Trombone Shorty | The Anthem | Washington, D.C. | ©2017 Lisa Walker

The Anthem is without question the hottest new venue in the country.  Brought to you by IMP, owners of the world-famous 9:30 Club, The Anthem is located in Washington, DC’s southwest waterfront in a new mixed-use development called The Wharf.

The Anthem has a capacity of 6000 and opened in October 2017 with a historic performance by Foo Fighters– a band with DC roots themselves and a close friendship with IMP’s founder, Seth Hurwitz.

The main challenge in designing a new lighting system for The Anthem was to come up with an inventory of cutting-edge equipment while remaining “programming-friendly” to visiting LDs who are on tight time schedules.

Paul Hoffman, owner of Pulse Lighting, worked together with the in-house team of Chris “Sherman” Robb and Jason Beckwith to develop a design consisting of the Robe BMFL family as well as LED fixtures from German Light Products.

All lighting trusses in The Anthem (and PA as well) are hung on motorized traveling trolleys which run along the beams the entire span of the room– this means that the stage, PA and lighting rig can all be moved with the push of a button to make the room different sizes, or the lighting trusses can be brought out into the house for corporate events.

Additionally, there is a full-room lighting network which allows any universe to exist in almost any location with a couple software changes.  Flexibility and adaptability were central to the design.

Equipment: Robe BMFL Blade, Robe BMFL Spot, Robe BMFL WashBeam, GLP X4S, GLP X4 Bar 20, Chauvet Strike 4, Martin Atomic 3000

Full Rigging and Distro Package provided by Motion Labs

Networking by TMB