Colour has always been “a huge part of our design process.” Dayne deHaven said of the work that he and his collaborator at the District 5 design studio, Tyler Shapard, have been doing for The Band Camino.
The set design included scenic elements that were coated with UV light-sensitive paint. The same paint was also used on the band’s instruments.
“This tour design was all about dynamic colour and UV looks,” said deHaven. “In many of the songs, we use colour to accentuate Jeff (Jordan) and Spencer (Steward) as they trade off singing lead vocals. By assigning a specific colour to each of the lead singers, we added a visual element to their dynamic vocals.
Helping the designers create their panorama were 21 Color STRIKE M, 24 Rogue R2X Wash, and 16 COLORado PXL Bar 16 fixtures from CHAUVET Professional supplied by 4Wall Entertainment. Adding a dosage of warm white audience lighting to the mix were 16 STRIKE Array blinders.
deHaven and Shapard designed their rig so it could be scaled up or down depending on the tour’s venue: “Our Backdrop, as well as other scenic elements, helped to tie everything together and achieve large looks with reasonably small fixture counts for a tour playing venues of widely different sizes,” said deHaven. “At the same time, we never took the focus off versatility. We never repeated a single look or colour combination in the entire set. Songs that had similar colour palettes were lit very differently, using different fixtures in different ways to make them feel new.”
“Of course, we used the STRIKE Ms for strobing,” said deHaven. “Can you ever have to many strobes? Seriously, though, they were much more than just strobes. On the upstage truss, we ran them in full pixel mode and were able to get a ton of varied looks. Using their pixels, we could really dial into the video content, created by Patrick Tracy and run by Trenton Varnell. We also relied on the center tubes to accentuate the sound effects and timed hits. On top of that, the fixtures were used for uplighting the drums and side lighting the band in the 24-channel mode. “
Also adding colour were the rig’s COLORado PXL Bar 16 fixtures, which were arranged to surround the band. As they were flanked by colour from the ground, the band was also washed from above by the Rogue R2X Washes on the upstage towers. “We used the Rogues in full control mode, both to wash the band and colour the stage,” added deHaven. “We specifically used their ring control for a dynamic show intro. We loved having ring control to break up the looks.”
The designers also relied on UV light to break up looks as they transitioned from song to song. Creating transitions was especially important, given the wide range of looks deHaven and Shapard devised.
