4Wall Entertainment provided a lighting and rigging rental package to Free Chapel for their once-a-year event, Forward Conference, held at the Gas South Arena in Duluth, GA. This annual event brings 13,000 students into one room for an amazing weekend of worship, speakers, and more.
The initial preparations for the conference began in October 2022. Production Director & Producer Mike Stigile, partnered with Lighting Designer Chase Hall for a fresh and innovative design. Hall’s design featured a wide range of light fixtures, including (64) CHAUVET Professional Maverick MK3 Spots, (39) CHAUVET Professional Color Strike M fixtures, (24) CHAUVET Professional Rogue R2X Wash moving lights, (51) Chroma-Q Color Force II LED battens, (24) ROBE BMFL Blades and (3) ROBE BMFL Followspots.
LD Chase Hall’s goal in designing this production was to create something that would be a never-before-seen, scenic-driven, dimensional concept that would stand out in a saturated conference market.
“Anyone can hang a rectangle screen and throw up some moving lights,” said Hall. “But an asymmetric, futuristic-modernist landscape, layered with dense atmosphere and brilliant color, now that’s fun. Mike and his team have a secret weapon – their in-house scenic shop has the superpower of bringing any scenic concept to life, props to Jason Cannon. They were willing to take big risks and worked hard to pull off something spectacularly different.”
The show is a whirlwind of 5 shows packed with music and content, with very little rehearsal time in the room. So, Hall needed fixtures to show up working perfectly out of the box with minimal tuning and look exactly like previs.
“We did previs the week before the conference,” said Stigile. “We used DepenceR3 with grandMA2 Full and Light consoles. We also connected the Pixera video server via NDI to DepenceR3.”
The Chauvet Maverick MK3 Spot fixtures were the workhorse profiles of the rig, delivering arena-level punch and perfectly matching colors. Robe BMFL Blades were used for high CRI key-lighting and long-throw tracking followspots. Chauvet Color Strike M fixtures provided a color wash to the crowd. “They were actually inhibited to 30 percent the entire show,” explained Hall. “They’re just too wonderfully bright.”
Chroma-Q Color Force II LED battens were utilized for scenic lighting and provided uplighting for the layered set design. 4Wall also provided MDG ATMe APS Haze Generators and Look Solutions Viper NT Fog Machines that scattered haze and fog throughout the layered set pieces for depth.
LD Chase Hall and Production Director & Producer Mike Stigile praised the exceptional service and top-notch equipment supplied by 4Wall.
“I have done a lot of one-offs over the years and this is the best one-off load-in I’ve seen,” said Hall. “4Wall’s Ryan Hodge delivered us a perfectly prepped, fully working rig 20 hours earlier than scheduled, and it worked out of the box and looked clean from all angles in the arena. I am an unbiased source of opinion here, but this is why you go to 4Wall. Anyone can rent lights, but very few can provide this level of service and customer satisfaction. It’s a demanding show that requires an excellent product and process, and 4Wall delivered.”
“Working with 4Wall was an incredible experience,” said Stigile. “As always, their gear is in excellent condition, and the team was very accommodating with us on the lighting plan for the load-in. They were also very flexible with our last-minute changes. The lighting was ready in record time, faster than the previous 18 Forwards. Ryan Hodge was the best to work with, and Tyler Bevel took care of us as he always does!”
Further information from 4Wall Entertainment: www.4wall.com
Production Team
Creative Director: Austin Bell
Production Director/Producer: Mike Stigile
Production Manager: Ryan Bates
Production/Lighting Designer: Chase Hall
Lighting Programmers: Chase Hall & Davis Kornegay
L2: Michael Kamau
4Wall Account Executive: Tyler Bevel
Selected Gear List
Lighting
2 MA Lighting grandMA3 full size Console
1 MA Lighting grandMA3 light Console
64 CHAUVET Maverick MK3 Spot
39 CHAUVET COLOR Strike M
24 CHAUVET Rogue R2X Wash
37 Chroma-Q Color Force II 72.”
14 Chroma-Q Color Force II 48″
24 ROBE BMFL Blade
3 ROBE BMFL FollowSpot
Rigging
64 ChainMaster Hoist
150′ Tyler Box Truss
60′ Tomcat Truss
462′ Tyler GT+ Truss
