The Commodores play The Ostrich Festival
USA - When The Commodores appeared at the 39th annual Ostrich Festival in Chandler, AZ, outside Phoenix in March, they didn’t disappoint, treating the large, appreciative crowd to an upbeat, free-flowing show that celebrated the full range of their music. Providing visual support was a Creative BackStage-supplied lightshow that reflected the many facets of the group’s sound by running through a rainbow of colours.
“The Commodores team relied quite a bit on changing colours at this festival, not just to convey the festive mood of the event itself, but to change the atmosphere on stage in support of the music,” said John Garberson of Creative BackStage. “The Commodores’ LD did this for them, and we did the same for the other headliners, Flo Rida and Andy Grammer, as well as all the local bands. There was a lot of great music on stage, and we wanted to give each song its own look with colour.”
Helping to achieve this goal was a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by his company, Creative BackStage. His rig for the three-day festival included eight Maverick MK2 Spot and 24 Rogue R2 Wash fixtures, as well as five STRIKE 4 units on the downstage truss that complemented the colour displays by serving as blinders.
Garberson positioned his Rogue fixtures throughout the rig to ensure complete colour coverage. He flew 12 of the units downstage, six midstage, and six upstage. Joining them on the mid and upstage truss were the Maverick MK2 Spot fixtures. Adding extra colour were 12 Chauvet DJ COLORband PiX-M USB fixtures, arranged four apiece on three pipes positioned on the upstage deck.
“My plan was to hit the stage with colour from every angle, overlap beams of different colours to create texture and variety, and have a supportive colour wash upstage,” said Garberson. “We went with deep, saturated colours to set a relaxed immersive mood We also interspliced the colours with bright white light from the spots to make them pop.”
Ostrich Festival draws over 250,000 visitors annually and is one of the highlights of Chandler’s community calendar. The festival was started in 1989 to commemorate the city’s history as a centre of Ostrich farming in the early 20th century.
(Jim Evans)

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