For the 2015 Kaaboo, lighting designer Chris Lisle was brought on by production manager Jim Dorroh, and he worked with Solotech to create a powerful and expansive rig using 36 VL4000 Spot, 41 VL3500 Wash and 12 VL3500 Wash FX luminaires.
"While this was my first year working with Kaaboo, associate designer Erik Parker and I knew that we needed to provide a rig that would be easy to clone to/from the touring artists normal show file," began Lisle. "A good mixture and placement of wash, spot, and beam fixtures is always critical, and since I've used Vari-Lite in my designs for years, I knew they would be a hit for the incoming LD's.
"In the design, we wanted to give all the artists the most diverse lighting options possible, but still make sure the rig would go up and down easily," explained Lisle. "To accomplish this we decided to use the Vari-Lite luminaires primarily on the main stage because they have great optics, a wonderful output, and many other fantastic features that lighting designers really love to dig into."
Lisle continued, "We placed the VL4000 Spot and VL3500 Wash luminaires on the 'five finger' trusses in an alternating pattern in order to lay a good base of color and beam effects with gobo pattern projections when needed. We then placed the VL3500 Wash FX luminaires in the main stage wings and used them for their big aerial capabilities.
"With the amount of Vari-Lite luminaires we had in the rig, we were certainly able to create some nice, big looks with a ton of horsepower," concluded Lisle.
(Jim Evans)
