Float Fest combines two of the favorite activities of Texans, river tubing and live music. Located in Gonzales, TX, the festival is located an hour from both Austin and San Antonio, on the Guadalupe River. Float Fest 2022 took place July 23 & 24 with an amazing roster of musical artists including Marshmello, Vampire Weekend, Cage the Elephant, Deadmau5, Chance the Rapper, Lord Huron, Chvrches, and many more. Sulphur, LA-based Deep South Productions (DSP) was onsite this year supporting Float Fest with lighting, video, audio, backline, and crews. DSP owner Marvin Simon and head of lighting, Rich Barrett spoke with PLSN about working on this year’s edition of Float Fest.
Festival Rig
The DSP team put up a traditional festival lighting rig with a base package and enough extra rigging for the different acts to add equipment as needed. “We put up a very flexible setup,” comments Barrett. “It wasn’t a ‘this is what you get’ approach. They could bring in floor packages and—within reason—an aerial package. We had notified rigging, and if we knew ahead what they needed, the motors were in position.” In terms of fixture choices, Barrett says, “we really had a full arsenal—we had the SGM G-Wash, G-Spot lights as well as the G-7 Spot, the new Q-8 and the P10. The other IP66 rated light we used was made by Light Sky, the Shark450 as the beam fixture. That light blew everybody away. It was a great combination and they all played well together. I have to add that the SGM Q-8 exceeds everything out there. I really like the onboard effects and when it comes to how bright it is, the best word I can describe it with is ‘stupid’ bright. People’s heads snap back when it fires up. If you want to run them in a color, I’d run them at 25% – 30%. The double banded LED strobe lines are twice what’s in other lights. I just wished it moved. The P-10, the big brother to the Q-8, is another monster with just raw horsepower.”
Simon adds that being prepared is the way you thrive in the rental business, especially for festival work. Float Fest was no different. Being prepared was key to success on this project for DSP as the site was over four hours from his shop. “My motto is you do 80% of the work in your shop, and you do 20% on site. We prep and prep. The team went through every detail. We rigorously went through the technical riders and stage plots. We built the base lighting plot, and it was all addressed. Everything was handled in our warehouse with the team before we got there. And ‘there’ was in the middle of nowhere for this one.”
Weathering the Elements
Taking place in southern Texas, in hot, dry, and dusty conditions and near a river, is not the ideal spot for two outdoor stages filled with enough production equipment to support a two-day music festival. “The number one challenge was logistically getting in because of the soil and the trees, we were going into a desert; rolling in soft sand,” explains Barrett. “That’s the first physical challenge. Lighting-wise, we had to go in with instruments that were capable of withstanding desert-like conditions—extreme heat, extreme dryness, and extreme dust; sand particles were a huge problem. So, 100% of the lights we sent in were all IP65 or IP66 rated to deal with the sand, dust, and potential rain.” [Ed. Note: The first digit in the IP rating is for solid particle (dust, sand) protection on a 0-6 scale and the second number is for liquid ingress (water, rain) protection on a 0-8 scale. Protection increases the higher the numbers.]
Barrett and the DSP team were warned about the dusty conditions by a vendor who had worked on previous Float Fests. Barrett explains, “He said, ‘You guys can be prepared, but the dust is unbelievable!’ He wasn’t kidding. The air filters on our semi-trucks were slammed; one trip in and one trip out and they needed to be removed and cleaned. That’s how serious it was; absolutely being in the desert.”
DSP was confident in their gear, though, because over three quarters of DSP’s lighting rig consisted of units from Danish lighting manufacturer SGM, which has been producing IP65 and IP66 rated fixtures for well over a decade now. In supporting outdoor festivals and events, Simon and Barrett believe strongly that site conditions and weather should not be a concern if you have the right inventory. “Deep South Productions can do a job, regardless of whatever weather conditions are presented to us,” states Barrett. “There’s never a time when a promoter has to worry about, ‘oh, it’s a rain out’. We deliver, we show up on time, and we get the job done regardless of the weather. When you’re doing outdoor festivals, the weather’s the number one demon you’re fighting with so if that is your market you need to be ready for that.” Simon adds, the decision to go with high IP rated products was a no brainer. “We give the client the ability to carry on; it’s bulletproof. We don’t have to worry about the lighting designer or programmer being upset because something got wet, and they’ve lost half the rig. We don’t care if a show is indoors or outdoors; the SGM lights are worry-free.”
