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Dreaming Up Fresh (and Distinct) Nightmares for Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie

If you are looking for an example in how a single lighting and video setup can be used by two different designers to create distinct visual narratives, the North American ‘Freaks on Parade’ tour with Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper could serve as a case in point. “It’s always really cool to see how designers use the same rig in different ways,” said Damian Rogers, Lighting & Video Designer, Programmer & Director for Rob Zombie. An expansion in LED video gear and content also played a key role, not just for Zombie, who “makes great videos and provides tons of cool content for our show,” Rogers says, but also for Cooper, who took the LED video content plunge for the first time with this trek.

Lighting Muse’s ‘Will of the People’ Tour

Designers Jesse Lee Stout and Sooner Routhier were looking for a way to visually express the band’s desire for a show design that would convey a narrative of “an extreme group of vigilantes resetting the world to ground zero” (Stout) with a “rig that feels like the skeletal nature of a post-apocalyptic, near-future world” (Routhier). Upstaging provided 122 CHAUVET Professional Color STRIKE M fixtures, most of which were in a horseshoe configuration around the stage, with others under the plexiglass stage. “They are one of the main workhorses of the show,” Routhier says, noting the importance of reining in their intensity through most of the show and limiting the full intensity blasts of light to “only a couple times in the show” so they will deliver maximum impact.

From “Designer Spotlight,” PLSN, May 2023, page 34

Be Inspired by Everything Around You

In the February PLSN issue, Chris Lose wrote of advice he got from Nook Schoenfeld when Lose took over the LD-at-Large column. Here’s an excerpt from that column on being inspired by everything around you.

An Important Trait You Need for Working in this Industry

I think that the “all hands-on deck” mentality is something that’s really important. And never getting too big for your britches; always realizing that at the end of the day nothing would happen without everybody else in the room. It is all teamwork, so staying humble and respectful is a huge one. We’ve all seen people who get jaded by the industry, so I try, every day that I get to be on site, to take a minute to be grateful. I always think, ‘I can’t believe somebody pays me enough money for this to be my career.’