ArKaos MediaMaster PRO has been chosen for a unique installation in a very
individual venue in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Badlands Pawn, Gold & Jewelry is a unique experience that opened its doors on
Thanksgiving Day (26 November) 2015. Pawn shop, gold foundry, gun range, rock
radio station, TV station and a tattoo shop by day, the 70,000 sq ft “entertainment
fortress’ transforms weekly into a kicking rock venue at night.
The $2-million, 32ft x 24ft concert stage has state-of-the-art lighting, a 26ft x 14ft
LED screen, VIP viewing rooms, and seating for 1800, and has already hosted rock-
giants KISS, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Rick Springfield, Rival Sons and Europe.
More national headliners, amongst them Night Ranger, Steppenwolf, April Wine,
Megadeth and Grand Funk Railroad, are lined up for later this year.
Badlands Pawn’s visionary owner, Charles Brennan, has a long association with
Rock “n’ Roll. He brought in Las Vegas lighting designer, Drew Giancarli, to design a
lighting rig fit for this one-of-a-kind venue, the highlight of which is a customised
lighting truss that is pixel-mapped to run full video effects.
Giancarli approached Blue Planet Lighting with his idea for a unique system that was
visually stunning but still maintained a “Rock n Roll’ look. In an industry first, Blue
Planet Lighting suggested outlined the entire truss system with 900’ of LED pixel
tape, with two runs inside each section, and pixel-mapping it to run full videos and
effects across the entire rig. Giancarli agreed it was a perfect way to create a large
visual impact.
Blue Planet Lighting designed, installed and programmed the system and provided
all the equipment, which included 450’ of 12’ x 12’ customised Cosmic truss,
custom-built Blue Planet media servers running ArKaos MediaMaster PRO software
and a GrandMA Lite lighting console.
Programmer Kelsey Koster used MediaMaster PRO’s LED Mapper feature to map 66
universes (6,500 pixels) of Elation Flex Pixel WP LED pixel tape via ArtNet. “I used
the GrandMA Lite to send ArtNet to the server with Arkaos MediaMaster PRO
installed,’ says Koster. “This allowed us to view CITP thumbnails of the media on
the console.’
Giancarli and Koster were able to pre-map all the LED with MediaMaster at Blue
Planet’s pre-viz studio. “Once they arrived on-site, it was simply a matter of
installing the LED pixel tape and plugging in the server,’ says Blue Planet’s
President and Assistant Lighting Designer for the project, Kelly Koster. “Everything
worked perfectly first time.’
“Badlands Pawn is a pawn shop first and foremost, and Chuck Brennan wanted it to
be an experience, whether you were there for a rock show at night, or to shoot
some guns or buy a big-screen TV during the day. I wanted the production side, not
just to accentuate that experience, but to surround you with it,’ said Giancarli.
