Rising star Jon Bellion hit the road for a second time in the fall of 2016 to support his latest release, The Human Condition. To augment the Bellion’s visuals, lighting designer Matt Guminski specified High End Systems SHAPESHIFTER C1 fixtures along with a Full Boar 4 console, playback wing and DP8000 processors. LMG Touring was The Human Condition Tour’s production vendor, with Jimmy Russo serving as Guminski’s account rep.
The Human Condition tour was Guminski’s first time working with Bellion. Matt comments, “Jon quickly grew from playing small bars and clubs last year to 300-600 capacity rooms this summer, to 900-3,000 seaters this fall and winter. Management was looking to boost the production value and give the fans a dynamic looking live show. When I was brought on to design the show, I knew we would be playing 750 cap rooms like Slowdown in Omaha, NE all the way to 3,000 cap rooms like Terminal 5 in NYC and The Wiltern in LA. Jon’s music is much more rock/high energy than the record, so the live show had to emulate that and have a ‘larger than life’ look, all while being easily adapted for the ever changing venue and stage sizes. It also needed to fit into one trailer being towed by a bus.”
Guminski says he spec’d the SHAPESHIFTER C1’s ‘because I simply loves the light’ calling out the C1 as being ‘a stand out fixture in any rig’. He comments, “SHAPESHIFTER is a signature luminaire that creates unique movement, texture, and effects that are unmatched by any other fixture. I placed five C1 fixtures in between my four GT Truss Towers to fill in the gaps. The outside two were on 4’ T Pipes, the left center/right center Fixtures were on 6’ T Pipes, and a single fixture was hung at center on an 8’ T Pipe. After touring with SHAPESHIFTER for several years now, I still find unique uses for the fixture that really help texture the air around the performance. I used them in many different instances; one song I would have them pixel mapped for the simple eye candy, another song I’d flower them wide open and use them as band texture, another song I’d just use the center mod as a single beam which I blended in with other fixtures in my rig. Simply put, they are a fixture that serves many different purposes.”
For control, picking a HOG desk is a no-brainer for the LD. Matt explains, “I chose the Full Boar 4 because it offers me all the power of the Hog 4 line in a more compact form. I use a Hog 4 Playback Wing to give me extra faders and an additional touch screen for my layout views. I specifically needed the playback wing because I knew I would be dealing with many different house rigs, some only 120k of PAR and some full moving light / LED rigs. The extra handles allowed me to have maximum intensity control of the house rig without compromising on punt handles for my show on the main desk. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge Hog 4 supporter, and being on the beta team allows me to bring my ideas and concerns about the software to the table and have them quickly addressed. I’m a big fan of what Jonathan Kemble, Michael Graham, Chris Muenchow and the rest of the development team are doing. The evolution of Pixel Mapping to Compound Fixtures to the redevelopment of the effects engine in 3.6 has been awesome. The Hog will surely continue to turn heads.”