The seventeenth annual Reventón Latin rock festival drew close to 18,000 to Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles on July 19, 2014. Organized by KSSE Super Estrella 107.1 FM, Reventón featured a lineup that included largely accessible, if fairly diverse, Spanish-language acts, such as Caifanes, La Ley, Fobia, Roco Pachukote de Maldita Vecindad, Enrique Bunbury, La Unión, Víctimas Del Doctor Cerebro and La Santa Cecilia.
It’s no accident that, year after year, Super Estrella, a subsidiary of multi-media corporation Entravision Communications and a player on the Latin-rock radio landscape, manages to procure the finest musical talent and draw large crowds for Reventón, despite the ever-shifting winds impacting the radio and music business. However, staging such a concert spectacle requires more than marketing skills and the ability to spot trends. Because the music at Reventón often ranges from Rock en Español to neo-traditional Latin to electronic/retro New Wave, it’s imperative that visual elements of the festival stress continuity and the behind-the-scenes production remains streamlined and complication-free.
For the last five years, the radio station has placed its trust in Burbank, CA-based Global Trend Productions to deliver a technically flawless show for both the fans and the artists on stage.
“[Super Estrella] calls us ‘the producers of the show,’” says Isaac Campos, CEO of Global Trend Productions, “but I wouldn’t go that far. We produce the technical side of the production, from design to hiring the vendors.”
Reventón moved to the Staples Center after its earlier shows were held at the 6,000-seat Universal Amphitheatre in Universal City (now The Gibson Amphitheatre). It remains one of the most popular Latin rock festivals in the country.
Prep and Setup
Despite eight different acts and several companies collaborating to help present the concert, setup was relatively quick and drama-free. Rehearsals and show prep were done at the Staples Center the day before the actual concert, and Campos says everything went smoothly. “We’ve found a very effective way to work this show,” he notes.
The event was overseen by Kevan Wilkins of Goldenvoice, AEG Live’s southern California division, which also produces the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and other events. Between union laborers and vendors, there were nearly 100 people on site, says Global Trend’s Campos, not including stage and artist management personnel.
All Access Staging & Productions provided the 56-foot-in-diameter Versa turntable, which helps keep changeovers for this multi-act event going smoothly, plus a variety of other staging elements including more than a dozen rolling risers, in 8×8, 8×12 and 4×4 foot sizes, and a half-dozen amp dollies.
The crew set up the 5-by-60-by-60-foot stage out at the front of house in the morning while the lighting and rigging crews achieved their directives. When the stage was finished, it was rolled into place and the Versa turntable placed on top of it. “We usually come in at 8 a.m. [the day before the show],” says Campos, “We do sound checks by one o’clock or two o’clock in the afternoon, at the latest. We are usually still tweaking lighting and video at that time, but the bands are sound checking by one o’clock.”
Delicate Productions, Inc. provided a Martin MLA audio system and FOH audio team for the festival while Florida-based Paradigm Lighting and Video handled lighting programming duties. Although most artists brought their own lighting directors, Robert Reyna of Illumination Dynamics, driving a grandMA2 console, was the festival’s lighting op. “Jorge Valdez [owner of Paradigm] has a relationship with many of these artists,” says Campos, “and they give him a lot of freedom to create a festival package.”
When PLSN spoke with Valdez, he explained that, from his perspective, the festival is largely video-driven, but that lighting is an important aspect in complementing and balancing these looks. Valdez name-checked Martin’s MAC Auras as an important component in the show’s visual design and credited the fixture as “user-friendly,” giving programmers an ample array of looks to choose from.
Hot “Ribs”
While the lighting complement is impressive, the video looks tend to have a bigger overall impact during the festival performances. Oracle LED video tiles kept the capacity crowd entertained and sent out waves of live feeds and video content to all corners of the arena.
The main or center video screen, measuring approximately 50 by 28 feet (WxH), included 350 Oracle LED 9mm Black Widow HD9 tiles grouped together to create a kind of visual “home base.” Its odd, slightly hexagonal shape made great use of negative space: the bottom of this geometrically edgy and visually exciting centerpiece resembled a stepped array, recalling a pixelated (or disintegrated pixelated) look.
In addition to the “home base” LED tiles, two large screens, referred to by Campos as the “left” and “right” columns, each used closed to 150 Oracle 6mm panels in a 13-by-24-foot (WxH) configuration The L-R columns were hung via CM chain motors, portrait-style, over both sides of the stage. Adding a layered or 3-D effect, three long LED video strips, or “ribbons” (Campos dubbed them “the ribs”), hung stage left and right, were situated behind the L-R columns. Each screen, an amalgam of nearly 150 Black Widow TR-16mm tiles, measured 6.5 by 30 feet (WxH). The gaps between the ribs and the portrait screens hanging in front of them enhanced the sense of dimensionality.
“We wanted a design that was something close to 360 degrees,” says Campos. “Even if you didn’t have a great view of the stage, you still had screens to entertain you.”
Spanning a 50-foot expanse, a series of Oracle LED tiles, stacked seven-feet high, were positioned upstage, just behind the performers. Secured to trussing, lighting fixtures were hung above these screens, peeking through the gaps in between these stacks of upright video tiles.
