New York lights up its first outdoor concert after the pandemic with Elation

New York City gathered its inhabitants in the first major concert after the pandemic. 'We Love NYC’ it has been the return of the city and reunion with great stars of music, that was illuminated with the systems of Elation.

The New Yorker Central Park has been the setting chosen to celebrate We Love NYC: the homecoming concert, the first big outdoor concert and 'the return of the city’ to these events after the pandemic, in which well-known artists from all over the world have participated who have met again on this stage.

Organized at the end of last month by Nyc, in collaboration with music producer Clive Davis and Live Nation, the show offered a medley of genres, since LL Cool J until Barry Manilow.

The concert, of about five hours of duration and that was going to be headed by Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Patti Smith and Elvis Costello, among others, had to be interrupted to just over half due to thunderstorms related to the hurricane Henri.

Even so, artists like Jennifer Hudson, Carlos Santana, LL Cool J, Andrea Bocelli, Earth Wind & Fire, Kane Brown, Journey and Barry Manilow, among others, were able to take the stage.

Despite the weather, the show was a great success that brought together more than 60.000 people, vaccinated and complying with sanitary measures, who celebrated the return to live music in New York.

This is what he affirms. Tom Kenny, contracted by Diversified Productions Services (DPS) to design the lighting of the show: “has been a good example of how you can organize a large live event safely”.

Power and IP protection

Kenny collaborated with renowned production designer Bruce Rodgers to plan the means of this great open stage, which featured numerous automated lighting systems and huge New York letters on the front.

“We only had an hour of darkness, so you had to give a big and spectacular look during the day, but we didn't want to depend on many Gags -explains Kenny-, so powerful lighting was essential. However, our biggest concern was the exposed luminaires and, when outdoors, with the highest possible IP65”.

The abundance of lumens and ip protection against weather changes characterize Elation's Proteus line, chosen for this event. The team, supplied by 4Wall Entertainment, Included 80 Proteus Hybrid; 20 Proteus Maximus; 35 Proteus Lucius and 16 DTW Blinder 700 IP.

To this deployment of Elation systems are also added 60 Smarty Max and 18 Cuepix Blinder WW2, as well as other luminaires. “When you do these great shows, you are looking for power and something that is very reliable, and we were very fortunate with all the luminaires we chose”, Kenny says.”

Base and custom lighting

Although I had already used the Proteus luminaires, this designer emphasizes that the show far exceeded everything. “We start by creating a great Look general, before customizing it for each song. Patti Smith, For example, he told us to paint a picture and let it dry, what works for her, but for other artists we painted a picture and continued”.

The design team also had to make sure that both the base lighting and customizations for each artist worked for the camera., as the show was broadcast live to a worldwide audience in the CNN.

The large esplanade of Central Park has the particularity that it lacks a central tower position., so Kenny had to settle for two full-backs.: “I always set a safety wash of the lighting, so we did it from both sides using the Maximus luminaires. We were very impressed by the scope, which was more than 60 metre, and the lumen level was still good, like color, power and shape”.

Colour, power, form

Any IP device that the designer knew could withstand the rain was placed at the bottom of the stage., and that included the Proteus Lucius units, of the Maximus compact range, that Kenny used to illuminate both the people and the surroundings of Central Park.

As for Proteus Hybrid, “they were located in four towers around the park and we ended up illuminating all the foliage with them from a 91 metre, which was pretty pretty”. For its part, Smarty Max hybrid moving heads (of 21.000 Lumens) functioned as show and work lights from a grille on the back wall.

The climate was the main challenge of the celebration, with the arrival of the hurricane Henri to New York, that was accompanied by torrents of rain that ended up falling on the platform: the largest amount recorded in the park in a single hour.

“All IP65 lights survived, Kenny recalls.. Even after the show was canceled, we kept the lights on for safety. Really its reliability and operation impressed us all”.

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