PHOENIX – Scottsdale is some 260 miles from Las Vegas, but for four nights in early February, visitors to this Phoenix suburb could have thought they were on the Vegas Strip; at least if they were among the 8,000 fans who turned out for The Coors Light Birds Nest.  A four day festival held in conjunction with the Waste Management Open, Birds Nest is one of the most eagerly anticipated 19th hole events on the PGA tour. This year’s edition didn’t disappoint, bringing in acts like Kid Rock, Capital Cities, Darius Rucker and Afrojack who performed in a 50,000 square foot tent shipped in from Germany that resembled a hot new Vegas club thanks in part to a dynamic lighting design from Creative Backstage using gear provided by Valley Production Services.

Creative Backstage set off the event’s DJ stage with a unique cross- hatched “birds nest” design made with pixel mapped EPIX 2.0 series fixtures from CHAUVET Professional. The one meter RGB LED linear fixtures flanked either side of the DJ stage and were pixel mapped to tie into other lights as well as a center stage video wall in front of and behind the DJ booth.  Having pixel mapped images run through fixtures and video panels in the center and on the sides of the stage created a unified flowing look that extended the visual impact of the lightshow.

“The stage really made a powerful statement with the pixel mapping,” said Chris Brodman of Creative Backstage, who was the L1 programmer and operator at the event. “We created some tremendous looks. Jim Meredith from Valley Production Services, which supplied the EPIX fixtures, was the L2 for show made a lot of great  contributions. We were all really happy with the end result.”

Brodman says that the Birds Nest rig included 30 EPIX 2.0 Bars and 16 EPIX 2.0 Strips. The EPIX units were run the throughout the entire four day program, which featured performances by Afrojack, Ronnie G and Aaron Taylor. “The bars and strips performed flawlessly throughout the show,” he said.  “We drove content to the EPIX gear using the Avolites Titan pixel mapper on the Tiger Touch. The wiring of the EPIX gear was done one to one full control of each fixture over ArtNet. We used nine of the EPIX Drive 642 node PSU’s; eight ran the 30 bars and the 16 strips ran off the ninth.”

Graphical patterns, such moving bars, dots, swirls and spirals were pixel mapped on the EPIX 2.0 bars and strips. Brodman used the layers within the pixel mapper to create varied colors and layered effects on the EPIX units. This added an extra level of depth to the temporary DJ stage, engendering great audience engagement inside the Birds Nest tent.

“We varied the pixel mapping to keep it interesting,” said Brodman. “Overall we used the EPIX products to give a sticks and nest feel to the stage design in keeping with the name of the event. The impact of the EPIX units was amazing! We utilized their shape to create an overlapping design as if it were sticks being used to build a bird’s nest.  The intense output, vivid colors, pixel mapping and shape of the EPIX all worked in our favor, allowing us to create a design that reflected the theme of the show and captivated the audience at the same time. We’re very grateful to Dream Studio Productions for hiring us for this event. It was something very special.”

For more information on Creative Backstage visit www.creativebackstage.com.