With around 150 concerts annually, Denver's Ogden Theatre is one of the city's premier live entertainment venues and a great environment to see emerging and classic acts alike; recently the theatre's live shows have been augmented by five High End Systems SHAPESHIFTER automated luminaries.
Ogden Theatre house LD Rick "Shaggy" Ehmcke has utilized the new fixtures over the last three weeks, and says they've brought a new element of excitement to OT's road shows. He comments, "After using them in a few different orientations, we ultimately ended up hanging five of the SHAPESHIFTER C1 fixtures in reduced mode - 29 channels - in the overhead rig. Three are placed on our upstage truss and two on the mid. We placed them alongside our current mix of PAR cans, Lekos, six CMY moving spot heads, and three LED moving wash fixtures. We chose five for the aesthetic appeal, and also chose reduced mode for the sake of the visiting designers. I didn't have a chance to run through the built macros this summer for my ACL show, but I am now experimenting with them regularly. They do in fact make for a user friendly way to get a lot from the fixture without killing yourself on a short programming day."Programming versatility is another major consideration for visiting LDs. According to Ehmcke, "As it stands, I've now seen the fixture integrated into a Hog 4, Avolites Titan Mobile, Avolites Tiger Touch, Chamsys Magic-Q and a Grand MA2. In general, I'd say that everyone has had to download the personality for their desks, and they have all found it to be current. I've also seen the different ways the desks and designers control the fixture, and that has been fascinating as well. Inevitably, they all look to me for advice and I have been translating the fixture to the visiting LD. Frankly, the results have been really nice. The SHAPESHIFTERs have been hanging for a few weeks now, and have been used for a variety of shows - a few EDM/DJ shows, a couple of pop acts, and even as a brilliant backdrop light for an intimate evening."In closing, Shaggy says, "I'd like to pass on to the industry some of the feed back that I've gotten thus far. First, all of the visiting LD's have heard about it or read about SHAPESHIFTER, but they are seeing and touching and playing with them here for the first time at the Ogden - that's really exciting! Everyone -LD's and musicians alike - have been excited to use them. Almost daily since we put them in I have heard this conversation between the LD and the artist: 'What are those?' 'The SHAPESHIFTER - they're really new.' 'It's really cool looking, are you going to use it?' Of course I am … I mean, check it out!' And then we proceed to show some of what it will do - or not - depending on where they are in their day. A few people initially thought they were B Eyes or Quantum washes, and this leads to many programming questions once they realize the difference. I have heard from the designers that have now used both fixtures that they were impressed with how the SHAPESHIFTER behaves in comparison. To that end, they have all been successful in fixture exchanging or cloning these fixtures into their current shows as wash fixtures, then as time allows going through and integrating macro 'tricks' appropriately into their shows. It's been great to watch. Everyone comments on their clean dimming and bright clean color mixing. The individual control and motor speed illustrated in the macro settings have impressed everyone as well. And as they play with these macros they can envision the control of the Enhanced Mode for their future projects."