Metallica rocks Europe with Flares and ProPlex
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“The Flares are used 99% of the time for blasting the crowd,” says Geddy, PGP’s design manager. “Located atop the main centre cube structure and cable bridges, we’re hitting the audience all night with whites and saturated colours. About one-fifth of the Flares are the new brighter Q+ version, which we find mix perfectly with the original Flares.
“The Q+ Flares can be calibrated to match the earlier generation units, but we found that simply running them in their ‘Theatre Mode’ works just fine; you can’t see the difference between the old and new. Even with the Flare Q+ ‘padded’ a bit, we have all the brightness we need. And what you would expect at a Metallica concert. We have two other rigs out with Flares at the moment and we’re always looking for more. We can’t get enough of them!”
Geddy adds, “A large part of our data networking is handled with ease by four ProPlex IQ Two 1616 nodes. We’re using 18 universes of DMX for lighting alone, plus additional data for video and motion gags. These ProPlex units have proven their worth on the road, simple to operate yet very powerful; built rock solid and extremely dependable.”
The LD for the tour is Rob Koenig, and Dan Braun is the production designer. Lighting and A/V for the tour is provided by Premier Global Production.
(Jim Evans)
