With the advent of the upstage video wall at concerts, the lighting systems have had to fly higher, span wider, gain massive lumens and require fleets of trucks. But this summer, for one client, we’re moving arena shows outside with a scaled-back rig. I still have three trusses of movers and a splattering of strobes. But upstage, I have a wall of voodoo. Basically, it’s four vertical rows of Elation Razors splattered with some Sharpys and strobes. I have taken my big-ass light show and hacked half the fixtures and a guy off it. But with torms from Daric Bassan at Upstaging — they’re 15 feet tall, had 15 fixtures on them, and couldn’t be more than two feet wide or they would block my video wall and scenery — the system looks large.
—Nook Schoenfeld, from “LD-at-Large,” PLSN, Aug. 2013
