DELO72
Well-Known Member
If I may quote Huey Lewis, "Sometimes bad is bad". As a lighting designer I need to vent about a concert I went to last night. The show was the tour of The Broken Bells, with Au Revoir Simone opening for them. Both are great bands and sounded great. The opening act (ARS) had the worst lighting I have ever been forced to suffer through-- and I mean SUFFER through. It was painful to my eyes. Not figuratively- but literally. The "designer" if I can call him or her that had four (what appeared to be Clay Paky A.leda B-Eyes (I am making a guess here based on appearance and the fact that they later were shown to be single-led controllable during the Broken Bells show-- where they were utlized fully and in a way which looked great.) fixtures behind the performers, all angled up at the balconies. From floor level, I'm sure they looked great with a nice backlight halo effect. From the two balconies we saw nothing but bright light in our eyes for 4 songs in a row and could barely even make out the performers on stage. TERRIBLE.
So as a designer I say to all you designers out there-- WALK THE SPACE. You aren't designing the lights for only 20% of the audience who happens to be sitting at the same level/position as you are when you cue the show. You are designing for the ENTIRE Audience. Also- LED fixtures more than any other type of light tends to be harsher on the eyes. Please use audience blinders judiciously and only for SHORT periods of time. We (the audience) want to see the performers. We don't care if they can see us, especially when it annoys us each time it happens. We just paid big money to see them, don't ruin the experience for us.
Try to remember folks--The lighting is there for one purpose- to support the performance. If you want to feed your ego and have it all be about you, quit your job as an LD and go be an actor or Rock star.
That is all. Thank you and please drive through.
MD
So as a designer I say to all you designers out there-- WALK THE SPACE. You aren't designing the lights for only 20% of the audience who happens to be sitting at the same level/position as you are when you cue the show. You are designing for the ENTIRE Audience. Also- LED fixtures more than any other type of light tends to be harsher on the eyes. Please use audience blinders judiciously and only for SHORT periods of time. We (the audience) want to see the performers. We don't care if they can see us, especially when it annoys us each time it happens. We just paid big money to see them, don't ruin the experience for us.
Try to remember folks--The lighting is there for one purpose- to support the performance. If you want to feed your ego and have it all be about you, quit your job as an LD and go be an actor or Rock star.
That is all. Thank you and please drive through.
MD
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