For the second year running, Florida-based live event production company, J. Thor Productions, was called on to light the black-tie awards ceremony at the Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala. Used to paint and texture a set dominated by geometric shapes was Elation’s new Artiste Picasso LED moving head as part of a larger Elation lighting package.

Each year, Inc. Magazine publishes its list of the 5000 fastest-growing publicly held small companies in the U.S. This year’s gala, held October 17-19 at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort in Texas, brought together some of the nation’s most successful business minds to celebrate the companies that appear on the prestigious ranking.

J. Thor Productions turned to its newly purchased Artiste Picasso fixtures to light the 11th Anniversary event.

“We purchased the Artiste Picasso’s specifically with this event in mind,” stated J. Thor Gogolen, founder and owner of J. Thor Productions, who worked alongside planning partner TOAST and was the sole equipment provider for the general session and all breakout rooms. “The framing shutters were crucial to be able to texture the geometric shapes of the set with precision and had enough punch to cut above the wash fixtures, providing the saturation on the scenic panels. They performed extremely well and raised a few eyebrows amongst the tech crew who had not worked with the fixtures prior to this event.”

This year’s custom set, designed and fabricated by ZH Productions out of Los Angeles, was geometric in nature and incorporated a lot of hard lines and angles. According to Gogolen, it proved the ideal canvass for lighting designer Brian Silva to paint with coloured light. “Some of the key focuses were two diamond-shaped tunnels that served as entrance and exit points for the presenters on stage. We decided to keep all of the set pieces white to allow the lighting to create the depth and separation of each of the scenic pieces. The scenic elements were set at various depths on stage, which allowed us to up light and front light the panels giving Lighting Designer Brian Silva plenty of canvas to play with.”

Gogolen also dipped into his existing inventory of Elation luminaires on the project. Last year’s set design used Satura Profile and Platinum FLX lights and the dynamic moving heads again found a role in this year’s set up. “For us, the FLX are almost always on-stage beam fixtures because they will cut through anything,” Gogolen comments. “This year we didn’t want to distract from the set so we used them on the truss to texture the walls around the space. The Saturas were mostly used for our crowd pleasers, walk ins and awards ballys. We like to treat the audience as part of the set for camera shots so having a number of fixtures on hand that can add texture to the audience for the occasional wide shot is very helpful.”

Adding colour to the set and around the room was Fuze Wash Z350 LED wash moving heads, but it is another fixture that Gogolen credits with helping to raise the visual bar. “The Chorus Line 16’s are definitely one of my favourite fixtures on any show,” he says of the linear pixel bars with zoom. “Beyond their ability to be a smooth uplight on the set panels, when we are in presentation mode the tight beam effects and a little haze make for some fantastic eye candy for those moments of excitement. I love the way our lighting designer Brian Silva created these chase patterns down the line of fixtures that just added some amazing sparkle to the set. The sweeping beams of moving lights through haze are always a nice look but the effect that these fixtures have added to our shows really takes the look to the next level.”

Elation Equipment: 
8 x Artiste Picasso
16 x Fuze Wash Z350
18 x Chorus Line 16
16 x Satura Profile
8 x Platinum FLX

www.elationlighting.com