DELMAR, CA – LD Nook Schoenfeld was the first lighting designer to use Elation Professional’s much anticipated Platinum FLX hybrid moving head, as well as the company’s new ACL 360 Matrix narrow-beam LED effect light, and came away wholly satisfied. Both lights had their show premieres on a special VIP Stage performance by Sheryl Crow at the inaugural KAABOO Festival in Del Mar, California.
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“I really liked the Platinum FLX and Elation should be commended for this fixture,” lighting designer Nook Schoenfeld stated just hours after Sheryl Crow’s performance. “Being the first time anyone had used these fixtures I had to get a rushed fixture library to use in my console and it wasn’t written well. So I was actually unsure of what I would see on stage for that evening’s performance as I wrote the entire light show in the light of the California sun. But here’s where the beauty of this beam came through. Despite the sun blazing away I could see where the beams were focusing on the marley floor with ease. Come show time, the focuses were almost perfect. Another great attribute of this was the ability to pick out gobos and sharpen them up with the focus encoder – during daylight! How rad is that?” The Platinum FLX houses the Philips™470W Platinum 20R lamp and emits up to 20,000 lumens.
The new multi-functional moving head is unique among hybrid fixtures and features an innovative dual optical system for functionality as a spot (2.9° to 25°), beam (1.8° – 18°) or wash effect. “It was really simple to go from a pencil thin beam to a fat tree trunk length of light,” Nook said of the independent dual optics which switches between beam and spot modes in a snap.
“Also, when it came to the color mixing I was pleasantly surprised,” Nook says of the fixture’s CMY color mixing system (also included are 10 extra dichroic colors). “I could mix a red or green primary color without losing the typical light output that I am accustomed to in other fixtures. I had a song where I bumped all the bright ACL 360 Matrix fixtures to a solid white color and snapped the Platinum FLX’s to red. I fully expected the white light to wash out the red beams, but nay, there they were in all their glory. I wish I could do that with all moving lights.”
Not your typical festival
The KAABOO Festival ran from September 18-20 at the Del Mar Racetrack and Fairgrounds just north of San Diego. Promoted as a new kind of arts and entertainment experience – “everything a typical music festival is not” – it is designed around comfort and quality with a sublime setting on the warm shores of the Pacific.
KAABOO featured three-days of dancing, contemporary art and fine cuisine from celebrity chefs, a dedicated comedy stage and of course world-class music with top acts like No Doubt, The Killers, and the Zac Brown Band. Lighting design across the festival’s 5 outdoor and 2 indoor stages, all named after well-known California surfing spots, was by Chris Lisle and included ambient lighting from the roof of the grounds to the palm trees surrounding the track. Lighting Director was Erik Parker.
VIP Stage with Sheryl Crow
Prior to the opening of the weekend festival, Sheryl Crow played a special show on the VIP Stage for an audience of several thousand. Lighting the stage were 24 Platinum FLX, 24 ACL 360 Matrix and 10 Platinum Wash ZFX Pro fixtures all supplied by Visions Lighting.
Another Elation light that had its show debut at KAABOO was the ACL 360 Matrix, a versatile moving head effect with 360° pan and tilt rotation that emits a dense 4-degree color-changing beam from each lens, were hung from two of the VIP Stage’s upstage trusses. “The punch emitted out of these babies was quite nice and focusing fanned arrays of beams was simple,” he stated. “I had enough of them to make a nice wash on the stage despite the small aperture of the beam.” Using 25 individual 15W RGBW LEDs and advanced collimator optic lens, the ACL 360 Matrix’s continuous movement and individual pixel control make for a variety of dynamic effects possibilities.
Included on the VIP Stage front truss were Platinum Wash ZFX Pro’s, multi-purpose RGBW wash lights with 19x 15W LEDs and array controllable zones for eye-candy looks. “It threw out some serious lumens as I was able to cover each band member with a single fixture in a dark lavender color,” Nook commented. “Yes, they have a sexy lavender color for an LED fixture!” The Platinum Wash ZFX’s were also utilized to light a building structure at the fairgrounds that served as upstage scenery. “I constantly had to lower their intensity as my scenery was blowing out my other light beams on stage.”
Satisfaction
The most impressive part of all the Elation fixtures, Nook says, was the movement. “Whether in a slow sweeping move to Sheryl Crow or a fast-paced ballyhoo, these lights just ran smooth. No problems or lapses with effects-engine-related cues, they just plain worked. The lights I used at this gig were all brand new out of the cardboard boxes yet every function of every light worked flawlessly for the whole show.”
Although Nook admits he’s not crazy about being the first person to ‘wring out’ new fixtures on a show, he says the experience was positive. “I put these lights through their paces and seriously beat them up yet there were no failures,” he concludes. “All the fixtures behaved well and at this point I’d be happy to take any new Elation product out on a show, sight unseen. Go figure, I use the Platinum FLX on just one gig, and I don’t ever want to go back.”
Other Elation lighting (Platinum SBX, Platinum BX and Protron 3K LED Strobes) was also used on several of the other stages at KAABOO with ELAR 108 PARs used for main area lighting and decor lighting.
