CHAUVET Professional Supports Stephen Douglas on The Killers' Latin America Tour

	"The band does not play to timecode or have the same setlist every night, so it gives me the freedom to busk on top of the base cues programmed to cover any gaps that may exist with the locally supplied rig," says Douglas. Photo: Chris Phelps

The set list changed from night to night. The venues varied from classic arenas to free-flowing outdoor festivals. The rig was never the same from show to show. Such was life on the Killers' six-nation Latin American tour, which opened at Santa Domingo's Ovalo Feria Ganadera on March 27.

Steven Douglas, the rock band's longtime lighting designer, made magic happen with a different assortment of CHAUVET Professional fixtures at each stop. "I have a pretty good festival show file set up now after a couple of years of running this leg of the tour," he says. "This made it simple to scale the show up or down, depending on the situation. The band does not play to timecode or have the same setlist every night, so it gives me the freedom to busk on top of the base cues programmed to cover any gaps that may exist with the locally supplied rig. The show is run completely live with a mixture of programmed base cue stacks for each song, with a lot of busking on top of it.

"Our standard plot is four overhead trusses and two side trusses with a floor package," Douglas continues. "But with the varying nature of the types of shows, the size of the rig changed daily. We also had some festivals catering to other headliners, so it really made the changes massive. Because of this, I redesigned the show to be less specialist in terms of fixtures and placement and went with a more 'festival-friendly' configuration."

Although circumstances may have changed throughout the tour, Douglas worked with the same console and network rack supplied by Christie Lites, with the support of Kitty Hoffman, crew chief; Martin Kelley, account rep; and Russ Benoit, project manager.

Each stop had a solid collection of CHAUVET Professional fixtures, totaling 439 when added all up throughout the run. These included 84 Color STRIKE M motorized strobes and 48 COLORado PXL Bar 16 battens at the Estereo Picnic Festival in Bogota; 48 Maverick Storm 1 Hybrids and 18 Maverick Storm 3 WashBeams, and 30 Maverick Storm 4 Profiles at Costa 21 in Lima; 12 Maverick Storm 4s and 40 Maverick MK II Spots at the Coca-Cola Amphitheatre in Costa Rica; and 107 Maverick Storm 4 SoloWashes and 60 Color STRIKE Ms at Parque Fundidora in Monterrey.

Douglas artfully worked his ever-changing fixtures to reflect his client's music with a show featuring aerial effects and color changes. There was also well-timed audience lighting to support special moments, such as when 10,000 voices were raised in unison to shout out the lyrics to "All These Things That I've Done'' under a starry Paraguayan night.