- For young synth-pop bands such as St. Lucia, live shows are always high in energy, but less likely to be high in production. But on the 10-week fall tour supporting When the Night, Production Manager/Designer and FOH Engineer Gordon Droitcour was able to match the tour with the production value worthy of the outfit’s first full-length album.
The lighting rig and LED videos at the St. Lucia tour
Droitcour designed a self-contained, auto-triggering, midi-controlled system for both lights and video. The show is based from the band’s existing backing tracks which triggers lighting cues via software lighting consoles and video files vide an ArKaos Media Master.
“It’s an old idea that’s being repurposed,” Droitcour explained. “In the past, they’ve done it based on SMPTE/time code as opposed to midi notes. Mine happens in a more musical way with notes, bars and measures as opposed to just seconds.”
All lighting and video products are serviced through Elite Multimedia. The set is divided into three different portable set carts constructed by Accurate Staging complete with 62 Chauvet Epix Strips, 12 Chauvet SlimPAR Pros, 12 American DJ Sweeper Beams and 12 PixelFLEX CM12s. Behind the lighting carts, a 10-foot tall, 30-foot wide PixelFLEX FLEXCurtain 50mm LED video wall supports the visual aspect of the show.
The flexible video wall and set carts make the production scalable, which makes the equipment efficient for the crew to set up for the crowds of anywhere from 300 to 3,000. Most of the club venues that St. Lucias plays at are newcomers to video walls that meet their low weight requirements — the FLEXCurtain weighs in at just 68 lbs. per panel. Combining the lightweight characteristic of the wall with the pre-built lighting carts allows all production plus backline to fit into a 16-foot trailer.
“It takes three guys to put [the rig] up in less than an hour and it’s done, so that makes us really happy, especially since we do not carry an LD” Droitcour said. “This system is pretty plug and play.”
The entire lighting rig and LED video wall also runs safely off of three 20 amp circuits.
The ease and efficiency of such a low-maintenance rig goes hand-in-hand with the reliability of the midi-controlled show. Because it runs itself, it will always be on time.
