Design Team
production: Feld Entartainment and Kenny Ortega
technical director (Feld): Scot Dickinson
electrical operations manager (Feld): Dennis Flenniken
lighting designer: Patrick Woodroffe
lighting programmer: Patrick Dierson
A complement of Clay Paky lighting fixtures was selected for Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour, a live fusion of songs, dance, and team-spirited fun inspired by the pop-culture sensation and Disney Channel Original Movies, High School Musical and High School Musical 2. The show, produced by Feld Entertainment and Kenny Ortega, made its world premiere in New York City on September 29 as part of an unprecedented global tour featuring three companies playing more than 100 cities across the US and locations in Canada, Mexico, South America, Australia, and Europe. The ice tour includes never-before-seen choreography, costumes, lighting, special effects, projection, and scenery.
Three hundred forty-five Clay Paky fully automated fixtures in three identical rigs include 115 fixtures per show: 37 Alpha Spot HPE 1200s; 61 Alpha Wash 1200s; and 17 Alpha Wash 575s.
“I’ve been doing this for 20 years and have used every kind of light known to man,” says Dennis Flenniken, electrical operations manager at Feld Entertainment, Inc. Feld Entertainment draws 25 million people to its shows each year; productions have appeared in 50 countries and on six continents and include Disney On Ice, Disney Live!, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and Doodlebops Live!
“Clay Paky fixtures stand up to any light touring, and the new Alpha Series is just unbelievable. For Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour, we did three identical shows, each with 115 active fixtures. The Alpha Series has many effects—nobody has as many spinning and rotating gobos—so lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe was able to create beautiful swimming effects and sunlight,” explains Flenniken.
Lighting programmer Patrick Dierson calls the show “very much a hybrid: a very theatrically-staged show that breaks out into musical numbers in an arena environment. It’s not quite theatrical, not quite a concert, but very much both at the same time.” He was tasked with lighting the faces of all the skaters in the cast—energetic teens who are difficult to distinguish from each other—and keeping things bright so the audience can see while maintaining a good amount of coverage. He also needed to combine a big, bold wash look with rock ’n’ roll flyouts to the audience with ballyhoos and effects. “We had to keep up the intensity while creating moods,” he adds.
According to Dierson, “This is Feld’s first lighting rig to be completely automated, with no conventional units.” The team specified Clay Paky fixtures based on their reliability “I’ve had a phenomenal run of reliability with them. For Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour, we’re beating on them pretty hard. They take a lot of abuse with no problems,” he adds.
He says the Clay Paky washes are bright and punchy, with good beam shaping; they do a lot of tricks. The Alpha Spot HPE units have a really great amount of gobos and a variety of patterns—which didn’t look like disco gobos —offering a lot of flexibility. “This is the first time we didn’t have to specify all the gobos in the unit. And the Alpha Spot HPE units have some great built-in effects, which is nice when you’re programming because you’re not as reliant on the console. And the effects are randomized enough so they don’t look repeated.”
He also finds “the optical clarity of the typical Clay Paky fixture to be high quality with a lot of output. They punch right through other wash lights and have consistent colors across the board, so we didn’t have to custom mix. They all dialed in extremely consistently. Everyone liked the way they looked.”
In the opinion of Feld’s Flenniken, “The Clay Paky fixtures are brighter than similar lights in terms of what the eye perceives in amount of lumens.” That means a small but powerful lighting rig enabled his team to “load in at 8am and be ready to go at noon. We used to take 10-12 hours!”
Selected Gear
All Clay Paky, 345 fixtures total:
111 Alpha Spot HPE 1200s
183 Alpha Wash 1200s
51 Alpha Wash 575s