Santa Ana, CA--Last summer, Johhn Wiseman’s Chaos Visual Productions was hired by tour production manager Chris Adamson and production designer Marc Brickman to provide the live video playback for a number of tours, including the John Mayer “Battle Studies” tour. The tour performed 122 shows in 331 days and encompassed the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Together Chaos, Adamson, and Brickman created a 50-foot wide X 20-foot tall LED video wall composed of 45 Martin LC 2140 panels, along with four Barco 20k projectors that shot onto a custom screen, and a four-HD camera system to capture and playback the concert to the audiences.
“It was definitely an eye-popping display of state-of-the-art video technology in action,” Wiseman said. “But the video wall was designed for indoor use.”
On July 25, 2010, on an otherwise beautiful sunny day, the decision was made to put up the wall in an outside venue. Once the wall was up and ready to go, the sky turned grey, then black, and a monsoon-level storm blew in and destroyed the $1-million video wall in a matter of seconds.
“The winds came up out of nowhere and whipped the wall around like it was a rag doll. We were devastated by what had happened and, frankly, we didn’t know what to do. Fortunately, we spoke with our insurance broker, Paul Lopez of Snapp & Associates, who placed our business through specialty underwriter Take1 Insurance, and from the minute the accident happened he never ever left our side.”
Take1 Insurance is the entertainment arm of U.S. Risk. Take1 worked directly with the carrier to honor the claim on the video wall, and continued to cover the remainder of the tour and all of the other tours that Chaos had out on the road.
“We all have our insurance company stories,” Wiseman said. “And unfortunately many of them are not good ones. Well, this is one of the good ones. Take1 came to our defense and fought the good fight for us. They restored my faith in the insurance industry. As far as I am concerned, Take1 is a partner in the business with us. They’ve proven their willingness to stand by us in the same way that we stand by our clients, every day, without excuses.”
“Chaos has been a client since it was formed in January 2009. When they were starting out, I sat down with Chaos CFO Rich Oster and we found that their previous policy, from a provider not specialized in the entertainment industry, was insufficient and left them vulnerable to substantial losses," said Lopez, of Snapp & Associates. "So we crafted an air-tight, and in this case, water-tight policy that keeps them protected all the time, no matter where their business takes them — anywhere in the world.”
Take 1’s specialty program has designed inland marine coverage, among other specialty covers for the entertainment industry, that automatically applies everywhere in the world, without the need for additional riders or endorsements. It eliminates co-insurance, thus protecting 100 percent of the insured value of the equipment covered; provides automatic replacement cost valuation; allows for separate limits in key individual coverage areas like owned equipment, equipment rented from others, equipment in the insured’s Care Custody and Control (CCC), and equipment in transit; flood coverage for equipment in transit; and blanket limits that eliminate the need for clients’ to itemize each and every piece of equipment, cable, LED panel, etc. being covered.
“For us, it always has been and always will be about the work,” Wiseman said. “When we are retained for a project we give our word that our clients can and will receive the highest level of creativity backed by the highest levels of support. No excuses, ever.”
