LD Systems deployed 32 Next NXT-1 moving LED panels from CHAUVET Professional for Houston’s March Madness Music Festival.
At Houston’s Discovery Green Park crowds of 165,000 people filled the park to capacity for the three-night festival, which was also live streamed to millions more at home.
Produced by Turner Live Events, the event featured the televised 2016 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final matchup between Villanova and North Carolina, Maroon 5, Kendrick Lamar, Pitbull, and others. John Dickson of LD Systems in Houston worked with Turner Live Events to create the lighting rig with programming done by individual band LDs.
“The design was built around two massive vertical video walls positioned downstage left and right,” said Dickson. “Balancing out the walls, we flew a ton of intense moving beams, spots, washes and some other fixtures on rows of vertical and overhead horizontal truss. Then we connected these two design elements by lining the sides of both video walls with the Next NXT-1 – eight units on either side of each wall. The movement of the NXT-1s connected the video walls visually to the movers over center stage, which created a more cohesive look.”
Ironically, the original design for the March Madness Music Festival stage called for the video walls to be flanked by non-moving fixtures. Adding the moving LED panels was a last minute decision, says Dickson. It is one that he is glad he made.
“Our first thought was to go with static, incandescent audience blinders” he recalls. “Then the opportunity arose to use NXT-1s. I had no experience with these fixtures, but we decided to give them a try, because we felt that having moving panels around the massive video walls tied them together more tightly with the rest of the rig.”
Relying on the NXT-1 fixture’s built-in macros, Dickson created a variety of breakout patterns to differentiate the panels from the rest of the rig, while at the same time connecting the two walls to the rest of the stage through movement. The Next NXT-1 panels also added dimensionality to the design, something that came off very well on television.
“The NXT-1 definitely introduced another layer of bright, dynamic, moveable light to the design, which was especially important to Turner Live Events, particularly for their televised portion of the show,” said the lighting designer, who controlled his rig with a grandMA2 Full Size. “The panels were also very quick, so they had no trouble keeping pace with the rest of our lightshow.”
The fast-moving lightshow was not without its trials. “We had to deal with some weather during setup. However, I was fortunate to have a really great crew in Nathan Brittain, Wade Henry, William Diven, Brian Stephenson, and Fred Deci. I also enjoyed working with Turner Live Events, as well as guest LDs like Brian Jenkins of Maroon 5, Travis Hagenbuch of iHeart Radio, Mike Petrecca of Kendrick Lamar, Tyler Shapard of 21 Pilots and Robb Jibson of Fall Out Boy. Working this festival was a great experience for us, and everything I’ve seen indicates that the fans liked it a lot too.”
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