Moonrise, the annual EDM festival held at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course, drew fans to its four stages where an array of Claypaky fixtures and MA Lighting grandMA2 consoles, which supported its line-up of DJs, bands and rappers.
Moonrise 2017, which grew out of the Starscape rave in Baltimore, marked its fourth year at the venue. David Hauss, of Denver-based Hauss Collective, served as the Production Designer and Production Coordinator, tasked with designing the festival and handling production management.
Hauss tailored the lighting rigs to meet the needs of each of the four stages. The Stellar Stage exclusively hosted DJs in a giant structure designed by Hauss. The collective selected 56 Claypaky Mythos 2 for the stage, placing eight each on the decks atop 7 towers whose height varied from 40ft to low platforms. The towers also featured flame units, lasers and custom rain hoods.
A long-time Claypaky user, Hauss chose Mythos 2 for the Stellar Stage for the “hybrid nature” of the fixture. “It’s the best of both worlds. I could use it as a beam light and as a profile. As a festival designer you want that flexibility to deal with the individual artists who might want either or both looks. And with only DJs playing on this stage I also wanted to make the experience as all encompassing and overwhelming for the audience as possible from the design of the structure to the pyro and lighting.
“Claypaky lights are solid fixtures that work consistently and hold their position. They can take the stress of an EDM festival, which is way harder on fixtures than traditional music festivals. The really fast tempos and aggressive sound pushed the fixtures for two almost 12-hour days,” assured Hauss.
The Lunar Stage featured more traditional EDM bands, such as Pretty Lights Live, and had a more conventional theatrical stage design, says Hauss. He opted for 28 Claypaky Sharpys “scattered all over the stage, in the air and on the deck.” Hauss calls Sharpy “my go-to tool when I want to add beam fixtures to my design.”
While the Solar Stage, which showcased DJs and rappers under a tent structure, included 14 Claypaky A.leda B-EYE K20’s in its rig. “I’ve been using B-EYEs since they came out,” Hauss reports. “They’re very versatile: an effects light, which you can run in shapes mode or in extended mode to create a tonnes of looks easily, and a wash light to simply wash the stage.”
The smallest stage, dubbed Celestial Garden, hosted both DJs and bands. Hauss chose eight silver Sharpys to add beams to the design and noted that the fixtures’ silver housings “looked great from their position downstage”.
Hauss tapped a number of grandMA2 consoles to control lighting on all four stages. He deployed two full-size units and two NPUs for the Stellar Stage; one full-size, one grandMA2 light and one NPU for Lunar; two lights for Solar; and two more lights for Celestial Garden. On the latter stage, one system drove the lighting while the other drove an abstract configuration of LED tiles.
Doug Mekanik, Eastern Regional Sales for A.C.T Lighting, added: “David is a great designer who we have worked with on some of our own product demos. It’s no surprise that this show looks so good and we’re proud that he has chosen Claypaky and MA for it. Light Action is also a great company who is very supportive of our industry and a pleasure to work with.”