In Deep Water
The decision to go with SGM’s IP66 rated lights came after a storm severely damaged DSP’s lighting rig years earlier. “We did the Gulfport Music Festival,” says Simon. “The Friday of the festival—when I’m telling you it come a-raining, it was raining so bad and lightning hit so close to the stage, it tripped the 600A breaker! I’m underneath the stage trying to turn amps off and kill breakers, and the water is over my ankles. When the rain stopped, we lost half the moving light rig. When we came back, Rich Barrett, who’s a very forward thinker, brought up the SGM products—G-Spot and G-Wash. He said, ‘Dude, we have got to buy these.’ We did and now some of the lights we have are 15 years old; still working. You can clean it with a rag or a water hose. Doesn’t matter, and it’s still running.”
Barrett had been a proponent of SGM’s product line for years. “I’ve constantly pushed the brand,” he agrees. “They were originally designed for architectural and exterior applications then they got into production and are used for a lot of events, festivals, etc. I really liked the quality of the product. After that incident in Gulfport, MS, with that storm destroying a substantial amount of our lighting rig, I said, ‘Marvin, I’ve been watching these waterproof fixtures. We’ve got to jump.’ And Marvin wholeheartedly jumped in. He embraced it, especially after we spent over $40,000 fixing non-waterproof fixtures, it’s a reality check. Going to an SGM product was the way to go for us. It just made sense. Everything they’ve made is rock solid and we have had very limited problems. I’m not going to say no problems, because there is always something with any products, but SGM’s service and support has been stellar.”
Hose it Off and it’s Ready to Go
The SGM gear on Float Fest came back to the shop well used and covered in dust but the cleanup proved easy. “You know how we clean them,” comments Barrett. “We took them on the back of our warehouse, turned on the water hose and sprayed them off. Blew out the fans, cleaned them off, dried them with dryers, and wiped them off. They look brand new, and ready to go back into combat.”
This year’s edition of Float Fest was a big success for the promoters, the floaters and DSP. It went without a hitch and the DSP team was very satisfied with the results. Their ethos of being prepared ahead of getting on site really paid off. The company has always been fairly self-sufficient. “We’re very grateful for the industry turning back on; Covid was a monster for us,” acknowledges Simon. “Labor has also been tough. We can go down to the local labor force place and get people to come work pushing cases, but they don’t know this industry. This is a whole specialty. I go back to Rich. We started on this track together a long, long time ago. Rich’s knowledge from being on the road and working with bands has been invaluable for us. We know you have to keep growing and learning. We bought chain motors and sent our team to rigging school. We educated ourselves as we went down the road in this field and we became very diverse here at DSP. We have our own trucks, we have our own lighting, we have our own backline; we are very self-contained. We are ready to do the work and we are so happy to see the work coming back, for us and for the whole industry.”
Float Fest 2022
Production Team
- Designer/Production Manager: Jeremey Kelley
- Production Manager: Marvin Simon
- Lighting Production Manager: Rich Barrett
- Production Assistant: Hadly Simon
- Lighting Crew Chiefs: Tommy “TJ” Benton & Cody Benton
- Systems Crew Chief: Jordan LaSalle
- LD Stage A: James Kemp
- LD Stage B: Kyra Nappier
- LX1s: Morgan Musser & Jake Bridgers
- SE: Jacob Brents
- Video Crew Chief: Thomas Ducote
- V2s: Cristian Colindres & Ramon “Moncho” Colindres
Gear
Lighting
- 6 MA Lighting grandMA2 Console
- 8 MA Lighting grandMA2 NPU
- 80 SGM P-10 LED Wash/Strobe
- 36 SGM Q-8 LED Wash/Strobe
- 36 SGM G-7 Spot
- 12 SGM G-Wash
- 16 SGM G-Spot
- 24 SGM G-1 Beam
- 56 Light Sky Shark450 Beam
- 24 Chauvet Strike Array 2
- EMG Lighting Power Distribution
Video
- 315 ROE Visual CB5-AF LED Panel
- 6 Evision Z6 Processor
- Resolume Media Server
Come rain, or come shine, you can count on Deep South Productions to have your back with rental solutions. Learn more at
www.deepsouthproductions.com.
