Justin Casey Creates Simply Distinctive Cali Vibes Looks For Slightly Stoopid with Chauvet Professional

	Cali Vibes festival in Long Beach, California. Photo: In The Barrel Photo

Sometimes, there really is truth in advertising! When promoting the Cali Vibes festival, organizer California Vibrations, promised fans a chance to step into the SoCal reggae scene with a "stacked lineup" of stars.

That's precisely what they delivered for three days in early February, as their outdoor festival featured 54 performers, from stars like The Marley Brothers and Wu-Tang Clan, to newcomers eager to showcase their talents.

The event may have been a feast for reggae fans, but for the production crews responsible for setting up the stage for the various artist, it was also a steep challenge, defined by 10-15 minute change overs and a revolving platform deck.

Justin Casey, who designed and setup the show for one of the festival's headliners, Slightly Stoopid, met this challenge in brilliant fashion, creating a distinctive and compelling look for his client with a rig that loaded in and out with ease. Key to helping him accomplish this was a collection of 48 Chauvet Professional ÉPIX Strip Tour fixtures from the inventory of his company, HELM Projects.

"We brought the ÉPIX with us as part of our road package," says Casey. "We use these fixtures at our Virtual studio in Tennessee, so we know how well they work, and how good they look. At this festival, we had a very short change over, so we needed something that would fit a tight schedule along with really helping us create a show that looked great on camera."

Working with his techs, Nick Stabile, Owen Pike, and Andrew Whittington, Casey positioned 28 of the ÉPIX units on floor carts, arranging the linear fixtures horizontally, and flew another 20 vertically. The flown fixtures flanked the center stage video screen on either side.

"The flown strips worked excellently to fill dead space," says Casey. "This show was focused on the video content and IMAG effects, so we wanted to really keep it super simple with basic monochromatic palettes and geometric forms from the strips. Sometimes the simplest looks make the largest impact."

In keeping with this design strategy, Casey ran the ÉPIX fixtures in 25 section pixel mode without having them display video images. Using this feature, he was able to create a series of changing looks and chases to vary his show during the set.

"The strips are versatile fixtures that open up a lot of options for creating different looks," says Casey. "My favorite look on this rig was probably the simplistic look that happened when all of the strips were on with a simple line border on the video wall around the IMAG effects. It was just a really slick and simple!"

This look, says Casey, helped Slightly Stoopid's show "stand out from other acts playing over the weekend. "Given the plethora of artists on stage at Cali Vibes, that was quite an accomplishment.