live appears on the marquee of your 

neighborhood megachurch. The people who 

install their staging systems say it’s increasingly 

difficult to distinguish what’s inside them from 

any other theatrical venue anymore. 

“The typical high school performing arts 

center is about a sophisticated as our basic 

small-to-mid-level church is now,” says Gary 

Zandstra, the house of worship (HOW) specialist 

at Parkway Electric in Holland MI, which 

installs sound, lighting and projection systems 

in dozens of HOWs every year. “The technology 

in the larger churches is on a much higher scale 

and often is more sophisticated than you might 

find in the other performance halls in the area.” 

The systems in HOW venues are more complicated 

because they need to cover a wider 

range of applications. “You’ll go from a rock 

band to a 100-voice choir to a single talking 

head in the space of one day; in that same day, 

the church will hold a conventional worship 

service immediately followed by a contemporary 

service with bands and much more in the 

way of production values.” says Zandstra. “The 

staging needs numerous rigging points, multiservice 

power. It has to handle a wider array of 

performances than the typical 2,000-seat or less 

venue will in the course of a month.” 

Not surprisingly, the same dynamic that 

has made live concert touring a critical revenue 

stream for the secular music industry is 

also driving staging needs at larger churches, 

which are regular stops for increasingly popular 

Christian rock, pop and hip-hop artists, who are 

also on the road more as CD sales continue to 

decline. 

“In the end, there is very little difference 

between what many churches and commercial 

theatres are doing these day,” says Hector 

La Torre, owner of HOW-TO Sound Workshops, 

which trains church volunteer staffs to operate 

entertainment systems. “Even medium-size 

churches are producing Christmas and Easter 

events packed with special lighting, multiple 

large-screen displays, MediaShout programs, 

synchronized projection scenes and loads of 

music and effects cues… that rival anything a 

secular theatre or concert venue is producing.” 

Staffing Issues 

One major area of difference between secular 

and religious performance venues, however, 

is in the staffing. It’s a consistent refrain from 

systems integrators that they have to program 

increasingly complex systems in a manner that 

lets them be operated by the volunteer staffers 

that most HOWs rely on. 

“They…require different levels of operator 

acumen and very often quite different needs,” 

states Kurt Bevers, director of technical engineering 

for Delta AV in Milwaukie, OR. “The simplest 

way to integrate all of this is to control the 

whole thing from touch panels. This enables us 

to keep [access to controls] away from the folks 

that shouldn’t be trying to do things out of their 

depth, but hand the necessary technology to 

the guys who know how to use it.” 

Bevers says the strategy that’s emerged 

from this is a set of ever-more-sophisticated 

control pages in the Creston/AMX-type automation 

systems they use. “In about 80 percent 

of the churches we do, at least one night a week 

requires nothing more than (a simple system),” 

he explains. “Without a control system in the 

plan, they would have to have an engineer on 

site just to get the system up and down and 

to make the minor changes that are required. 

With a touch-panel controller, we build an entry 

screen that lets them choose what type of 

event it is; then they move on to the next screen 

that gives them the appropriate controls and 

nothing else. As you move up the technology 

and production ladder, more and more of the 

system functions and features become available 

as needed for the type of function that is 

being presented.” 

The reference earlier to AEG and Live Nation 

was facetious, but just barely. In fact, more and 

more HOWs with significant systems installed 

are renting out their performance facilities to 

third-party — and very secular — promoters 

and event producers. This is in part to help 

compensate for an ongoing decline in the donations 

that are used to fund all of the church’s 

operations. According to a 2009 Christianity 

Today International survey, tithes and offerings 

comprise 87 percent of the church budget, and 

nearly 40 percent of congregations responding 

said that current economic conditions have 

resulted in a decrease in weekly giving by two 

percent or more last year. But, says Gary Zandstra, 

it’s also a tactic to introduce more people 

in the community to the church itself. “Once 

they’ve got you through that door for a concert, 

you may be more likely to return on Sunday,” he 

says. This also often makes HOW performance 

facilities less expensive to rent than competing 

conventional venues. However, HOWs do have 

to pay taxes on any for-profit uses of the space 

in order to maintain their tax-exempt status. 

As live performances continue to play a 

bigger role in entertainment revenues streams, 

HOWs will become bigger factors in the overall 

venue and venue systems equation. What’s 

holding many of them back, says La Torre, is a 

lack of understanding of what venues need in 

terms of acoustics and a failure to properly budget 

for all of the systems and their installation. 

“What they have to realize is that every church 

service is, in fact, an AV presentation, and that 

there really should not be a great difference between 

what a goes on every worship day and 

a special presentation. It’s just the scope of the 

project that differs,” he says. 

