NASHVILLE – Ingenuity, that distinctly human quality, often shines most brightly when one must figure out how to get around an obstacle or deal with a limitation. Mike Marcario faced the latter challenge when creating the lighting rig for Rend Collective’s 2023 Whosoever tour. The chart-topping Northern Irish Worship band decided that they would be taking two tour buses trailers on their coast-to-coast US tour, which meant that space for gear was at a premium.

“Space was definitely a big concern,” said Marcario. “With two bus trailers, varying stage sizes, and power limitations the fixtures we selected had to be compact, low weight, and low power draw.”

Complicating matters further, some of the venues have little in the way of house rigs, which means that Marcario and the design team have to rely heavily or solely on their touring package to create the varied and engaging looks in the 75-minute show.

Marcario’s solution was to devise a plan that had each fixture fill multiple roles. “There aren’t a lot of fixtures in the rig, but all of them serve several purposes, which they can do because they have many different performance features,” he said. “For me on this tour, it’s all about not using all the features at the same time all the time. I do that only at the bigger, more impactful moments.”

The deftly curated rig that is helping Marcario follow this plan features 32 CHAUVET Professional fixtures supplied by 4Wall Entertainment. Included in this collection are 10 Color STRIKE M motorized strobes, eight Maverick Force S Spots, seven COLORado PXL Bar 16 battens, and seven STRIKE Array 2 units.

Working with the tour LD Trevor Rigsby and lighting technician Kristen Dingman, Marcario has these fixtures create seamless color changes, varied light angles, and dramatic accents, to mold the stage to fit the mood of the music and reflect the charismatic personalities of the band members.

Key to creating this wide array of looks are the 10 Color STRIKE M fixtures, which Marcario describes as “the rockstars of the rig,” having them serve at different times as strobes, washes, texturizing lights, and punch effects. The Force S Spot units also add variety to the lightshow with their hard-edged effects.

Elaborating on his design strategy, Marcario noted, “We intentionally went with a broad color palette, red for the rock sound, and cool for the ballads. Also, we try to not repeat color palettes from song to song unless it’s a medley.”

Marcario is also relying on warm white light from his STRIKE Array 2 fixtures to set different moods. “Rend loves tungsten, and I’ve loved the Strike line since it came out, so adding the Strike Array 2 to the rig was an easy choice,” he said.  “That red shift is an amazing feature.”

Another critical part of Marcario’s design strategy was to have a lot of rhythmic accents to match the percussion. “There are many percussion elements in the backline and the band makes them sound and physically look big,” he said.  “That coupled with rhythmic lighting makes each drum hit feel and look great.  All of the musicians are incredible performers in their own right, so we try to do accompany that by isolating and accenting them. Each fixture type does the heavy lifting at some point during the show.

Macario believes that this is secret to having his relatively small rig produced so many different looks… that and a lot of ingenuity on the part of a talented designer.