"
Ground Control" was given the award for best new product at
LDI in rigging and staging.
Some people initially heard it costs about $35k to buy or $800 per week to rent. However on day two of the demos they stopped giving out pricing information as part of the demos. So I'm not sure what that means.
They have four of them out on tour with Madonna right now and that removed 12,000 pounds from up in the air, no rescue plan, no
safety gear, nobody in danger. Four guys in a room back
stage. They just added two to the U2 tour, pulling down two guys who were positioned in front of the main
array and going deaf.
EVERY feature of this device is
DMX controllable. On a tour where you don't know who will be your
spot op the next night, you can set it so the board does everything but aim it. You can feed the video to a central
monitor area. The LD can watch what the follow spot operator sees and direct follow spots like a TV studio directs camera shots.
Control of the Bad Boy can jump back and forth between the programmed routine in the board or the
manual spot.
...and yes, as long as it's less than 2000' from the Bad Boyit could be operated from the bar next door.