Want to know who, what, when, where, why 

and HOW? Ask Dan Daley via e-mail at ddaley@ 

plsn.com. 


FEEDING THE MACHINES 


Blinded by the Light 

By BradSchiller 

Automated lighting programmers are, 

of course, always working with light, 

but often they are required to work in 

the dark. Most lighting consoles have a button 

and function known as “Blind.” When activated, 

any edits or modifications to fixture 

data will not directly affect the output of the 

console. Furthermore, there are times that automated 

lighting programmers must program 

data without any lights or visualizers attached 

to the console. In either case, the programmer 

is working blindly, having to determine the 

outcome of the data when it is finally played 

back. Programming in the blind can be highly 

advantageous; however the programmer 

must also be skilled in determining the final 

results. 

The Blind Key 

ftm 

The Blind key on a lighting console will deactivate 

the output of the active editor or programmer 

window. This allows the operator to 

make changes to cues without changing the 

look on stage. For instance, let’s say the current 

cue on stage is cue 5 and it is a blue wash. 

Cue 6 is a change to a red wash in five seconds. 

The programmer could open cue 6 for editing, 

change the color to green and re-record cue 6 

while cue 5 is still active on stage. Then when 

cue 6 is played, it will have the new data — a 

green wash. The programmer never had to 

physically see the change, but was able to edit 

the upcoming cue accordingly. 

This is a simple example, but the programmer 

is actually able to access all programming 

functions while the Blind mode is activated, 

providing the programmer with the ability 

to create and edit anything he or she desires 

without affecting the output on stage. 

The Blind key will deactivate the output of 

the active editor or programmer window. 

This lets you make changes to cues without 

changing the look on stage. 

Other Uses 

ftm 

The abilities of the Blind key go beyond 

just programming with no output. A programmer 

can also enable the Blind function to 

“pause” something he or she is currently working 

on. For example, if you are building a chase 

on stage to add to the current look, you may 

want to activate Blind so that you can view the 

stage without your chase; then disable Blind 

to see how the cue will appear once you add 

the chase. You can also use the Blind mode 

to turn off what you are currently working on, 

which can be useful if it is audience blinders or 

strobes. You might set the intensity level and 

position, then activate blind while you adjust 

the color, timing, etc. This way you and the LD 

are not staring at obnoxious blinding strobes 

and trying to work at the same time! 

Blind Busking 

ftm 

If you find yourself busking a show (running 

it on the fly), then you can use Blind to 

help with transitions, adding data and so on. I 

will often be playing back various things from 

my faders and keys, then adjust something 

further in my programmer/editor for the moment. 

Once that moment has passed, I will 

use Blind to deactivate the programmer information. 

I can then reactivate it again at any 

time, as long as I do not clear out my programmer/editor. 

In fact, I will often cycle the Blind 

key on and off to flash certain looks or content. 

For instance, I might dial up some unique content 

in my media server and keep this live in 

my editor. Then I can toggle the Blind mode 

to flash this piece of content on and off with 

the music. 

Most consoles also have an ability to allow 

you to enable a fade in and out of Blind mode. 

Usually, this fade will occur at the time specified 

in the programmer/editor data, but some 

consoles also have dedicated faders to set the 

Blind fade time. Being able to “sneak” data in 

and out of the live look on stage is a very valuable 

tool. Be sure to refer to the user manual 

for your console for specifics of the Blind timing 

capabilities. 

Blind Preview 

ftm 

Some automated lighting consoles offer 

something usually called “Blind Preview.” It 

works with a visualizer (either built in or outboard) 

to provide a graphical representation 

of the contents of the Blind programmer/editor. 

This allows the programmer to see what 

will happen when the data becomes live on 

stage. With a Blind Preview function, the programmer 

can view cues before they happen, 

make edits, and even create new cues knowing 

that what is seen on the monitor will appear 

on stage. 

Off-Line Programming 

ftm 

Up to now, I have been discussing making 

use of the Blind key and functionality. 

However, there is another type of blind programming 

that can be extremely useful to 

an automated lighting programmer. There 

are often times when you will find yourself 

programming data with no lights and no visualizer 

attached. I often will set up a show 

file and do some basic programming on an 

off-line editor while flying on a plane. During 

these times, I am able to create groups, palettes/presets, 

cues, effects, etc. I rely on my 

knowledge of the fixtures and the layout of 

the stage to imagine what the cue will look 

like. I also utilize the power of palettes (presets) 

to record cue data that is easy to update 

when I plug in the fixtures. For example, I can 

create a palette/preset for Downstage Center 

with data of 50 percent pan and 50 percent 

tilt. I can also create a palette/preset for the 

color amber with my best guess at the color 

values. Then, I can write a cue that places fixtures 

in the Downstage Center position and 

amber color, knowing that I only have to update 

the palette/preset information later. 

