The recent Domefest, in Bedford, Pennsylvania saw a collection of Rogue fixtures from Chauvet Professional, supplied by 4Wall Entertainment, feature heavily as funk band, and festival organisers, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong headlined.
“This project was a fun challenge, the kind that you crave as a Lighting Designer,” said LD Manny Newman. “Domefest had three theme nights. Thursday was Moonwalk: A Trip Through Space, Friday was The Liquid: An Ocean Adventure and Saturday was Melting Lights: A Colour Explosion. Each night had a different flavour, which we wanted to reflect visually. At the same time we wanted to be flexible enough to go in whichever direction the music took us.”
Newman had 14 Rogue R1 Spots and eight Rogue R1 Washes in his rig. For control, he ran a MA Lighting grandMA2 on a PC.
The Main Stage rig at Domefest was outfitted with six Rogue R1 Spots on overhead truss and four additional units on the upstage deck, plus four more of the Rogue Spots on road cases. For washing, Newman used eight Rogue R1 Washes, half of them for side washing and half for the downstage. He also used a collection of blinders and beams.
“I designed this stage specifically for Domefest, which is Pigeons Playing Ping Pong’s own festival they put on every year,” said Newman. “I had to make sure the main stage looked good in the day and night. It was also very important that we create this very rich, deep-coloured look with a lot of texture and movement to convey the psychedelic feeling of the show.”
“Our biggest challenge was tearing it all down,” he said. “Fortunately for us, the band Aqueous was jamming outside all night after the festival ended. They played until the sun came up, and that definitely made tear-down more groovy for us.”
