Elation on All Time Low’s summer US tour
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Lighting designer Jeff Maker (Pierce the Veil, The Dresden Dolls) has worked with All Time Low for the past eight years and earlier this year used Elation lighting on a string of shows in the UK and Europe. For 2017’s U.S. leg he added a dominant upstage visual piece in the form of an eye-catching LED video wall. “Whereas the UK design was all about the lighting, the U.S. leg was very video heavy,” Maker explains, referencing the unique cityscape/soundwave video wall made up of Elation EMAG4 LED video panels. “We wanted to create a very interactive design that helped transform the stage with each song having its own personality.”
The LED wall added depth to the stage with visuals that fully complemented the Baltimore foursome’s music. Maker worked with Oliver Hutchinson on the video content, all of which was time coded. “We worked together on colours and ideas and I think we came up with something special for the band,” Maker said, explaining that the lighting design was partially influenced by the popular mystery TV show Stranger Things.
Maker had custom rigging stingers fabricated along with tensioning and balancing equipment to safely suspend the video wall. Optimized for high-pace setup and tear down with features like tool-less quick locks, the 4.8mm pixel pitch EMAG panels provided outstanding image quality and plenty of visual punch. Video processing was from an Elation-distributed Novastar NovaPro HD.
Helping to frame the video wall were one-meter long Elation SixBar 1000 LED colour-changing battens, multi-purpose strips used as special effects, chases and blinders, as well as pixel mapping. “The colour mixing was great with the SixBars and they were super bright,” Maker said, adding that they had no problem holding up with the brightness of the video wall. Six SixBar fixtures were rigged vertically at different heights above the video wall with six hung vertically on floor truss. A further four were located on the ground (two stage left and two stage right) facing the band midstage.
Spec'ed in the rig for the UK leg earlier in the year were Elation Protron 3K Color LED strobes. For the U.S. leg Maker turned to Elation’s high-power white light Protron 3K LED strobe with its 80,000 lumens of power and lack of thermal issues.
“JR Lighting played a huge role in getting all the gear needed at an unbeatable cost, Maker says. “This is the third tour I've done with them with two different artists and they were amazing,” he said, concluding, “They are a great team to work with and I definitely would love to work with them again in the future.”
(Jim Evans)
