Country music fans from across southern California and beyond gathered April 24-26 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, for the sold out festival, which featured mainstream country artists Tim McGraw, Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton along with lesser-knowns. A relative newcomer to the country music festival scene yet already one of the seasons' most anticipated events, StageCoach has grown to become the US's biggest grossing country music festival.
Todd Roberts of Visions Lighting supplied the Elation beam lights for the Mane Stage and Palomino Stage, Visions' first time working on Stagecoach. Visions also took care of the perimeter site lighting.
"We were very happy to have the opportunity to work on StageCoach this year," Todd stated. "Country music concerts are not what they used to be. The fan base is growing and expects the production to be equal to, if not bigger, than a rock and roll touring rig. The Elation fixtures provided the impactful big beam looks that spectators love and we used them for all the artists throughout the three days."
On the festival's Mane stage, the Platinum BX and Beam 5R Extremes worked from a rig made up of six large truss sticks with side fingers. On the downstage truss and stage-left wing were 15 of the powerful fat beam Platinum BX effects used for long throw aerial looks. "The BX's thick beam looks great and they are really bright," Todd commented. "And then you've got the cost savings advantage too. They worked out really well with none going down. Not one issue."
Known as the 'Country Coachella', StageCoach is really the country music version of the popular multi-genre music festival, which ended the weekend prior at the same location. Visions, who also supplied Elation lighting for Coachella, including Platinum Beam 5R Extremes, quickly sent the fixtures back to their shop after the festival for a quick cleaning before being sent out again for Stagecoach. Todd then placed 24 of them on the Mane stage from mid-stage and upstage positions to shoot ACL-type beams into the air and audience. An extremely bright beam light that has been a touring industry staple for years, an additional 48 Platinum Beam 5R Extremes were used on the Palomino stage, which featured lesser known but rising artists.
The Elation Platinum BX and Platinum Beam 5R Extreme fixtures worked with a host of other lights on both stages, including lights from artists who came with their own floor package. Lighting designer for the Mane stage was Jamie Jensen with programming by Chad Smith. Todd Roberts handled lighting design duties for the Palomino stage with programming by David Molmer.
(Jim Evans)
