Few rock bands can say they have been touring to sold-out crowds across five decades, but Journey can. in the summer of 2011 Journey lauched their "Eclipse" tour, featuring Night Ranger and Foreigner, with feet firmly planted in the 80's and a crowd of forty-somethings eager to be transported back a generation.

Tour Video Director, Jonthan Beswick wanted to try something new. Taking a leap of faith in LD Kevin "Deuce" Christopher, Jonathan gave control of all the video elements to the lighting department to "Do as you wish. The concept was an attempt to blur the line between lights and video.

Christopher explains, “In the initial stage design the band wanted to use a video backdrop, but I didn’t want to do full video walls for a number of reasons.

So what I did was create 3’ x 3’ blocks of video that would work more as ‘eye candy’ or as light sources, rather than completely spell out a story or provide a source for I-Mag.

To implement them into the lighting, we hung the video blocks on four trusses staggered in height behind the band with the last truss trimming at 12 feet, and we then filled-in the spaces with automated lighting so that we could create a ‘shell’ of light above the band.”

To complete the “staggered video cube concept”, Christopher also added a series of 6’ x 6’ video displays upstage in place of the back line to complete the set continuing his theme of lighting opposing video.

So now needing to fill the spaces between the video blocks, he began looking at what would be needed from the automated instruments chosen. Since the lights would be placed side-by-side to the video, brightness was essential, but he also needed a variety of characteristics to complement the variety of songs. In the end, Christopher decided to use 44 VL3500 Wash and 28 VL3000 Spot luminaires from Philips Vari-Lite, supplied by Epic Production Technologies.

Did the idea of combining light and video work? You judge for yourself.