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LED Panels Reconfigured Mid-Tour for Christian Music Tour

Pix2o LED Video Display

In the post-MP3 world, production values in live events are often dictated by economics. Those fat advances that record companies used to front to recording artists have gone the way of reel-to-reel tape machines and typewriters. Today, they are much more reliant on ticket sales and profitable touring, so every means of saving money on the road is of capital importance.

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Elation Platinum Spot 5R

Early this year I was cruising the aisles of NAMM when I came across the Elation Platinum Spot 5R. It's pretty difficult to assess a new light at a trade show, but what caught my attention was the contrast between this light and the ones right next to it. It was brighter. But the kicker was that it was smaller and it drew less power than those other lights. I had to figure out why.

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The Mind Melds of Matt Mills

Matt Mills has been working on the Daughtry tour since March 2009 as the lighting director and programmer. It would be very easy to get complacent running the same show day in and day out. Instead, he has found ways to stay creative, changing the way the console uses pixel mapping, the way followspot cues are called, and adjusting to last minute changes to the set list.

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Video in Nashville: Competition Ramps Up

The sine wave that is country music's fortunes periodically intersects with the boundaries of the larger mainstream pop music paradigm, and this summer, Nashville-based music finds itself all over that map. Artists like Lady Antebellum, Rascal Flatts and the ubiquitous Taylor Swift have kept country on the cover of People magazine and on the broader cultural radars. One other thing they have in common is major video projection systems out on tour with them.

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Pre-Flight Checklist

The responsibilities of an automated lighting programmer are similar to that of an airplane pilot in several ways. We have to control expensive equipment, ensure a successful production (flight), and we must be masters of our crafts.

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Power to Spare

A few years ago I bought a book called Standard Handbook For Electrical Engineers, but I never read it. It just sat on the shelf taunting me, making fun of me behind my back, sticking its $150 tongue out at me.

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A Brief History of ACLs

Someone wrote to me last month asking about the term "ACL." He asked why a lot of new moving lights were being touted as moving ACLs. Outside of the lighting industry, they would think we were referring to a ligament in the knee.

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