Spring Break, South Padre Island, TX 2014
Laser Spectacles’ crew headed down to South Padre a few days early, and checked into a condo right next to Schlitterbahn Water Park where the event was held. We could stand on our balcony and see the UME stage in the distance! This was a good thing, since we could not set up until the stage was up, rigged, and the lighting was installed; there were extremely high winds on the first day of setup that prevented the stage from going up; so we could relax in the condo and still keep an eye on things.
The stage was set up at one end of the huge wave pool inside Schlitterbahn; the water was drained from the pool and the audience stood inside the pool. We set up six RGB lasers spread across the stage, controlled by a Lasergraph DSP workstation. We saved one laser for a special “laser cone” effect requested by the promoter.
On Thursday, the first night, the headliner was Tiesto, and we got to do a couple of laser special effects sections with his show. Second night was Bassnectar, we also got to jam the lasers with his music.
The last night the headliner was Zedd, who had his own laserist, Derek Abbot. Derek brought a Pangolin Beyond system, and we worked with him late Saturday night after Bassnectar to get his Beyond system in control of our lasers. We also set up the extra laser as a “cone” effect around Zedd. Everything worked out fine, and we were heading for the condo at 6:30 AM.
This event was totally packed, it was difficult to walk around. When a good act (and there were lots of them!) hit the right beat, it was impossible to move because everyone was dancing. Our favorites were Carnage on day one, and DJ Snake on the final night.