Primerica Convention 2007

Primerica Financial Services held its biennial convention from August 1-4 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The event was simply huge as an 8-9 day setup, 200' wide stage and approximately 50,000 attendees would attest to.

Lighting Designer Warwick Price of CUE2CUE, Inc. lit the event using a full Martin lighting and fog package that included Martin’s new LED Stagebar 54™ along with MAC 2000 Washes™ and Atomic 3000™ strobes with Atomic Colors™ scrollers. Lighting control was from a Martin Maxxyz™ lighting console with Maxxyz Wing™ programmed by Rob Smith.

Game Time
The motto for this year’s show was “Game Time,” which was reflected in a stage set that Warwick describes as “a stadium set within an stadium.” The set’s background was made up of a row of upright columns uplit with Martin LED Stagebar 54s with a modular LED video system in the gaps. Production Company for the event was The Spark Agency.

Stagebar 54
“I had to light up the columns individually which is why I picked the Martin Stagebar units. They are quite discreet and I needed an LED unit that was really punchy that could compete with the video because that was a pretty bright source,” Warwick comments.

“I had seen the Stagebar units before and knew how bright they are. The other thing I wanted was to have a bit more range of color. The amber and white of the Stagebars allowed many more combinations that you don’t normally have with regular RGB LEDs. That was nice because it was a very colorful show and it gave a few more options.

“The biggest thing was the punch of the units. They really held up well against the video. They were all on the floor shooting up columns and I didn’t have any trouble at all with the units. They were solid as most of Martin’s products are.”

The Stagebar 54’s were placed at the bottom of each 10 foot column, one per column for the more narrow columns and two units per for the wider columns. “They served a perfect purpose. I got light all the way up them,” Warwick says.

The Stagebar 54 is a bright, high efficiency LED pixel bar with RGB, Amber and White color mixing (RGBAW) for a broader color spectrum and greater range of pastel shades than other LED lights in its class. It functions as a pixel bar for displaying imagery and video or as a wash luminaire for floodlighting surfaces and stages.

Power pods
One of the more stunning features of the setup was two stadium ‘floodlight’ pods, each angled toward the stage and comprised of 20 MAC 2000 Washes and lined with 14 Atomic 3000 strobes. The MAC 2000 Washes were arranged in 4 rows, 5 fixtures per row, and “were about as close together as you can get them,” according to Warwick, with only about a ¼ inch clearance between them when the lights were tipped back!

“They wanted the floodlight look and it was fantastic,” he says. “The punch of the MAC Washes was awesome. It looked just like a stadium floodlight except we had the color and movement. When they came on as one it’s just about the punchiest thing I’ve seen. It blew everybody away.

Warwick could move the lights as one around the stadium or put them in a random effect. “Rob Smith programmed some great looks and wrote a cool chase for the pods that we called the ‘buzz-saw chase’ - it was quite frightening. They were perfect for the job with the nice big lens.” Down each side of the pods, framing the washlights, were 7 Atomic 3000 strobes.

Another 42 MAC 2000 Washes were up in a front truss and used for front stage washes, 20 of those in house for audience lighting in lieu of 5Ks. Behind the STEALTH video were more Atomic strobes, these with Atomic Colors scrollers. Ten Jem ZR33 Hi-Mass foggers kept the atmosphere sufficient for visual mid-air beams.

Lighting vendor for the Primerica event was Christie Lites. “They did a fantastic job as always,” Warwick concludes.

Equipment:
82 x Martin MAC 2000 Wash
18 x Martin Stagebar 54S
40 x Martin Atomic 3000
12 x Martin Atomic 3000 Colors
1 x Martin Maxedia
2 x Martin Maxxyz
2 x Martin Maxxyz Wing
10 x Jem ZR33 Hi-Mass