AV Stumpfl PIXERA on Tour with HARDY

	The Notch effects play a key role in enhancing the visuals, including smoke effects and digital graphics. Photo: Tanner Gallagher

The production studio Raw Cereal was tasked with designing a bold, immersive visual experience for singer-songwriter HARDY's Quit!! Tour. With HARDY's evolving musical style blending country, rock, and pop, Raw Cereal had to ensure the visual elements matched the energy and variety of his performances. For the second time, the studio's creative team relied on AV Stumpfl's PIXERA media server.

Cort Lawrence, the tour's creative director, says, "On the show, we handled everything from the production design, stage design, lighting design, scenic design, as well as pyro, special effects, video content, and just overall show." A critical challenge involved finding a media server that could handle the varying technical demands of HARDY's different shows, which ranged from headline events to festival appearances. "We wanted something simple and friendly that they could take to festivals, to their own headline shows, and could really continue to evolve on their own," Lawrence says.

"The beauty of PIXERA is it's very user-friendly, it's very well organized and detailed," Lawrence says, noting the product's flexibility to adapt to evolving elements of the tour. He likens the system's power to "putting a Ferrari engine in a tour bus," highlighting its overbuilt capacity for the show's needs.

The Raw Cereal team settled on dropping Notch blocks directly into the PIXERA media server: "Last year with PIXERA, we really integrated Notch, and again, having Notch integrate directly into a media server is such a key piece because you minimize frame delay, and you have quick access to parameters." The Notch effects play a key role in enhancing the visuals, including smoke effects and digital graphics.

Programmer Jose Santana says PIXERA handles camera feeds, adding Notch effects, and even live-grade content. He notes PIXERA's ability to handle the complexity of the show's layers, mixing IMAG feeds with content and effects while maintaining flawless execution.

Moo TV, the tour's video vendor, was responsible for providing the video wall and camera system. Likening the partnership to a luxury car, Lawrence says, "Moo TV is putting on the right wheels, and they're putting in the AC and the nice seats and all those details. So, they're the ones really helping PIXERA get down the road and do this thing every night."

Jay Spriggs, from Astra Productions, another key player, says, "The new distribution methodology for [PIXERA] 2.0 allows for increased scalability and makes it a lot easier to use PIXERA in a touring situation." He adds that the media server's ability to scale up while staying user-friendly made it an ideal choice for a tour of this magnitude. Santana says, "We did see some drops last tour that we used time code...the 2.0 feature now just takes natively like XLR or whatever the audio input is. That was definitely better for sure."

"Lighting and video need to work together: you've got to have both. And if you have a solid MA, you've got a solid PIXERA, and those two together are just perfectly running one of the biggest rock shows out there," Lawrence concludes.