Stagebars “icing on the cake” at Wakarusa Festival

The Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival is a 4-day foot-stomping party in the heart of the American Midwest. Held in Lawrence, Kansas, Wakarusa burst onto the scene in 2004 with a diverse and eclectic lineup. This year’s festival took place from June 7-10 and featured over 100 bands playing across five stages.

Lighting design firm ILIOS Lighting of Austin, Texas supplied Martin gear for the main Sundown Stage and Revival Tent and premiered the Martin Stagebar 54S LED luminaire at the event. Lighting designers were Jack Davis and Colin McQuilkin.

ILIOS had been using a different brand pixel bar up until the Stagebar’s release. “We were excited to use a product that was designed for our use - ready to go out of the box, no external power supply, easy to address, no tricky wiring schemes, etc,” says LD Jack Davis. “We had preordered some from Martin and this was really the first gig we had a chance to play with the new product through DMX control. Everyone involved was new to it and ready for the five color LED fixture. The first feature I noticed was the battery powered display for addressing fixtures. What a convenience! We were able to prep all 21 fixtures for both stages in a matter of 15 minutes (modes and addresses) while still being cased. You have a lot of options for setting your mode and addressing too.”

Six Stagebars were used as truss warmers on the Sundown Stage for the Widespread Panic concert. “They proved to be surprisingly bright,” says Jack. “We used 15 Stagebars in the Revival Tent all four days. The Revival Tent is a vertical pole tent and we attached circular vertical rigging around the four poles of the tent out to FOH and had three Stagebars per pole. Throughout the tent were various inflated props such as weather balloons and large planets. We focused some of the Stagebars on the props and also on the tent. The last three were used on the upstage truss focused on the tent to create a white backdrop effect. It worked exceptionally well.” The Revival Tent also featured 14 MAC 500 profile spots (6 upstage, 4 side, 4 downstage) along with 4 Atomic 3000 strobes. During Pnuma Trio's set Jack placed 6 MAC 700 Washes on cases behind the band for added effect.

Jack reports no issues with the Stagebars, which worked trouble-free all four days. “I was a little concerned going to a festival with a brand new product, but everything worked the way we had planned. The Stagebar was our ‘WOW’ light. They ended up being the icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned.”

Adam Skapple - Lighting Tech
Devin Schade - Lighting Tech

Revival Tent:
14 x MAC 500
6 x MAC 700 Wash (Pnuma Trio)
15 x StageBar 54S
4 x Atomic 3000
96K of pars
6 x Lekos
1 x IPC
1 x Pearl

Sundown Stage:
6 x Stagebar 54S (Widespread Panic)
24 x VL3000
90K of Pars
8K of ACLs
1 x Pearl
1 x Hog 1000