I love outdoor events. Trees, tents, and numerous textures that are unique to outdoor lighting open many creative avenues for the ambitious lighting designer. New style stages, new environments, new clients; All provide new challenges that open the doors of creativity often suppressed during the “usual” show formats each designer becomes accustomed to. Calvin and Friends was fun with its fair share of trials.

Without getting into the technical difficulties of our generator that evening, I have one word of advice. Always make sure you have an Allen wrench or appropriate tool large enough to tighten the socket head cap screws, or whatever mechanism used to attach the feeder tails. Ask the rental company if the tools are provided, if not buy or rent the appropriate tool now. If you wait till day of, you will likely not find the tool you need in stock at Grainger and Home Depot/ Lowes doesn’t carry many specialty tools. Anyway we ended up using the flat head screwdriver and hammer technique. Look out, I know everyone of you at some point been brought to your knees while cursing the guy responsible for providing the correct tool. Now, I would like to introduce our next guest on the technical difficulty press release, the rain.

I love the rain. The sound on the roof late at night soothes my ears and uplifts my heart, except when I remember that some of my electrical equipment is screaming for shelter. Their fuses blowing one at a time into the darkness as small footholds of rust and decay build on its surfaces. Trash bags, trash bags, trash bags; they are inexpensive and compact. When they are needed, no greater satisfaction can be had than the prepared technician whipping out a box of industrial strength bags. From picking up debris to covering outdoor lighting to neatly wrapping eyesores in black- cloaking their appearance, trash bags cannot be overlooked. Fortunately, I had watched the weather report and purchased them before the flash flood that happened at 4:28 pm on that glorious Cinco de Mayo Festival. Rushing to get everything covered as the storm suddenly rolled in, we prevented a mid-day strike and reset with a little foresight.

Although the rain never stopped, the wind did and the rain became more of a drizzle. The roof of the thirty foot stage kept the rain away from the equipment. I had a haunting awareness that the wind could sweep through at anytime. Hesitantly removing all the bags off of the equipment, I quickly finished up the last steps of the setup and began programming.

Anytime I walk onto a location, the first thing I do is look for any unique elements that could give me dynamic projection places (that comes from the LD in me) and of course power location (that come from the technician in me). The stage roof was white and so was the party tent. I love white. The gobo and color played off the tent and the mobile stage roof, thrilled the audience and made the band bigger than life. It also reflects light providing natural ambient light textures on the band. The other joy of my life is trees. Although the pictures didn’t turn out, take a spot fixture outside right now, rotate and prism the gobo, then shoot it right on a tree full of leaves as you change the colors and gobos. The result is the most beautiful light display outside of the suns play on water. Any time a tree is close to stage, I will always find a moment to sweep a tree's branches full of summer leaves.

Finally I would like to discuss the equipment setup. I set up three pars with light amber and light pink gels on each side of stage. Running them at about 18% the par cans brought a little color to the faces of the band. I had 8 small LED pars on both sides of the stage to provide a little variation and punch. If you are unfamiliar with LED fixtures, they have completely seamless color transitions and also strobing capability. Running a random strobe over a transparent background gives a nice build into the chorus or transitions easily layering over any color. Also having the fixtures fluctuate between colors such as red and orange or blue and aqua, creates motion on stage increasing the complexity and interest of the viewer. If you have ever found your self staring into firelight or at the side of the dock as the sun sets, buy a set of 8 to 12 led pars (American DJ P64 LED is only $199 online) and re-create the vision with color macros and layers. I promise an evening of endless enjoyment.

I brought my favorite sextet: two Robe 250 XT spots, two Robe 250 XT washes, and two Robe 575XT vision scans. If you are starting a small production company and are looking into buying moving lights I strongly recommend Robe. I have owned several of my fixtures for 5 years and have yet to have any major problems. I typically ground set the scanners for two reasons: great shadows on the side walls from the band doubling the size of the stage, and providing a nice uplight to eliminate of some of the shadows on the members themselves. I usually place the washes high and the spots mid-stage for obvious reasons. To augment the white ceiling during moments when none of the moving lights are projecting onto it, I placed two American DJ H2O 250s to layer a nice red water effect to go with the Caribbean theme. The final touch was adding the American DJ Enfernos for the 20 minute Latin driven finale of the band, added the fiery ending to an already vibrant evening.

The show and the video of the band both turned out great. After three and a half hours of dancing in the rain, the audience did not want to stop. The audience didn’t disperse for nearly an hour. Children and adults alike enjoyed On the Border’s Cinco de Mayo Festival with Calvin and Friends (www.calvinandfriends.com). Their dynamic performance and light show inspired young and old. Unaware of the energy required to set up an unrehearsed production and challenges conquered, they only felt the natural breath of performance, much like watching the effortless grace of well seasoned ballroom dancer. The next event is always an open window to see new ways of doing things and new ways of expressing the art of light.

Contact Jack Kelly, the owner of Eye Dialogue at www.eyedialogue.com
Contact Calvin and Friends at www.calvinandfriends.com