Andreas Gabalier Tours with Powerful HES Rig

Andreas Gabalier Tours with Powerful HES Rig

Andreas Gabalier, or the 'Elvis of the Alps', like his fans call him, has finished his successful 2015 tour. LD Fink Andreas (Light.TheSign) and LD Michael Mayler created the fantastic lighting, video and stage design for this spectacle, which included 100 automated lighting instruments from High End Systems. Twenty-nine SHAPESHIFTERs were used, along with 36 Intellaspot, 18 TechnoArc and six SolaSpot Pro 1500, and Axon Media Servers. Fink and Mayler wanted to make something very different and they decided to stay away from a design that implements a big video screen in the center at the back of the stage. The idea was to build a couple of elements that can be moved up and down, and combine a video screen with different blocks of lighting instruments. The whole set is bordered by a lit truss frame with a summit in the center, to illustrate the mountain from Gabbler's new album 'Mountain-Man'.

Andreas Gabalier, or the 'Elvis of the Alps', like his fans call him, has finished his successful 2015 tour. LD Fink Andreas (Light.TheSign) and LD Michael Mayler created the fantastic lighting, video and stage design for this spectacle, which included 100 automated lighting instruments from High End Systems. Twenty-nine SHAPESHIFTERs were used, along with 36 Intellaspot, 18 TechnoArc and six SolaSpot Pro 1500, and Axon Media Servers. Fink and Mayler wanted to make something very different and they decided to stay away from a design that implements a big video screen in the center at the back of the stage. The idea was to build a couple of elements that can be moved up and down, and combine a video screen with different blocks of lighting instruments. The whole set is bordered by a lit truss frame with a summit in the center, to illustrate the mountain from Gabbler's new album 'Mountain-Man'.

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Gabalier's tour combined the traditional Austrian Alpine Style with traditional rock 'n' roll. The stage set had to reflect visually what he wants to express with his music, and help him to pass on the vibe of the Alpine Lifestyle to the audience. So it was an absolute must to integrate a huge drum kit and Marshall stacks into the stage set! Just as the massive Marshall walls stand for rocking guitars that are loud as hell, Fink and Mayler thought that the SHAPESHIFTER on top of the stacks would give the stage set that extra push to 'go to 11'. Mayler comments, "The SHAPESHIFTER is very versatile, and it's very easy to create various dynamic effects or just powerful static looks. And even if you only have a small amount of fixtures you have a huge amount of beams, because you can use up to seven independent modules per fixture. Ohh, and the output is WOOOOWWW!!!"

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High End Systems TechnoArc and Intellaspot fixtures were used as the main wash/spot combination. Mayler continues, "The ability to go from a normal wash light to a beam light was one reason why we chose the TechnoArc. Another selling point was the color mixing systems of the TechnoArc and the Intellaspot. High saturated colors like a deep red, or a brilliant green especially in the combination with white can be seen as signature colors for the artist. And both fixtures are amazing in these colors, mixed with the CMY system."

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Austrian HES distributor Preworks provided six Sola Spot 1500 Pro and two HES AxonHD Pro media servers for the tour. Fink comments, "First we thought, how can a fixture with a LED source cope with an Intellaspot anyway? But when we switched on the SolaSpot 1500, we really had to redo the ranking in our list and put the SolaSpot 1500 on top of it! It is so bright and has an incredibly even beam field!"

The cover artwork from the new album was a very important point for the video content. The whole cover is drawn in a classic 'comic book-style', so a lot of the custom created content has comic elements implemented. All the video content was manipulated and played back with two HES AxonHD Pro media servers. The two designers needed a server that has the power and the ability to play back several layers of Full HD content, as well as a very fast and easy way to program it and to apply effects.

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As both Fink and Mayler are long time Hog users, it was unnecessary to think about a lighting console other than the Hog 4. "It is the perfect machine for us to put our plans into action," says Michael. "We like the very straight forward way of programming combined with reliability and stability of the operating system. Nuff said!" The two LDs want to give special thanks to Preworks for their rockin' great support around clock during the tour, to High End Systems for their rock-solid gear and to the MRG GmbH rental company for having all the HES stuff they needed.