Fans who turned out to catch the show by EDM titans ATLiens at Red Rocks on Saturday May 17 couldn’t see the famous rock formation during their performance due to the size (36-foot trim) of the stage. Instead of gazing at the familiar prehistoric background, they got to be immersed in a fantastical galactic experience, as a big video wall, along with intense variations in light, lasers, atmospherics, and pyro effects, all revolving around a space theme, dramatically altered the aura of the stage at every turn.
Luis Torres of HiLite Designs orchestrated this transformational journey using a powerful, flexible rig from Brown Note Productions that featured a collection of 28 CHAUVET Professional Color STRIKE M motorised strobe-blinders.
“The concept behind this design was to emulate the artist being on a spaceship,” explained Torres. “Having a circular booth and the video pillar underneath allowed us to create some visuals of a spaceship. We wanted to create looks that made it seem like the artists were being taken up into the spaceship as if it was an abduction.”
“Our show was very high energy and very intense,” continued Torres. “Therefore, we used as much strobe as possible. The Color STRIKE Ms were invaluable in this respect. We positioned them in the diagonal towers behind the video wall and in the circular spaceship DJ booth to maximize their impact.”
Torres executed dramatic colour changes throughout the show, washing the entire stage in deeply saturated reds and blues, as well as fiery orange-yellows to coordinated with pyro effects. For added dramatic impact, he silhouetted the artists against bold, monochromatic video wall backdrops at various points during the show. The centre stage video wall itself, which had a large triangular LED ribbon over it, often displayed compelling space related imagery.
As part of their vision for this project, Torres and his teammates Tour Director: Malcolm Waldek; Tour Manager Jared Hallal VJ; Tyler White (Management); Griffin Haddrill and Wilcox Weaver of the Media Team); as well as Gabe Bandrill wanted the biggest wall their budget would allow.