Since I program many concert tours, I often 

find myself taking notes during a show 

and then wanting to update information during 

load out. As long as I can have FOH power, 

I will be at the desk making changes. All of 

these changes can occur blindly as the crew 

loads out the fixtures on stage, because I will 

use my mind and knowledge of the show file 

to imagine what I am doing. In this manner, I 

am able to make many important changes to 

the show without actually seeing them live as 

I create them. 

A New Vision 

ftm 

I find blind programming an extremely 

important tool when programming any type 

of production. By using the Blind key functionality, 

I can edit discretely, sneak data in 

and out of the active look, pause what I am 

working on and much more. At other times, I 

will blindly program cues and looks by imagining 

what the final result will look like with 

actual fixtures. It is essential for automated 

lighting programmers to become familiar 

with the Blind programming functions of 

their console and to learn the associated capabilities. 

Once you master Blind programming, 

then you can see an entire new vision 

with your programming and console operations. 

E-mail “Blind Lemon Brad” at bschiller@plsn. 

com. 

Tips-N-Tricks 

A New Angle for Catwalks 

The owner of a Midwest sound and lighting systems 

design and integration company may have come up with a 

game-changer in the catwalk department. While working 

on the planning stages of the Faith Family Church in Canton, 

Ohio, John Westra, who owns Audio Design Specialists, 

a systems integrator, and Venue Technologies, an acoustical 

treatment fabricator, both based in Madison, Wis., was 

ready to install steel acoustical clouds developed by Venue 

Technologies as the church’s ceiling. He noted how the LD’s 

right-angle-heavy catwalk design seemed at geometric 

odds with the fan-shaped polygonal seating design. It occurred 

to him that a catwalk could follow the geometry 

of the floor design more precisely, and also serve as the 

suspension system for the facility’s sound gear, lighting 

components and more. 

“Virtually all media-wise churches today employ 

fan-shaped seating,” Westra explains. “In most cases, the 

ceiling geometry above will mimic the seating layout below, 

being either curved or polygonal, approximating the 

curve, and therein lies the problem with linear catwalks. 

Also, catwalks should not be limited to theatrical lighting. 

If properly sized, shaped, and positioned, they can also support 

house lighting, work lighting, loudspeaker systems, 

auxiliary video projectors, fire sprinkler mains, and, most 

importantly, the ceiling itself.” 

— Dan Daley, from The Biz, PLSN, Oct. 2010

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to all the winners of the 2010 Parnelli Awards 

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PRODUCTION 

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ADVERTISER’S INDEX 

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2010 NOVEMBER PLSN 51

LD-AT-LARGE 


By NookSchoenfeld 

The Hack Designer 

Every once in a while, we take on 

a gig where it becomes evident 

that we are dealing with someone 

who cannot handle his or her job competently. 

We witness some questionable 

decisions being made by someone 

in charge. It’s politically correct to grin 

and bear it, as we work long hours to 

make the best of an errant design. In 

short, part of our job description is not 

to laugh, but just deal with the amateurism 

of what I call “the hack designer.” 

The Right Way 

plsn 

I have worked side-by-side with 

some amazing designers. I have spent 

years honing my craft by watching others 

and learning how to do things the 

right way. This is why I like to teach 

people the proper way to design a visual 

production. I’d like to take some time 

to point out mistakes that I witnessed 

this year and how up-and-coming designers 

could avoid becoming a hack 

themselves. 

A designer should put some 

thought into which fixtures are necessary 

for a particular gig. Before you design 

a lighting rig, you need to look at 

the big picture. Figure out where all the 

set elements will be placed. Pick which 

fixture types work best to light the subjects 

and work them in with various 

video and set elements on that show. 

The Wrong Way 

plsn 

Last year I worked with some people 

on a tour that had a lot of video 

elements. The lighting designer had 

spec’d a bunch of moving light fixtures 

that weren’t bright enough to compete 

with the wall of video on stage. Upon 

seeing the plot, I wrote the LD and suggested 

they switch to a more powerful 

instrument that may cut through and 

COMING NEXT 

MONTH... 

G ‘N R 

It’s a big rock show with 

pyro and video. It’s a 

Production Profile on 

Guns ‘N Roses. 

Buyers Guide: Truss 

All the information you 

need on aluminum truss 

structures. 

Wireless DMX 

Focus on Fundamentals 

demystifies wireless 

DMX. 

