I am the self proclaimed king of Daylight Lighting. Every year I get a call for my expertise in lighting outdoor concerts while the sun is still up. I realize you are either laughing or shaking your head in wonder, but I am serious. Last Friday one of my clients was playing an afternoon show outdoors. Kid Rock was playing in front of a butt load of racing fans at the Indianapolis Motor speedway. Two days before the famous Indy 500 race, the track is open to the public for “Carb day”. This is when the drivers and mechanics get to fine tune their race cars and practice their pit stops. It’s also a good occasion for a whole lot of people to gather, drink a lot of beer, and watch extremely fast cars make a whole lot of noise. Thunder is not as loud as one of these cars driving by you at 200 mph.
As a side event every year, they always throw a concert in the middle of the infield. They put a name act on a stage and see how many people hang around for the free show. This year 120,000 fans stuck around for the show.
Obviously racing fans appreciate good rock music. There was a make shift 50’ x 40’ stage set up at one end of a field with speaker arrays hung from ceiling to ground level. The sun was shining and the temperature scorching at 9 AM when we loaded in. The show was scheduled for 3:00 PM.
I know what you’re thinking; “what the hell did they need any lighting for?” Surely old Nook is just bullshitting someone and getting a pay check.
Nope, as Kid Rock’s long time lighting designer I was covering his ass.
You never know what kind of weather will show up at an outdoor concert, but one thing is for sure. If the clouds do roll in and block the sun, the stage will look darker than the crowd, because there is a roof over it. Any light coming through the clouds will light the audience, but the skinned roof of the temporary stage will block it, making the stage darker than the crowd. And this is not professional.
So I bring in 2 trusses of par cans. Only about 64k of light, but more than enough to do the job. I knew it wasn’t gonna cool down much so I had to make sure I didn’t cook the artist with excess heat from the lights. That would make the artist unpleasant and of course mean that I wasn’t doing my job and would probably never get hired by him for anymore daylight gigs.
When it’s light outside, only a few colors will work in these fixtures. Amber, pink, yellow and white to be exact. So with 8 musicians in the band, I had 4 x 16k washes to bump through during the set. There was no video reinforcement. So spotlites would just piss off my band, so I didn’t order any. I actually set up a tiny console on the side of the stage to run the pars.
There was no reason for me to be out by front of house. Besides that Kid Rock always has 4 strippers on the side of the stage during his show. For this gig I would be forced to watch them from a closer vantage point. This did not suck.
Sure enough, an hour before show time the storm clouds rolled into place.
They did not rain, but they sure blocked God’s big 5 million kw stage light. From the audience’s view point the stage looked like a dark hole. But I had 64k of pars and I wasn’t afraid to use it. The show could’ve gone on without my lights, but they definitely helped eliminate the shadows and illuminate the talent.
