Christie’s Roadster series projectors are on the road with eleven-time Grammy award winner Alicia Keys as she travels the globe for her latest As I Am world tour. After five weeks in Europe, the tour kicked off in North America on April 19 in Hampton, VA and will run through the rest of the year. Montreal-based Solotech is providing a full compliment of equipment including six Christie Roadster S+20K 3-Chip DLP® projectors for the live video projection.
The stage is comprised of a 54-by-20-foot curved screen creating a seamless back projection surface to project HD video content synchronized in real-time with live camera shots and special effects during the performance. Two towers of triple-stacked Christie Roadster S+20K projectors produce a combined 120,000 ANSI lumens of brightness to display the high-definition video imagery and live mixes of Alicia Keys and her musicians and dancers.
The technical design and video elements of the set were created by VYV Corporation, a staging-dressing company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Emric Epstein, co-founder and technology developer for VYV and lead technical designer of the set comments, “We love Christie projectors for their superior image quality and brightness. They allow us to achieve a stunning 120K lumen output that competes in brightness with LED screens but with better resolution and quality. The projectors deliver a super bright and extremely clear image with no rainbow effect, which is crucial for live performances. They really add another dimension to the show.”
Emric gushes, “Because the show is moving very fast with a lot of back-to-back performances on the road, quick set-up, alignment, and blending of the projectors is essential. Christie projectors are easy to use and set up with our Photon systems and software that automatically blends the triple stacked projectors and also manages all of the content for the show. With Christie’s latest remote control RoadTools software, we have even more flexibility to do things like shutter the lenses and even write our own applications to control the projectors using ChristieNET protocol.”
Dave Muscat, director of sales for Christie Digital Systems Canada, Inc. adds, “The Alicia Keys tour is a world-class production. The video elements designed by VYV bring the concert experience to another level, creating a feeling of total immersion for Alicia Keys fans the world over. It speaks to Christie’s own world-class reputation to be chosen by VYV and Solotech for the quality and road worthiness of our products.”
