Well, so much for posting from Catalyst. We had 4 great, but very long days. Day 1 was load in and setting up the 26 LCD screens we had going around the stage. Day 2 was teching problems and rehearsal, and days 3 and 4 were the actual event. We had 9 main sessions in those 2 days, so it was a total whirlwind.

The conference itself was great…featuring a short bus, live elephant , worship by the Fee band , Kristian Stanfill , and Eddie Kirkland –excellent hosts Lanny Donoho and Reggie Joiner , and great teaching from Jim Collins , Dave Ramsey , Andy Stanley , Steven Furtick , Seth Godin , and many more.

The set was in the round due to the sell out crowd of 12,400. There was a cylinder LED with MiStrip ‘icicles’ below it. Above and surrounding that were the 4 main IMAG screens. The stage resembled the Chevy logo with thrusts going off into each area of the floor–the stage was framed with 22 50" LED screens, and the drum sub was wrapped with 8 50" LED screens. The cylnder and MiStrips could raise up and go down via motor control,and the opener featured a cool reveal of the drummer who was on the drum riser inside of the cylinder and strips.

Our tech set up was pretty intense–I had 3 PVP machines in front of me at FOH, and did my best of keeping everything straight. I had a machine running to the MiStrips, a main playback for the cylider LED and screens, and a master for the 26 LCDs that surrounded the stage. With me in the pit was Brad Weston running screen control through the Big Stuf Indigo, and Sarah running lyrics on ProPresenter.

I think the thing that amazes me most about that event is the depth of talent at every position. I don’t think we could come close to pulling it off with the talented people in every department. We get to work a lot with the guys from Majestic Productions, and they always do a great job getting everything in the air on time, and keeping it up and running. Kudos to Brian Pirkle at Big Stuf who produced the event and managed to keep us on task and not melt down during some pretty stressful moments. Jeff , Brian, and Brad at Catalyst have an almost impossible task of improving this conference every year, but continue to raise the bar.

Below are some pics…the bad ones are from my cell phone, the good ones are courtesy of Michael Henson from Majestic Productions.

Any of you make it to Catalyst?

Tags: CREATIVITY, EVENTS, GENERAL, ProVideoPlayer, TRAVEL, VJ GEAR, backgrounds, catalyst, conferences, video staging //