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Corona: Chauvet fixtures used for ARC livestreams

The moment visitors pull into the parking lot of ARC Sound Stage and Lighting they find themselves immersed in a graffiti garden of 24 street art murals, and two graffiti covered sea containers that were used by the company prior to the Covid-19 lockdown.

Driving through this parking-lot-turned-art-park provides people in Norwalk with a reprieve from their daily, and unfamiliarly restrictive routines. The colorful creations also inspire the New York City house and EDM DJs who come to Connecticut three times a week to perform livestream shows as part of ‘ARC Live’.

Gene Morrell, owner of ARC, and his team got the idea to produce their thrice-weekly live streams “about ten seconds” after the government’s lockdown order went into effect. “We couldn’t sit idly by,” he recalls. “So, we had to do something to express ourselves.”

First was the question of finding a location for the livestreams. ARC is located right next door to the historic Wall Street Theatre (built in 1915), which the production company installed sound and lights in as part of a recent renovation. With the theatre’s regular programming on hold because of the lockdown, its owners agreed to lease the venue to ARC for livestreamed shows.

Next was the question of talent for the livestreams. With about 90-percent of ARC’s business coming from Manhattan, the company has deep roots in the New York entertainment world. ARC lists Madison Square Garden, Disney Theatrical Group and NBC Sports as clients, while Morrell and his team members, Dylan Scott and John Ospina, are LDs and TDs at the city’s Tao Group locations, such as Marquee and Lavo nightclubs, to name a few. “The DJs who appear are friends,” says Morrell. “They are glad for the opportunity to do something creative.”

Safety is the primary concern in the productions of the livestreams. The performing DJs enter the theatre through a separate entrance, accessible only by them. They are limited to one guest. All equipment is sanitized before and after their performance.

“We maintain strict social distancing,” says Morrell. “I am running the lighting from the middle of the empty 1,000-person capacity theatre, while our sound and video guys are in their own separate control rooms, so we have a minimum number of people in the building for the shows.”

The livestream shows are streamed on Twitch.tv over a 10 Gb fiber line. Their lighting is multi-faceted, filling the theatre stage with color and movement. Rather than scaling back for the livestream format, Morrell pushes the envelope for his busked 2 to 4 hour shows, which use about seven universes and feature a mix of fixtures that are often anchored by Chauvet Professional Rogue RH1 Hybrid, Rogue R1 Wash fixtures and Colorado PAR style units.

Morrell modifies his programming to account for the needs of this particular format. “Since these shows are looked at on screens, often relatively small ones, I tend to confine most movements to shots that are framing the stage, so we maintain the viewers focus,” he says. “I also do very few black outs. Generally, I’m a big fan of theatrics when I’m working a club, but they can be a bit disconcerting to the viewer on a livestream.”

Morrell says the DJs work hard at meeting the challenge of playing in an empty theatre with no crowd to draw energy from. Typically, they have cell phones open on the DJ stand so they can see comments from fans following the livestreams. Looking ahead, Morrell plans to install 90-inch monitors by the stands with Zoom features to provide more interaction between DJs and fans. “This is all about connecting artists to the community,” says Morrell. “Anything we can do to advance that goal is worth trying. We’re not going to let isolation defeat us.”

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