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Scouting For Girls Tour Visual Feast with Disappearing Stealth Screen
London-based indie pop band Scouting For Girls (SFG) recently completed a five-week UK tour that saw them play to more than 100,000 fans across the country. With a Double Platinum debut album, a nomination for MTV's ‘Best New Act' category and a number one hit, fans attending the sold-out concerts no doubt expected a spectacular show to match the band's stellar reputation.
Lighting Designer Jon Barker was tasked with delivering the show's visual ‘Wow!' factor. Specifying eight Stealth columns, which "disappeared" when not in use to reveal the lighting fixtures behind the screen, Barker put together a dazzling show that seamlessly blended the use of video and lighting to achieve a wide array of luminous, resplendent looks that superbly enhanced the band's performance.
Says Barker: "When I came up with the design concept for the tour, I was after a low-resolution video screen that was in effect see-though and would simply 'disappear' when it was not in use, allowing me to use the fixtures I had placed behind the screens (a selection of 4-way Molefay with Colour Scrollers, 2kW Skypans and Strand S Batterns with clear globe lamps all rigged at different heights) as a 'hidden layer' that would pop out when illuminated."
"The two main reasons I chose the Stealth over competitive products was first the higher resolution of Stealth which made it much more attractive - smoother, much more "flowing" video content at a closer distance. Secondly, the other products use clear tubes to house their LED's and I felt that these plastic tubes would be prone to catching any stray light and thus revealing the screen even when it was not in use. There was absolutely no way this could happen with the Stealth. It really is true to its name, as when not in use, it completely disappears and only shows itself on command from my desk," adds Barker.
The show featured eight brand-new Stealth 'columns' each two panels wide by seven panels high giving a total resolution of 256 x 112 pixels (112 panels in total). Each column was rigged on a custom-made frame of black-sprayed scaffold ground supported by two Doughty flat-plate tank traps. "Every day it took two crew just twenty minutes to get the entire screen out of it's cases and rigged in position on the stage. It then took another 15 minutes to cable and check the system. It was ridiculously quick to rig!" adds Barker.
Claas Ernst of Element Labs adds: "For an LED screen that measured only 18 square meters in total, which is a relatively small quantity of LED for this type of show, the Stealth still delivered a huge visual impact. This is great news also for smaller shows or events that still want to make a big impact with a limited quantity of LED."
"Stealth is an absolutely fantastic LED product. I was feeding media content into the Versa Drive D2 from a Catalyst Media Server driven by my Avolites Diamond 4 console. Once properly set up the system worked a treat and we had absolutely no serious problems with the screen," concludes Barker.
All video equipment, including Stealth was supplied by Flashlight (The Netherlands) with lighting equipment from Siyan (UK). Content design was by Rich Porter, Rob Smith and Jon Barker.
20th January 2009
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