The Hip and the MAC 250 Entour

We think the MAC 250 Entour is quite hip and apparently so does The Tragically Hip’s lighting designer Brent Clark. “The punch on the MAC 250 Entours is really good,” he stated, “They’re not only really bright but the speed is excellent. The head is surprisingly fast, so you can have them in a fan, and then swing them up to the drum kit pretty quick – and then get them out of the way.”

One of Canada’s most popular bands, the Hip performed beneath a slew of Martin gear on their latest North American tour. Brent had a cutting edge visual package at his disposal that included MAC 2000 Profiles, MAC 250 Entour profiles and Atomic strobes, along with other automated lights, conventionals and video support, all supplied by Christie Lites.

Some 28 MAC 2000 Profiles made up the base of the lighting package with the MAC 250 Entours incorporated as the fun ‘bells and whistles’ of Brent’s design. Most of the fixtures were mounted on a series of concentric arch trusses with video integration. Four Atomic strobes, two on the floor and two on the video truss, provided the big power punch.

Although the band is not big on gobo patterns Brent did splash Entour patterns on the stage and used them for everything from an ACL look and specific spot work to backlighting on a black drape behind the band and projection behind the screens. He commented, “The band didn’t want too many gobo looks but I did put my own gobos in them, a dot break up, and I used the prism quite a lot. I also used the Entours as front light on the video screen when we had no video going. The 2K’s have a good punch as well. We had trim heights of around 40 feet and they covered that well. The Martin gear held up fine. Overall, they were great.”