Hippotizer Boreals control Imagine Dragons’ pods
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This opening stage of the global outing, in support of the band’s third studio album Evolve, comprised 31 North American dates and SRae Productions – owned and operated by Sooner Routhier and Robert Long – used a trio of Hippotizer Boreal Media Servers to control a stunning array of 30 LED pods. Mounting the pods on a brace of automated Axis the SRae team used four projectors to shoot on to physical roll drop units.
The three Boreals – two active, one acting as back-up – received location data via PSN information fed from Raynok Automation software. Here, Green Hippo’s SHAPE proved invaluable.
Matt Geasey, technical director of SRae reports: “We really enjoy the SHAPE function of Hippotizer, which quickly aligns and builds the show while utilising multi controller to accept and manage different pieces of information coming into the system. The ability to quickly adjust the SHAPE file while the system is online, and then sending the new file into the system is really handy for live implementation.”
SRae’s Green Hippo machines at the Imagine Dragons gigs were running the latest version of Hippotizer V4, and Matt praised not only the award-winning software – including its Colour Blocks function – but also the ‘human support’ provided by Green Hippo itself:
Matt Geasey continues, “From the off, the latest Imagine Dragons show struck a chord. Reviewing the Phoenix opening night at the 18,000 capacity Talking Stick Resort Arena, the Arizona Republic newspaper likened the backdrop’s prism of colours to a ‘modern take on Superman’s Fortress of Solitude’ adding that the sight and sounds during the band’s performance of its 2013 smash Radioactive ‘resembled a volcanic eruption’.
(Jim Evans)