Once they realized their mistake, the LD 

came up to me and requested that I exchange 

all the hard-edged lights for fewer 

fixtures that were brighter but more 

expensive. 

actually light the band from a 35-foot 

trim height. I was told that they had 

carefully calculated what would work, 

and they would like to use what they 

spec’d on the plot. So I did as told. Once 

they saw their first show, they realized 

they had made a mistake and needed 

to swap out all the hard edges fixtures 

for another type. 

On another project, I had an LD 

place a lot of lights on a truss obstructed 

by video panels. The physical 

design was not well thought out in 

advance. Had this designer spec’d the 

proper fixtures and placement, they 

could have actually shot beams of light 

through the low-res walls and gotten 

some dramatic effects. Once they realized 

their mistake, the LD came up to 

me and requested that I exchange all 

the hard-edged lights for fewer fixtures 

that were brighter but more expensive. 

This was not a problem, as you can do 

anything if you throw enough money 

at it. Of course, when the management 

got the bill from the lighting company 

for the overnight trucking of all the new 

fixtures, they were not thrilled. Neither 

were the techs who had to rewire, patch 

and re-address everything. 

The Ghetto Way 

plsn 

Last year, I was sent a lighting plot to 

build for a touring act. The plot had all 

kinds of views of how precisely placed 

they wanted every truss and light. They 

even included a front view with a scale 

rule on the side so the lighting vendor 

could hang all the lights at heights 

specified. I got one of the best lighting 

crew chiefs in the world to construct 

this exactly as drawn, with clamps and 

pipes that were cut to order. One day 

before the guy was to put everything in 

the truck, the LD questioned, “Why are 

they using pipes and clamps to build 

this structure? They should make it out 

of some wire rope and small pipes to 

my spec.” The plot specifically showed a 

grid of pipes. The poor tech ended up 

working all night to change what was 

drawn and put the new hardware in 

the truck. When the LD saw the design 

hanging at rehearsals, he went up to 

this tech to inform them that it was all 

“ghetto” and he had hung it all wrong. 

The tech got out the plot and pointed 

out that he had built it perfectly to the 

dimensions drawn. The designer simply 

shrugged and said that we shouldn’t 

pay attention to details and it was their 

prerogative to change everything on 

site. That defines a hack LD in my book. 

I learned a long time ago that whenever 

you give someone a drawing of your set 

or light rig, they would duplicate it. If 

you didn’t want what you submitted, 

why draw it that way? 

The Blame Game 

plsn 

I once worked with a band that had 

a full week of rehearsals with a lighting 

rig hanging in a building. It took a full 

day for us to iron out the rigging and 

make the whole light rig work. Then 

for three days we sat around twiddling 

thumbs while the LD tinkered around 

and didn’t program a single song. Finally, 

the band showed up and wanted 

to see some looks. “Uh oh,” we thought. 

The designer brought up a few looks 

and played some video back while the 

band played on the sound stage. As 

we sat off to the side and watched the 

band tell the LD they “just weren’t feeling 

it,” we realized we were in trouble. 

We had seen this picture before. When 

a hack designer is in hot water, they 

try to deflect the blame. They chose 

to say that they had no programming 

time because the lighting gear kept 

breaking and the crew couldn’t make 

it work long enough to program anything. 

Sure, moving lights sometimes 

break and need to be roped down 

and replaced after being fixed, but 

that never stops any design team from 

doing their gig. All I could do was sit 

there and feel the tire tracks as I was 

thrown under the bus so someone 

could protect their job. This designer 

lost all respect from the crew. 

I was bummed at myself this month. 

I designed a touring lighting rig when I 

realized that I had four fixtures mounted 

in some truss that were useless, as they 

were being blocked by scenic elements. 

I noticed this while in rehearsals, so lowering 

the truss and moving the fixtures 

took about an hour. My techs laughed 

when I apologized for not seeing this 

ahead of time. They said this was nothing. 

They had worked with hacks that 

moved lights around the rig for weeks 

before they were content. I was respected 

by these techs, and they just thanked 

me for doing this now as opposed to 

when the tour started. 

So to avoid becoming a hack designer, 

there are some simple unwritten 

rules. Think before you design a light 

rig, and design it within your budget 

constraints. Choose the fixtures you 

really need to augment the other elements 

in your show. When you draw 

something on a plot, it will be constructed 

precisely to your specification, 

so know what you want before you ask 

for it. Take advantage of every programming 

minute you have so you’re not 

embarrassed when the client walks into 

the gig. And most of all, treat your crew 

with respect and they will bend over 

backwards for you. Blame them for your 

own inadequacies, and you are nothing 

but a hack in their eyes. 

You don’t have to hack into Nook 

Schoenfeld’s computer to reach him. 

Just send an e-mail to nschoenfeld@ 

plsn.com.

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