Crowning Achievement
Topping off the production, quite literally, were curved LED video “crowns,” which contained two layers of Oracle TR-16mm Black Widow units, located near the downstage lighting trussing — including close to 110 tiles in total. The front and rear crowns (measuring 60 feet and 50 feet, respectively) were suspended by 10-foot sections of Total Structures’ 12-by-12-inch truss, with curved truss elements secured to each end for a sleek, contoured appearance.
The curved LED crowns continue a design theme that is emerging as a signature look of Global Trend Productions-supported events; the company also provided the curved steel-frame supports for the Blackjack tables at the Cosmopolitan casino in Las Vegas (PLSN, May 2014, page 38). “We made the crown curve around a bit to give it a more dynamic look. That look is something we try to add to all our designs now.”
Not all the video action was concentrated on (or above) the stage, however. Global Trend Productions also provided a well-rounded look for the 20-by-32-foot VIP seating area with a curved array made from 120 16mm Black Widow LED panels. Located behind the FOH area, these panels formed a bright, three-walled semi-enclosure — a well-lit oasis apart from the sea of concertgoers out in the stands. The screens were secured via a ground support system using six-foot sections of Total Structures truss on base plates. “We just used cheeseborough clamps to secure the panels directly to the truss,” notes Campos.
Content, Instinct, Freedom
Video director Max Chang of V Squared Labs handled the content being pumped through the LED video screens for the event. “Running content was a lot of a fun and really ran the breadth of different styles of video shows,” says Chang, “from slow I-Mag-content blends for acts like La Unión, to collaborative VJ-ing with the Fobia, to hard noise and heavy cutting for shock-punk band Las Víctimas del Doctor Cerebro. Throughout the day, the acts really ran the gamut of different styles and levels of involvement with their video production.”
Campos notes that Chang “had freedom to put up graphics or feeds from the cameras. It was his call. He went by ear on that, but some artists did have ready-made content for Max to run.”
Chang notes he took direction for video design either from production managers or his own gut instinct. In the case of Spanish-language rock/progressive rock act Caifanes, it was an “I-Mag-based show,” which stood in contrast to some other acts that afforded the VJ latitude to use “my own interpretation and reading of the theatricality of the act. All of these acts were tied together with a series of logo treatments rendered in the same style.”
Working at FOH, Chang says he was using “the latest iteration of V Squared Labs’ Epic software for LED mapping cues for multiple inputs and as a live VJ platform. The signal chain for the video system was built around the two channels of capture into the Epic server and the Edirol V-800HD switcher to preview and route secondary VJ computers, guest VJ computers, and, most importantly, to treat and mix I-Mag/branding video program feeds coming from another team calling cameras and cutting multiple streams back of house. The server then output to two full HD pixelmap outputs via fiber to Global Trend LED processors running back of house.”
“Max was awesome,” adds Campos. “He was following cues and the colors lighting was giving him. He would have content to play, but he’d add his own flair.”
You could say the same for Global Trend Productions: they know how to take care of business, but do it in style. Tapping the talents of knowledgeable designers, creative video and lighting operators, and some of the leading veterans of the staging business, Global Trend has ensured that Reventón benefits from not only decades of combined experience, but common sense, expertise and teamwork.
“I don’t want to refer to it as a formula,” says Campos, “but we have a pretty good system for the production. We think we have it down to a science.”
Crew
Producer: Isaac Campos
Production Managers: Kevan Wilkins/Goldenvoice, Arafa Keskin (AEG), David Rodriguez
Production Partners: Global Trend Productions, Oracle LED ?Systems, Paradigm Lighting, Delicate Productions, All Access Staging, Center Staging
LD/Programmer: Jorge Valdez/Paradigm Lighting and Video
Lighting Operator: Robert Reyna Jr./Illumination Dynamics
Master Electrician: Guillermo Medina
Lighting Techs: Jonathan Waters, Marshall Cooper
LED Video Project Manager: Saby Dang
Video Director/VJ: Max Chang/V Squared Labs
LED Video Techs: Alex Ebner, Christinan Behm, Kevin Izumi, Brian Henson, Alex Fuentes, Rudy Juarez, Cesar Escandon
Camera Director: Alonzo Campos
Projectionist: Sergio Hernandez
Video System Techs: Jesse Fernandez, Bill Ruiz
Camera Ops: Hugo Campos, Angel Juarez
Stage Manager: Luis Munoz
Stage Assistant: Fernanda Munoz
Gear
1 MA Lighting grandMA2 console
30 Robe Robin MMX fixtures
16 Martin MAC Auras
37 PBG Sharp Beams
16 Thomann Eurolite LED PMC-16x30W COB RGB WFL panels
12 Martin Atomic 3000 220V strobes
4 Reel EFX DF-50 Hazers
2 Martin Jem ZR-33 Hi-Mass foggers
1 Main upstage video screen, 50’x28’ (350 Oracle 9mm Black Widow HD9 LED tiles)
1 Secondary upstage video screen, 50’x7’ (Oracle LED tiles)
2 LED video “crown” layers (Approx. 110 Oracle Black Widow TR-16mm tiles)
2 L-R video columns (Approx. 150 Oracle 6mm tiles each)
6 Video ribbons/ribs (Approx. 150 Oracle Black Widow TR-16mm video tiles each)
120 Oracle Black Widow 16mm panels (For VIP Lounge area)
1 Epic custom media server (V Squared Labs)
1 Edirol V-800HD switcher (V Squared Labs)
