American rapper Post Malone has announced that he intends to stage his own festival at the Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas Texas recently, featuring himself, Tyler, the Creator and Travis Scott.
Lighting Designer, Ben Dalgleish has used 36 GLP X4 XL moving LED heads for Post Malone’s worldwide festival tour which started in June 2018 and was keen to light for Post Malone again. This time he has specified 133 GLP X4 Bar 20 battens for the main lighting for Posty Fest.
Working with Creative Director, Lewis James, whom he said: “provided excellent creative direction on the look envisaged for Post Malone’s performance,” Dalgleish said that the aim was to have the artist stand out as the headline act. “Other acts had a large LED screen, but this was removed during the changeover and revealed a large structure lined with GLP’s X4 20 Bars.” he stated: “For the rest of the festival I designed a simple but effective rig that the guest LDs for Travis Scott and Tyler the Creator could use.” The lighting for both stages was supplied by VER. Malone’s Production Manager, Dennis Danneels was responsible for bringing all the production elements together for the festival.
Dalgleish was no stranger to GLP’s award-winning battens having used them regularly on projects, including TV performances for Jhene Aiko on Late Night with Seth Meyers and Ellen.
Once again he was able to put the Bars to highly creative use, he rigged 114 of the battens on GT Truss that formed the structure – a full grid of lights with a box platform in the middle. A further 18 GLP X4 Bar 20s were set inside the box on the floor: “These lights did double duty.” explained the LD: “They were used for lighting effects and also lighting Post Malone himself as a key light.”
Dalgleish explained why he is such a fan of these versatile fixtures. “I love using the zoom and tilt functions, and sometimes in unison, such as in the song Better Now, which featured a fly-in effect with groups of X4 Bar 20s zooming out slightly as they are tilted down. It made for a very impressive look that was mentioned specifically as one that people enjoyed the most.”
But the creativity didn’t stop there. Running the fixtures in Single Pixel Mode, Dalgleish pixel mapped content for five of the songs. “This provided an interesting dynamic,” he added. These songs were made using simple stock content, but edited masterfully by Dalgleish and Blacklake out of Toronto, to give these songs a very unique look. All programming was handled by Dalgleish himself, assisted by Victor Murillo.
The endless possibilities of the GLP X4 Bar 20s had been fully exploited by Dalgleish – and he had thoroughly enjoyed the experience. “In particular we loved using the white LED to create interesting, slightly desaturated colours. Creative Director Travis Brothers and myself spent many hours dialling in the colours to make sure that they were consistent right across the festival.”
And since the festival, the LD has wasted no time in specifying GLP’s X4 Bar 20s again – this time with RL Grime, who is touring Australia and New Zealand, after finishing the Post Malone festival dates in 2018.
