I chose a straight front truss with five wash lights, five hard-edge lights, some Molefay blinders for crowd lighting and six Lekos for front key lighting. I need the Lekos because I know many of my bands start out hating spotlights for two reasons. The first is that they grew up playing clubs and would have a blaring light from 30 feet away blinding them the whole show. The second was that their first LD had no idea how to properly utilize followspots as front light. The Lekos I use on the front truss are done in what I call a “zone defense.” I focus five 26º Lekos across the front edge of the stage. The sixth Leko goes on the drummer. I use them as key lights and leave no dark spaces for band members to walk into. I only use two followspots at a time, one on the vocalist and one to pick up solos. Lekos cover the rest. I had one rule I followed for every band—I either keep all the wash lights focused on the band while the hard-edge fixtures remain in graphic foci, or vice versa. This way, I always “light the money.”
– From Nook Schoenfeld’s LD-at-Large column in the February issue of PLSN
