Inspirmedia Productions recently used High End Systems SHAPESHIFTERs to transform Hastings College’s arena gymnasium into an eloquent banquet hall. The building dedication event featured a banquet for 550, as well as a concert by The Midtown Men of ‘The Jersey Boys’. In business since 2000, and providing full AVL services in 2004, Inspirmedia Productions offers production services for bands, corporate events, houses of worship and other clients.
Inspirmedia’s Phil Grimpo used a dozen SHAPESHIFTER C2’s and ten W1’s in his design. He elaborates, “We had two challenges with this event. The first was that they wanted a nice lighting show, and with very little rehearsal time. The ShapeShifter C2’s on the upstage truss and the downstage stage edge helped accomplish a big look quickly, with relatively few fixtures. But the biggest challenge was that the ceiling was to be covered in white material, yet the client wanted to pinspot 68 tables and two bars. There was no way to rig all these downspots through the drape. The solution was to hang ten ShapeShifter W1’s down the center of the room on the same support as the canopy. We could then direct each cell individually and pinspot each of these tables and the bars. It was quick, efficient and looked beautiful!
“Because of our timeline, we relied heavily on the macros in the C2’s to provide a big look quickly. We created macro palettes to be able to rename the macros we wanted and access them when busking. We also used macros in the W1’s to provide some ‘shimmer’ to the room during some big musical pieces.”
Grimpo also spec’d SolaWash 19’s as downstage wash lights, and control was via a Hog4 desk. He says, “The ARTNET signal went out of the console through V-LANS on a fiber line to the stage. From there, we powered two Pathport Quatro nodes which fed the DMX lines to each truss. The Hog4 was fantastic - it works so well with the SHAPESHIFTER fixtures and gives us easy access to the extended profile, so it was simple to grab and spot each of the tables. In addition, we had a Hog4PC set up in the mezzanine so we could look down on the tables during the spotting setup.
In closing, Phil says the client, the host university and the guests couldn’t have been happier. “We received many compliments on how this gym had been transformed. Midwest Tent and Events provided all the drapery and did an outstanding job. It was nearly an impossible task to transform this gym with just a one man lift and a two man rigging crew on a smaller ceiling grid. Using the SHAPESHIFTERs gave us a great looks and pinspotted the tables, something we initially said couldn’t be done, with few fixtures - meaning less weight, labor and power.”