WINDHAM, VT – For Vermont’s “Frendly Gathering” music festival (spelled without an I for a reason), Tristan Rudat using Chauvet Professional’s PVP S7 panels to make sure all eyes were focused on a variety of different looks for the 26 acts as they performed styles ranging from rock, jam, reggae and bluegrass. Rudat used 50 of the tiles, arranging them in a 5 by 10 configuration that measured approximately 16 by 9 feet. The panels complemented a lighting rig that included Chauvet Rogue and other fixtures supplied by Supreme Lights and Sound.
More details from Chauvet (www.chauvetlighting.com):
The Frendly Gathering is to music festivals what the nearby Ben & Jerry’s company is to ice cream makers: iconoclastic, slightly eccentric, wildly creative and flower child sweet. How else to describe a music festival started by two champion snowboarders to commemorate “Frends Crew,” a group formed to take the ego out of the sport? (Hence the removal of the “I” from the word friends.)
Along with morning yoga and skateboarding, the festival features nonstop performances from bands covering the gamut of rock, jam, reggae and bluegrass styles. This year a total of 26 acts, including Big Gigantic and Smooth Antics, took to the stage at Timber Ridge, an old ski resort tucked in the Green Mountains. They were backed by a lightshow that featured a collection of CHAUVET Professional fixtures and an impressive video wall created by Tristan Rudat using the company’s PVP S7 panels.
“There’s a very intimate feeling to this festival,” said Rudat. “It was started by Jack Mitrani and Danny Davis of snowboarding fame to foster a spirit of friendship. There are a lot of people who come here every year, so there’s a sense of community. The stage is in an intimate setting. We tried to build on that feeling by creating one large video wall in the center of the stage to draw people into the performance.”
Rudat used 50 of the CHAUVET Professional PVP S7 tiles, arranging them in a 5 by 10 configuration that measured approximately 16’ x 9’. Attached to a truss bar structure and raised roughly four feet off the deck, the video wall ran across the middle of the stage.
“The tight fit of the panels and the quality of the PVP rigging kit made it relatively easy to create the kind of seamless wall that results in perfectly aligned images,” said Rudat. “We ran a lot of breakout patterns horizontally across the wall to coordinate with the directional beams coming from the Rogue fixtures positioned to its left and right. The structural integrity of the wall, the quality of the LEDs and the tight pixel pitch really helped make these images look smooth and fast so they became part of the lightshow. The crews on the rig from Supreme Lights and Sound, 4 Life Entertainment and of course our VJ Jaeson Tek also helped make this go very well.”
Drawing on the intense output and vivid colors of the PVP S7, Rudat used the panels at times to saturate the stage in light of various hues. This created a warm, inviting, almost campfire-like glow around the stage, which is located in the shadows of the ski resort’s chalet.
With 26 different acts performing at the festival, Rudat also relied on the PVP S7 panels to create a variety of different looks. “The panels were bright enough for our most intense acts, and they also allowed us to display detailed images for other acts,” he said. “Plus, they were very rugged – going through dust, sunlight and humidity for three summer days without giving us a single issue.”
Its light/video show, diverse acts and laid-back supportive atmosphere have cemented a high level of loyalty for the Frendly Gathering. One post called it “one of our favorite things about summer in Vermont.” The poster was Ben & Jerry’s.
