NEW YORK – See Factor Industry, Inc. provided a lighting design and equipment package for Red Hot + New Orleans on Dec. 3-4, one of the attractions at the 2010 Next Wave Festival at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The show, the third partnering of BAM and the Red Hot organization, was a benefit for World AIDS Day, a cause Red Hot has supported since its first concert in 1990.
The NOLA-themed event lineup included Dr. John, Irma Thomas, Kermit Ruffins, Ledisi, Marc Broussard, Ivan Neville, Partners-N-Crime, Roger Lewis, Phil and Keith Frazier, James Andrews, Trombone Shorty with his band, Orleans Avenue and others.
Red Hot and See Factor came together for the fourth time with this event. Previously, See Factor provided the lighting for Red Hot + Riot in 2006, Red Hot + Rio in 2008-both at BAM-and the organization's Dark Was The Night concert at Radio City Music Hall in 2009.
For Red Hot + New Orleans, the set featured giant necklaces of silver beads, reminiscent of the beads thrown from floats at Mardi Gras parades, looping down from battens above and also strategically scattered across the stage floor. One full-stage plastic screen across the upstage area provided close-up views of musicians and other NOLA-style visuals.
Along with a full-size grandMA2 control console, See Factor provided eight GLP Elation Impression RZ 120s, one Barco/High End Systems Showgun, 10 Robe ColorSpot 1200 ATs, four Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 72 LED fixtures, 12 Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12 Powercore LED fixtures, 12 Wybron Color Ram II color scrollers, 16 brass PAR 64s, 108 silver Altman PARs on Thomas Pre-Rig Truss, 24 ETC 19Ëš Lekos, seven ETC 5Ëš Lekos, two Robert Juliat followspots, four 100-foot festoon strings and two 50-foot festoon strings.
"The overall intention of the lighting plot was to properly light the list of amazing artists, while creating a colorful, festive, New Orleans atmosphere," said Alban Sardzinski, staff lighting designer at See Factor. "We used ColorBlazes and ColorBlasts to frame the video content being projected, and used LEDs to change the colors rapidly or slowly in relation to the video and music being played.
"With the Impression RZ 120s, I could use one fixture for multiple positions," Sardzinski added. "I could zoom out to light the beads that were close by, and then zoom in to light the beads across the stage. Of course, I also had the ability to have a pan or tilt ballyhoo to create additional movement on stage."
Sardzinski opted for the grandMA2 full size console, calling it "an amazingly powerful console. I had the ability to choose my own layout and customize every button, fader, and screen. The multi-touch screen was a great asset to the show. I put up a window of virtual faders where I kept key-light Lekos. This gave me the ability to highlight solos and not eat up the faders."
For more information, please visit www.seefactor.com.
