02.12.2014 | Slipknot Touring World with New Elation Platinum SBX, LED Video and More

Slipknot headlined its own musical festival, Knotfest, on Oct 24-26 at the San Manuel Amphitheater in San Bernadino, California, and then kicked off its “Prepare for Hell” world tour, both using rigs that include Elation Professional’s new hybrid Platinum SBX luminaire along with Elation Cuepix Blinders and a video centerpiece made up of Elation EPT9IP LED video panels.

The grisly-masked heavy metal rockers are out on an 18-month world tour in support of their first album release in six years, “.5: The Gray Chapter,” which debuted in October at number one on the Billboard 200 album chart. The tour sees the band playing dates in the U.S., Japan (at Knotfest Japan), Europe and Australia with more legs expected to be added.

Slipknot plays an aggressive style of music with energetic live shows that have been described as ‘choreographed chaos.’ Production designer for the tour is Trevor Ahlstrand, who was looking for a combination beam and profile fixture that could keep up with the hard driving show. “I wanted a fixture that was both a good profile and beam and found it in the SBX,” he states of the powerful hybrid fixture that also includes a frost system for wash effects. “It has great gobos and effects as a profile with amazing output!”

Extra layer of excitement

Trevor has the 3-in-1 SBX luminaire placed on shelves hanging off the rear of the set which allows them to shoot through the band to the downstage edge, as well as create aerial beam looks while accenting the width of the set. “All of the parameters of the SBX are incredibly fast including the pan and tilt,” he states. “I really love some of the effects I can get by layering parameters. Being able to layer the gobos from the beam and spot modes, rotating them opposite with the 8-facet prism, and zooming all the way out gave me a really unique, almost animated projection look out of the fixture. The ability to zoom while in beam mode was something new for me when programming in beam mode and gave me many more options especially combined with the linear or circular prisms. It definitely delivered exactly what I was looking for and more when trying to find a combination fixture and was the perfect fixture to add that extra layer of excitement to the show.”

Cuepix Blinders

Scattered throughout the rig and used to accent the truss and its asymmetrical structure are Elation warm white Cuepix Blinders, which are also used to accent certain parts of the music as well as light the crowd when the band interacts with them directly. Trevor, who has often used 2-lite blinders in the past, says that he has noticed random DWE blinders burning out during shows lately, or has had dimmer issues with them. He commented, “Using the Cuepix Blinders was a way for me to get rid of the dimmer and the chance of burning out lamps on a daily basis while dropping the tours power draw. They look exactly the same and I can change the curve on them if I want them to be really quick or turn on and off like a normal DWE blinder would.” The Elation lighting gear has been supplied to the tour by production company Christie Lites.

Video portal

Located just upstage above the drummer is the set’s visual centerpiece, a portal of video created using EPT9IP video panels with 9mm pixel pitch that create a special ‘infinity effect.’ Trevor explains, “I have a box that’s about 12' wide and 8' tall that has double-sided glass on the front and a mirror on the back. When the video is being played back it bounces off the mirrors to make an infinity or tunneling effect. The best part is that every seat in the house gets a slightly different perspective and it’s not always the same thing playing on all sides of the screens.”

Trevor debated between using a low res or high res video panel but knew he needed something light and reliable, something easy to map that was not a problem to swap out or repair if needed as the touring staff and not a video company would be handling it. “In the end I went with the Elation 9mm panel because it met all of the things I was looking for,” he says. “I can easily run lower res content through it and it looks better than the lower res screen would have. Also, it lets me run some higher res fast moving content that reads great!” Designed for rapid setup and teardown, the EPT9IP LED panel delivers 5,000 nits of brightness, plenty of power to shine through, and includes integrated curving options as well.

A mix of content is played across the panels from static lines, dots and animated shapes to random small clips that were shot with an iPhone by Clown, one of the band members, and Trevor himself. Once mapped in he found they created great effects and color. “I used a lot of moving shapes that I would never normally use in a show but the effect in the infinity tunnel read extremely well,” Trevor says. “It definitely keeps the portal fresh and always changing and gives it a nice balance of different content and effects though the entire show.”

Production Designer: Trevor Ahlstrand
Lighting Designer: Trevor Ahlstrand
Lighting Director: Greg "Little G" Kocurek
Production Company: Christie Lights - Account Rep Cory Wilson

Elation Gear:
12 x Platinum SBX
32 x Cuepix Blinder WW
20 x EPT9IP LED Panel

Photos: Knotfest, Oct 24-25, Los Angeles

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