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A Chat with Rob Koenig

Rob Koenig

A Chat with Rob Koenig

They say it’s a “Long Way to the Top, If You Want to Rock and Roll.” If that entails playing in a garage band and spending years of your life trudging through every back alley loading dock and taking what they’re giving to make a living until you finally get a few breaks in life, you just may win a Parnelli award. LD Rob Koenig has paid his dues, with over 20 years of schlepping gear and banging faders he has worked his way up the ladder to become one of the most sought-after lighting professionals in the touring world.

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Slipknot tour photo by Todd Kaplan

Slipknot 2016 Tour

Trevor Ahlstrand Lit the Band with a Gemini LSV Rig for its Tour with Marilyn Manson

American heavy metal rockers Slipknot hit the road this summer with Marilyn Manson on a tour lasting from June through September. Trevor Ahlstrand of Ahlstrand Productions provided the production and lighting design with lighting, audio and video elements for the tour supplied by Gemini Light Sound Video out of Dallas. Both have worked with Slipknot on several tours.

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Morpheus Lights provided LD Andrew Cass with the gear for the band's 2016 shows.

String Cheese Incident 2016 Summer Tour

“My goal is that the audience can’t tell when I’m going from the pre-programmed parts of the songs to the improvised ones,” says Andrew Cass, LD for String Cheese Incident (SCI). 
Indeed, he has 90 or so songs programmed in his grandMA2 console, but with this band, there is a section in every song where they go on an improvised musical tangent, and the lighting needs to follow along. He has developed a system that lets him stray from his song cuelist during the “jam” sections and return to the song looks as smoothly as possible.

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Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon, center stage. Photos by Aaron Wallace

Eaux Claires 2016 Festival Gets Clearwing Assist

Clearwing Provides New Fixtures for the Stage and Surrounding Grounds

More than 20,000 festival goers were treated to a weekend of memorable musical performances, art installations and light displays at the second annual Eaux Claires 2016. The two-day festival, curated by Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon, was held Aug. 12-13. The event has drawn widespread acclaim for its eclectic lineup and an innovative lighting design that turns the festival grounds — Foster Farm in Eau Claire, WI — into an extension of the stage.

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Pyro for Coldplay at the Rose Bowl, 2016. Photo by Steve Jennings

Strictly FX, 20 Years Down the Road

It was 1996 when two guys found themselves together in a room and were informed that if they wanted a particular gig, they had better start working together. The client was only interested in a package deal, it seems. As Mark Grega, one of the principals at SFX explains, “This wasn’t about two guys getting together and saying, ‘Hey, let’s start a company’.” Partner Ted Maccabee admits, “We weren’t really friends who set off looking for our dream job. It just kind of turned out that way.”

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Squeek Lights has been supplying (and designing lighting for) Silverstein and other bands. Photo by Sean Varga

The ‘Unique Blend’ of Squeek Lights

Post hardcore bands Senses Fail and Silverstein shared a great deal in common, beyond their excellence in their musical genre, when they toured together in 2015. Both had achieved critical acclaim; both had loyal cult-like followings, and both maintained relentless touring schedules. Unfortunately, both also lacked the budget for the kind of lighting rig that could do visual justice to their hard driving music. It was then that Victor Zeiser stepped in.

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Guns N' Roses 2016 tour photo by Katarina Benzova

Guns N’ Roses 2016 ‘Not in This Lifetime…’ Tour

It was announced at the end of 2015 that “classic era” Guns N’ Roses lead singer Axl Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan would be regrouping … after months of speculation and anticipation. Fans, press, media, the social universe and the music industry went into overdrive at the thought of one of the world’s most legendary rock bands being back on the road with this incredible lineup.

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Richard Fernandez, 2016 Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree

Parnelli Lifetime Achievenent Award Winner Richard Fernandez

Tour Manager for Faces, Eagles and Tom Petty to Accept Industry Honor at Gala Event on Oct. 22, 2016 at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas

This could be Richard Fernandez’s list of clients, or your favorite playlist on your iPod: The Cars, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Bob Dylan, Eagles, Faces, Tom Petty & the Heart Breakers, Boz Scaggs, Neil Young and Frank Zappa. It’s likely both.

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Kaaboo Festival Sunset Cliffs photo by Askewone

KAABOO Festival

The organizers of the KAABOO Festival outside San Diego had quite the inaugural show in 2015. Deemed a success by all, the festival reconvened from Sept. 15 to 18 this year for a second go-round. Festivals usually have multiple stages for music, boasts of artistic structures, and various places on-site that a patron can go to in order to take a break from the music, mingle with friends, or in the case of San Diegans, get out of the sun. This festival indeed had seven stages devoted to entertainment that were scattered over the 370 acres at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, just north of the city, but it is also an artwork experience. We take a look at this site to see why it stands out among all the other festivals this summer.

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Full Color Lasers supplied over 40 laser projectors for the 2016 event, which moved to the Atlanta Motor Speedway and added a third day to the schedule.

2016 Imagine Music Festival

In its third year, the Imagine Music Festival moved to the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, GA, expanded to a three-day format (Aug. 26-28) and offered camping for the first time. The EDM festival was deemed a huge success, drawing close to 45,000 with a lineup that included Dillon Francis, Benny Benassi, Bogore, The Disco Biscuits, Excision, Gramatik, Nero, Showtek, Steve Angello, Zeds Dead and more.

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Chauvet and other manufacturers are working on ways to let media servers and lighting consoles trigger complex fixture functions at the same time. Chauvet's Net-Switch distributes Art-Net, Kling-Net, sACN and other protocols.

From DMX to TCP/IP

A Look at the Growing Complexity of Fixture Functions and Control Systems

ver the years, the complexity of intelligent lighting fixtures has finally gotten to the point where our own intelligence level has to rise up exponentially just to operate the gear we are using. Take a look around at what the shows we see now differ to the shows that we saw just a few years ago. Now take a moment to think about what we will be seeing in a few years from now. That’s right, those are chills running down your spine.

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The mirrorball-chandelier design by Stephen Lieberman of SJ Lighting makes use of Ayrton CosmoPix and MagicDot fixtures.

The Premier Nightclub at the Borgata

Atlantic City Hotspot Features Elaborate Mirrorball, Chandelier

The Premier Nightclub in the Borgata casino gives a classic dance floor fixture — the mirror ball — a new twist. Stephen Lieberman of SJ Lighting provided his signature design for this world class, 18,000-square foot club, located in the space previously occupied by MIXX.

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