When promoting the Cali Vibes festival, organizer California Vibrations promised fans a chance to step into the SoCal reggae scene with a “stacked lineup” of stars in Long Beach, CA. That’s precisely what they delivered for three days in early February, as their outdoor festival featured 54 performers, from stars such as The Marley Brothers and Wu-Tang Clan, to newcomers eager to showcase their talents.
The event may have been a feast for reggae fans, but for the production crews responsible for setting up the stage for the various artist, it was also a steep challenge, defined by 10-15 minute change overs and a revolving platform deck.
Justin Casey, who designed and set up the show for a festival headliner, Slightly Stoopid, met this challenge, creating a distinctive and compelling look for his client with a rig that loaded in and out with ease. Key to helping him accomplish this was a collection of 48 Chauvet Professional ÉPIX Strip Tour fixtures from the inventory of his company, HELM Projects. “We brought the ÉPIX with us as part of our road package,” said Casey. “We use these fixtures at our Virtual studio in Tennessee, so we know how well they work, and how good they look. At this festival, we had a very short change over, so we needed something that would fit a tight schedule along with really helping us create a show that looked great on camera.”
Working with his techs, Nick Stabile, Owen Pike, and Andrew Whittington, Casey positioned 28 of the ÉPIX units on floor carts, arranging the linear fixtures horizontally, and flew another 20 vertically. The flown fixtures flanked the center stage video screen on either side. “The flown strips worked excellently to fill dead space,” said Casey. “This show was focused on the video content and I-Mag effects, so we wanted to really keep it super simple with basic monochromatic palettes and geometric forms from the strips. Sometimes the simplest looks make the largest impact.”
In keeping with this design strategy, Casey ran the ÉPIX fixtures in 25 section pixel mode without having them display video images. Using this feature, he was able to create a series of changing looks and chases to vary his show during the set.
“The strips are versatile fixtures that open up a lot of options for creating different looks,” said Casey. “My favorite look on this rig was probably the simplistic look that happened when all of the strips were on with a simple line border on the video wall around the I-Mag effects. It was just a really slick and simple!”
This look helped Slightly Stoopid’s show stand out from other acts playing over the weekend, Casey said.
