Our good friend Collyns Stenzel is a punter/busker extraordinaire when it comes to EDM and live events. Stenzel has a number of festivals and tours under his belt and with images and profound light shows like this, it is no wonder he keeps busy around the Windy city and around the world. Keep up the great work Collyns!

From the Press Release

Chicago – The Windy City lived up to its name during the three-day Freaky Deaky festival, as strong gusts kept storm clouds swirling menacingly overhead. Yet despite the dark gray skies, the scene inside sprawling Toyota Park was a cornucopia of color. Some of the flowering hues were from the costumes worn by the tens of thousands of fans who turned out to take in performances by EDM kingpins like Benny Benassi, Borgore, Datsik and Bassnectar. Also contributing to the outpouring of color that defied the grim October and November skies was the RGBWA light from 48 CHAUVET Professional COLORado Batten 144 Tour LED fixtures.

Lighting designer Collyns Stenzel used the Batten fixtures to colorwash the scenic elements on the festival’s main stage and one of its two side stages. Made of flat façade, the eye-catching props provided a surface that was textured, yet at the same time reflective when illuminated with colored light.

“Chris Schroeder, the Production Manager for SFX’s React Presents (Freaky Deaky producer), and I both felt it was important that our show not just be bright, but be very colorful too,” said Stenzel. “We had tons of strobes, aerial effects and beams for stage and audience lighting, but we also wanted something that just screamed out color when used with the flat façade scenic elements that had been created for the festival. This is where the COLORados ruled.”

Stenzel positioned the COLORado units along the decks of the festival’s two largest stages to uplight the scenic elements. “The COLORado Batten is always a great unit with amazing colors,” he said. “The individual cells in the fixture’s Block 2 Mode allowed us to pinpoint the exact uplight look we were going for on stage.”  Plus, the dual 15° and 30° optics of the Batten unit also helped cover long throws smoothly and evenly, an invaluable attribute given the size of the stage and the position of some of the scenery.

Now in its seventh year, Freaky Deaky has emerged as one of the go-to music festivals in the Midwest. This accomplishment has helped it attract leading artists representing a diverse array of styles, from hip hop and g-funk to tech-house and dubstep.  Stenzel’s lightshow had the flexibility to keep up with every head banging set that the 75 performers at the show could throw down, whether it was the tear-it-up old-school vinyl scratching of A-Trak or the heart stomping dubsteps of Borgore.

“The lighting was there to support the music,” said Stenzel. “Changing colors on stage to reflect the mood and the atmosphere was obviously very important to providing this support. Something that I like about the COLORados is that they give me a very doable way of creating so many different colors.  The bright audience abuse lighting is always there, but it’s the color changing that helps shift moods from one point to another.”

Looking back on the Freaky Deaky stage, Stenzel is proud that his design was a hit with the most important critics of all – the fans.  “At the end of a festival like this, you look back and see what people are saying about your work on social media,” he said. “We got a lot of comments about how great the stage looked, which is a compliment to our team as well as to React Presents and our lighting suppliers Zenith Lighting out of Orlando and White Light AV out of Mundelein, Illinois.  Everything came together here- the fixtures and the people!”