RALEIGH, NC – The Tar Heel State’s “Research Triangle” is home to some of the leading high-tech firms in the US and three large universities (Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State), as well as a vibrant, diverse millennial population. Fused together, these ingredients have turned the area into a hotbed of electronic music.  A driving force behind this trend is Pulse EDM, a group dedicated to putting on some of the sickest (or should we say “best”) dance parties anywhere.

This Halloween, the epicenter of the local EDM scene was the venerable downtown Lincoln Theater, where Pulse brought five of the area’s top DJs on stage to throw down some dope bass lines and traps. Revving up the intensity level many times over was a relentless, eye-searing light show that featured 12 Intimidator Scan LED 300 moving fixtures and four Hurricane Haze 2D water-based haze machines from CHAUVET DJ.

Designed by Daniel Thibault of Life Is Art Studios, the lightshow sliced up the stage with an intense array of multi-colored beams moving in every direction. The 12 Intimidators contributed to the madness, but at the same time, they also worked to pull the rig together by providing a visual border to the light show.

“I set up the Intimidators to edge the rest of the rig,” said the LD. “They held the whole rig together as crazy as the show got at times. Their small size and their mirror makes them one of my favorite lights for framing purposes. You can stick them just about anywhere and they take over. They also consume very little power. On this night, they shared the stage with a bunch of much bigger fixtures, but they punched through everything and held their own to create an extra layer in my design.”

Thibault used the Intimidator Scan LED 300s to fill in space when other lights in his rig were working as aerial effects. “They filled in to keep the stage vibrant and created texture,” he said. “It was important at a gig like this to maintain a certain level of brightness and intensity throughout the evening.”

Positioned on ladder truss stage right and left, as well as flown overhead on upstage truss, the Intimidators were also used to sweep the stage with crisp gobos and to engage the audience with synchronized chase scenes.  “These lights played a variety of roles in my design,” said Thibault.  “They helped us create a lot of looks without taking up a lot of space.”

All of the looks created by the Intimidators, as well as all of the other fixtures on Thibault’s rig, were enhanced by the Hurricane Haze units he placed on the four corners of the stage.  He used the haze machines to accent key moments during the five EDM performances.

“I rely on these hazers exclusively on my small to mid-sized gigs,” he said. “They have a nice smooth output that covers the stage and makes the lighting pop. The intensity level at a Pulse EDM event is high, so anything I can do to rev up the lighting is appreciated.”