A Juggling Act
In two hours, I need to load in at the Aspen Jazz Festival. I’m covering some shows for my friend Paul Guthrie. But this gives me time to touch up the rigging plot on another tour first. One of my clients is moving from arenas to outdoor amphitheaters for the summer, and I need to condense some space, as the stages are often smaller in these venues. By the time I finish and email off my attachments, it’s time to load in some floor lites. For this particular artist, I am carrying a handful of movers and a grandMA2 console to augment whatever house system I have every day. Cake gig. But as soon as I am done, it’s back in my office on the bus.
Another band called me a couple weeks ago. Wanted to know if I would submit a design for an upcoming tour. The band was going to choose between several production designers based on our ideas and artwork. This happens sometimes, and I don’t mind competing with my friends. Some I win, some I lose. I had some ideas. I bounced them off some of my partners and we came up with a game plan. I drew these ideas out in 3D using Vectorworks. Then I imported them into a program called Cinema 4D in order to turn on the lights, show some video scenes and make pretty photorealistic drawings. I sent them in a week ago. Well, today was my lucky day. They liked my stuff and need me to get the ball rolling on prices.
So after I focus the lights and touch up some programming for tonight’s show, I sit down and look at the VW drawing. It’s time to count out everything. I need a list of gear including fixture counts, truss, rigging gear, consoles, media servers, video elements and the amount of guys necessary to put it all together. The production manager requires this to hand lists to various rental vendors to get bids for the tour. By the time I finish this, it’s time for dinner and a show. Two hours later, I am breaking down the gear and headed for the hotel. Tomorrow is a non-show day. But no days off for the wicked.
No Days Off
Upstaging is calling me for a plot. I design this Uproar music festival tour. The headliner is Avenged Sevenfold. Their LD, Trevor Ahlstrand and I must come up with a game plan this week since the tour leaves in six weeks. We have a general idea, and even an equipment list of gear I gave this lighting company to hold for me, two months ago. But the band nixed Trevor’s original idea, and we are on to phase two. So I will spend the day moving trusses around until I have a cool heavy-metal configuration. Then I will send it to Trevor to look at, change, and add fixtures to it. This band generally has lots of scenic bits and a large set. So I can put the trusses wherever I want, but Trevor will have to shift them around to accommodate whatever he is carrying, set-wise.
After I mail him, I move on to my daily phone ritual. First, I need to advance some Sheryl Crow shows. She is on tour with Kid Rock this summer. But when Kid takes a day off, Sheryl plays a theater in some other town. So I need to see what lights are available everywhere she goes. Cloning these new light fixtures on the GMA console is quite simple, and Arlo programmed all the cues for her show. I’m just the monkey that hears beat, hits buttons on time.
On the Line
First call is to my set guy, who’s finally reprieved, as I’m calling him back after 48 hours to explain what all the symbols and arrows mean on the cocktail napkin I scanned for him. I want the ramp from Van Halen, the elevator lift from Keyshia and the wraparound upstage walkway you built for Incubus. Now throw me in a 24-foot-high clock tower that can magically disappear when I want it to. He’s on it. His CAD guy has all these 3D pieces on file and will get a proper drawing to me today.
Next, it’s on to calls with John Bahnick at Upstaging. I need a list of any lighting fixtures he has not rented for the summer yet. I have another client with a tour that I can use all that stuff on. Then it’s on to the video vendors. Each company has different gear. I can’t always keep up with what everyone has, so I need to return calls to three companies. They will each give me bids on different resolution sized pieces. I need some hi-def. I need some medium-res stuff. I need some crap eye candy.
Downtime — Sort Of
By now, it’s night time and I need to unwind. I head to the hotel bar to join the lads. But I bring my laptop. I have to figure out a patch for the big gospel tour I do every year. Production Designer Michael Dalton has confirmed all the gear we are using this year. But I cannot run it this year, due to other commitments. I have a board op standing by. But he wants to use an M1 console. So I need to get a patch going so I can start pre-viz work programming that show. The console is small, so I will get the good folks at Martin Lighting to lend me one for a couple days in my hotel room this month. I own a Martin Show Designer dongle so I can hook the console up to my Mac and use it as a visualizer program for this show.
I love the vizualization suite at Upstaging Lighting. It is second to none in comfort, and they really take care of designers over there. But I can’t always get there to do my previz work. Well, thank God for grandMA. These guys build their own “free” visualizer that one can use on any Windows-based computer. My video director (Rob Smith) on Kid Rock will program another tour I have going out this summer. He draws up my plot on the gMA1 console I am using on that tour. I then export/import that drawing into my Mac and connect the two via MA-net and an Ethernet connector. It is a little time-consuming to get all the fixtures aligned correctly, but in the end, the picture looks just as great as any of the other pre-viz programs out there. On days off, I will throw the console in the bay of the bus and wheel it into my hotel room. I buy Rob dinner and we knock out a couple songs per day. Come September, I will walk in to the actual band rehearsals with the remnants of a show already preconceived. Just add video and focus.
