It was a historic occasion. More than a million people turned out on the Mall in Washington, D.C. to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama. It was perhaps not as well known that 11 Fat Frogs were there too.They were controlling fixtures from Christie Lites, which, last November, supported Obama’s victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of Zero 88 in North America.
“We were very fortunate to have two career-milestone gigs,” says Robert A. Roth, of Christie Lites, about the victory speech and Mall events. “They were very rewarding personally and professionally.”
Once again Christie Lites teamed with event producer C3 Presents of Austin, Texas for the Mall lighting. “There was a series of tower positions along the Mall; some of the ones on the east end of the Capitol were set up in a reasonably symmetrical array,” Roth recalls. “Initially, we were led to believe we could establish wired DMX among these 12 towers. We had only four weeks to plan with the holidays coming right in the middle.
“We added a rigging position on the towers and put up automated moving lights for remote focus,” he continues. “But we couldn’t establish wired DMX for security and safety reasons. We needed a console to hold focus and adjust it once we observed the crowds. So we decided to fly in 11 Fat Frogs to our hotel.”
One Fat Frog was installed at each of 11 towers which acted as their “own stand-alone islands in a sea of people,” notes Roth. “From those positions, the Fat Frogs controlled multiple Mac 2K XBs; we just programmed each console, disked it for back up and moved on. We could set them and forget them.”