Church Lights!: Scaffolding Set / Battle of the Bands Encore '11

So, here it is, only 2 months late!

This was a recent set we put together for the winners of our Battle of the Bands. We tried to make this the most complex and intricate set and lighting design we have ever done. We maxed out our rigging capacity, power distro, dimming, and control channels. Some of the things that stood out about this design are a versatile set, 40 moving lights, 140 pixels of LED mapping, 100 channels of dimming, dmx controlled front projected imagery (both live and during intermission), 8 universes of DMX control from a MA network, a kabuki drop, and a very intricately cued out show. We got full set lists and mp3s of the 2 winning bands and programmed a fully synchronized lighting show for the entire show. There were over 400 cues for the hour and a half long show.

Specifically on the set, It is compromised of 4' wide by 7' high walk-through scaffolding frames (normally used for construction). They are built into 5 towers that are 3 sections high (21'). The scaffolding had about an inch of concrete on it in most places, when we bought it. We cleaned it with hammers, chisels, wire brushes and scrapers of all sorts. It took about 150 hours total to clean the scaffolding and another 40 hours to paint all of it. We painted the scaffold with to a bright grey (high gloss paint). We then, built the first two levels of scaffolding from the ground and step ladders. The third row was a beast! It required 3 people to set each side. We used a genie lift and a person on each leg to assemble the tops. We used Colorblast 12's to light the actual scaffold frames. Behind the scaffolding we hung a drop made of clear plastic. This is the same drop we used in the Perfectly Plastic Design. It took light well and gave a great dimension tothe set. We used 6 Studio Colors to light the Plastic in the back.

Mike Walker programmed this amazing look!

We purchased all of the scaffolding used (through craigslist). We purchased 30 frames and 30 cross braces. All of it cost $750 (New cost is over $5000). We have been waiting and looking for a deal to make this set for over a year. Although, it was quite a bit to purchase this set piece and much more in cost of time to get it into the shape we needed, it will be useful for structure for some of our set designs in thefuture. Also, used scaffolding holds its value very well and could be resold at a very small loss.

It took a dedicated team to clean, paint, and build the scaffolding. This on top of the huge feat of setting up such a complex lighting system. Our crew was amazing and did an outstanding job. This is a list of our team.