Using xenon lighting systems, A&O Technology America created a breathtaking atmosphere at two major open-air music festivals on the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California. Each day from April 25th to the 27th, some 70,000 people flocked to the Coachella Festival headlined by Prince, Jack Johnson, Roger Waters, and Portishead. The following weekend, the same equipment was deployed at the popular Stagecoach country festival, which featured among others country greats like the Eagles, Rascal Flatts, and Tim McGraw. The A&O Team provided fitting illumination for both the three-day mega events with an installation comprising 20 Falcon Beam 7,000W luminaires manufactured by Alpha One.
The A&O Technology team positioned the powerful searchlights on 29-foot towers ringing the 2,625-foot by 1,968-foot festival grounds. A telescope loader was used to hoist the Alpha One lighting equipment into position on the tower platforms, while a basket lift deployed in parallel facilitated the work of rigging and wiring. Since the towers were spaced at 393-foot intervals all round the field, wireless DMX was needed to control the Falcon Beam xenon searchlights. For this purpose, 10 of the towers were equipped with the requisite radio link reception antennae and receivers. The data signal was conducted to the other towers by 500-foot DMX cables. These had to be specially ordered on account of their extra-long length.
The team from A&O spent four days on site in advance of the Coachella Festival building up the installation, conducting lighting checks, and programming the equipment. The day before the Stagecoach festival, the lighting specialists returned for a further system check and a fresh round of programming. The commission for both events was awarded by Visions Lighting in the person of Todd Roberts, who joined with the festival management in lavishing fulsome praise on A&O Technology's US subsidiary for its performance.