Centrepiece of the set was an impressive and fun Stray Cats marquee sign
USA - After opening in Europe last June, the Stray Cats’ North American leg commenced in Atlantic City, NJ, wrapping up in San Diego, CA. The centrepiece of the set, spanning 24ft, was an impressive and fun Stray Cats marquee sign, designed, built, and installed by Gallagher Staging of La Mirada, CA. Comprised of 202 IMS RGBW LED lamps, as well as other LED ribbon and panel lighting, the colourful and buoyant set-piece was the visual signature of the tour.
“Marquees go hand in hand with the genre,” says Gallagher’s special projects manager, Joe Golden. “Like rockabilly, marquee lighting is retro yet timeless. We had an existing sign and reworked it to become essentially a blend of makeover and new. On the Brian Stetzer Orchestra tour, we had used incandescent lamps mixed with IMS LEDs, but the warm white in the RGBW IMS lamps looked so much better that, for this tour, LD Michael Duncan opted to replace all the lamps with IMS LEDs. The IMS lamps easily retrofitted into the original E27 sockets, saving us a lot of time.”
Golden continues: “Driving the IMS system were two ProPlex IMS Universe Drive DIN-Rail units built into a custom PSU chassis. The marquee sign was illuminated throughout the show, elegantly programmed by Duncan to capture the moods from song to song, as well as sections within a song. The lights were in continual motion.”
Tour production manager Michael Richter comments: “Yup, we love it. It’s awesome, exactly as I envisioned it, the band and management, everyone loves it.”
Based in La Mirada, CA, Gallagher Staging also featured 167 IMS lamps in their rotating, colour-changing sign at the 2017 LDI show. Gallagher offers custom and rental staging for concerts, tours, red carpet events, award shows, corporate events, film and TV production, trade shows, sports events, and more. IMS is distributed exclusively worldwide by TMB.
(Jim Evans)

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