Events United and One If By Land Productions Call on CHAUVET Professional for Fritz and the Tantrums

	"We brought our fixtures in, turned off the venue lights and really painted the room," Fahey says, explaining the team's vision for the design.

Events United partnered with One If By Land Productions for the recent Fitz and the Tantrums show at Providence College's Peterson Center. Project manager Martin Lyons, production designer Rachel Fahey, lighting designer Ryan Lane, L2 Meg Fiske, and the rest of the Events United team were more than up to the challenge of adapting to design and produce a compelling show for the touring band. "For this event, we had the challenge to take the band's show design, adapt it to what we had available for fixtures, and then have our LD run their show," says Chase Clark, the director of event productions and rentals at Events United.

Working with a rig anchored by 74 CHAUVET Professional fixtures, they created a sweeping and intense arena-style show that enveloped the entire room while reflecting the personality of the six-piece band.

"We brought our fixtures in, turned off the venue lights and really painted the room," Fahey says, explaining the team's vision for the design. "There is no doubt that the lighting does a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard. Something people may not think about though, is actually the trim heights of the motors. With trim heights and alternating them, we can create some forced perspective in the room. Whether we fly them all the way out to make a room feel that much bigger or bring them further in to make an event feel more intimate."

Since the show had no video elements, the Events United team had to rely on layering light on the 40' wide by 24' deep stage to create a sense of depth. This task was made more challenging by the venue's weight limits. "Thankfully Fitz and the Tantrums had requested uprights in their rider for their timecoded show," says Fahey. "These coupled with the flown rig fit together really nicely and made a great show within the limitations we faced."

Helping create a vibrant backdrop for the performance were the rig's 12 pixel mapped Nexus 4x4 panels, which were hung on the sides of the pre-rig truss. A collection of eight Maverick Force 2 Profile fixtures positioned upstage were essential to adding texture to the show, notes Fahey, who adds, "they pack a punch." Also making their presence felt were ten Color STRIKE M motorized strobe-wash (four flown and six on the floor) that served up bold pixelated effects.

Audience involvement is a key part to any Fitz and the Tantrums show, so it wasn't surprising that the Events United team counted on 12 Maverick Storm 1 Washes to light up the crowd when they weren't serving as front light. For more crowd connection, 18 STRIKE 4 blinders were included in the rig.

Everything came together for this show, say Clark and Fahey, not only in terms of the fixtures in the rig, but also in terms of the collaboration of the team, which, in addition to the aforementioned members included Donald Van Slyke (front-of-house audio), Blake Rivera (audio monitor), and Zach Dafeldecker (patching audio) as well as Jack Redding and Tony Wallace who handled logistics.