Having worked with the Hype-O-Dream Festival for 5 years, the task of crafting the appropriate visual support fell once again to Belgian rental house Creative Rental Solutions, which specified 62 Chauvet Professional STRIKE P38, 68 COLORdash PAR H12IP, 30 Rogue RH1 Hybrid and 24 Rogue R2 Wash fixtures to craft dream-like visuals for festival goers.
With the surrealist stage scenery consisting of various islands appearing to be floating within the structure of the stage, Thomas Vandekerkhove and his team decided upon positioning the fixtures in such a way so as to outline the contours of the vast structure, which extended at various parts up to 20 meters high. One of the central tools to achieve this outlining effect were the 90W warm white Chauvet Professional STRIKE P38 blinder and wash fixtures.
“The P38s were ideal for highlighting the different sections of the stage structure,” commented Vandekerkhove. “Thanks to their huge output and blinding effects, we were also able to utilize these fixtures extensively within the sets to provide energy and atmosphere.”
To provide a number of cutting looks on stage, Vandekerkhove utilized the varied beam, and spot effects of the Chauvet Professional Rogue Hybrid fixtures, which were positioned among the various island structures within the stage.
“The Hybrids are perfect for festivals because of their output and versatility,” continued Vandekerkhove. “The output was even great during the day, where we could use the gobos in combination with prism effects to elicit a dreamier surreal atmosphere on stage.”
Providing further highlighting of the surreal islands were a host of Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Wash fixtures. Thanks to the 19-pixel mappable (15 W) RGBW Quad-LEDs and 12° to 49° zoom, Vandekerkhove and his team also had the tools to underline the surrealist theme once more by positioning each fixture above the islands to provide elaborate wash lighting effects.
“We created a fantastic array of linear wash effects on top of the islands, which was accentuated by the Rogue’s zoom feature,” continued Vandekerkhove. “I also programmed some effects in snap on the ChamSys MagicQ MQ500 console, which enabled me to fade in the wash fixtures when everything else went dark, which created such an amazing spectacle by night!”
Filling the rest of the vast stage with pockets of coloured wash effects, Vandekerkhove and his team utilized the saturated colour effects of the COLORdash fixtures.
“The sheer volume of fixtures resulted in amazing looks on the stage,” concluded Vandekerkhove. “The depth of the colour of the COLORdash resulted in an almost 3D effect, which really brought the stage to life while creating a surreal dream-like effect.”
Thanks in part to Creative Rental Solutions’ innovative design, Hype-O-Dream was able to ensure that surrealism has a continuing relevance within popular culture almost a century after coming to being.