RHCP LD Scott Holthaus and Others Chat About the 2016 BottleRock Napa Music Festival
The sold-out BottleRock Napa Music Festival is now in its fourth year, and it’s going stronger than ever. Held over three days in beautiful Napa, CA, in the heart of California’s wine country, the event featured more than 80 bands including Stevie Wonder, Florence + The Machine, Lenny Kravitz, Buddy Guy, Ziggy Marley and others.
PLSN spoke with LD Scott Holthaus, LD for Day Three headliners Red Hot Chili Peppers. We also checked in with others supporting their show, including Van Jarvis of CT Touring, which handled RHCP’s video. Also included in the discussion of this festival are members of the event’s production team — George Edwards, Dave Hare and Joe DiCarlo of Delicate Productions, and John Brown of Brown United, which handled the staging of the main stage.
As Day Three headliners, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ support crew faced an extremely limited time slot for load in.
“You have to wait until Day Two headliners get their show out and then race to beat doors. As well as dealing with the turnaround, there are labor issues, but basically, you get between 3 a.m. and noon to be up and out. I know having the big circle trusses with video walls might have been a bummer for some involved, but my production manager Narci Martinez took a serious interest in pre-packaging our mother grid rigging. Having “Wickley Worldwide” fabricate special motor chain standoffs for captive motors, to allow for less-than-precise rigging, let us align the circle trusses and video wall quickly — with limited fist fighting. Delicate handled everything great. George [Edwards] and his guys pulled it all off smoothly!”
Scott Holthaus, Lighting Designer/Director, Red Hot Chili Peppers
The band plans on just doing a dozen or so shows with this rig while a design is being done for their arena tour for shows strung out around the globe.
“PGP [Premier Global Production] went overboard helping us in many ways. From building custom circle trusses to procuring all of the bells and whistles I could dream up. They are doing an excellent job. There is a lot of sub hire because of transport / timing… so they are not getting rich off us but they are still supporting us 101 percent.
“I really like to see sources and not a bunch of light beams from overhead straight trusses. The vertical circles put the whole show pointing at the audience. Being restricted from using smoke makes it mandatory to see the light source. The circles also add a bit more interest in marquee chases.”
Working with Holthaus is Leif Dixon, who also assisted in programming, video content and as video media server, and as the band’s video director is George Elizondo.
“Leif and I now have nonverbal communication, and programming goes pretty efficiently. Even though Leif was dropped on his head as a baby, he has authority to tell me if an idea is not so great… This project was limited in content budget and time, so we asked Brainbow, handling video content to go a little differently. The circles mandated the content, that’s for sure. Brainbow created simple shaped animation loops [where] we could alter each layer and get interest in powerful simple circular shapes. George [Elizondo] is awesome, we were so excited to hear that the recent charges against him were dropped for lack of evidence and he could join us on this project. I don’t have to think about cameras. George and Scotty [Lutton, video crew chief] can do this in their sleep. Now that we have the HD cameras in the PRG Ground Control side spots, we are excited to explore what George can dream up utilizing the eight new inputs.
“This is a tough show to set up. Hanging giant circles takes up the entire stage, and then we have to Iwo Jima style drag them up to trim on dollies. Thanks to everyone for hanging in there… I knew it would suck, but I was only thinking of myself (laughs)… and it does look pretty cool.
“One note that I feel needs to be addressed. Say you are lighting a festival band during the day, and it is bright sun… so you try to do your nighttime show by putting too much smoke and dark color ballyhoos. Please remember, anyone who uses color in the daylight… I can’t be their friend.”
George Edwards, GM/Account Manager, Delicate Productions
Over the last four years of BottleRock Napa, the Delicate Productions team has included George Edwards, Javier Alcaraz (project manager) and Andy Turner (onsite audio head), supported by Greg Black and Bryan Bazilsky. Dave Hare (onsite lighting head) is supported by Mark Jones and Joe DiCarlo. Craig Leibowitz (onsite video head) is supported by Mike Borton and Richard Galvez.
“The labor coordination of the festival has been handled by Juliana Stern and Alex Plumb. Usually several weeks after the festival, I set down with the promoters and have a postmortem. Then we talk about what we can do to make the patrons experience just that much better. Once we have agreed on what that would be, I get back to the team and we draw it up and build a quote for the promoters to start to work with. Once we get approval on the quote, generally around November or December, we get to work on building the team back up and all of the details to ensure another successful event.”
Dave Hare, Delicate Productions
“Integrating headliners lighting rigs in to the festival plot was not a problem, as Delicate supplied outstanding gear with the [Martin] MAC Vipers, [Clay Paky] Sharpy Wash 330 and [Vari*Lite] VL3500 Washes. Stevie Wonder, the Day One headliner, did not carry any traveling lighting production and had a spectacular show with the Delicate festival rig. Florence + The Machine, the Day Two headliner, brought a floor package and used the festival rig for complementing their show. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had a self-contained lighting rig for their portion of the festival, and we gridded most of the festival rig, as their show was really large.
“Joe DiCarlo took care of overlaying the RHCP rigging plot on top of the festival plot. As the RHCP did not load in until day of show, this helped out tremendously with being able to start loading in production ASAP without waiting on motors to get in the air.”
Joe DiCarlo, Delicate Productions
“Dealing with the RHCP was a breeze and a pleasure. Their production forwarded me their lighting/video plot to overlay onto ours. We went back and forth a few times to get everything right and make the needed adjustments. In the end, it was a huge success and great show.”
Van Jarvis, Colonel Tom Touring (RHCP Video Supplier)
Colonel Tom Touring supplied the video support for the two headliners at BottleRock 2016, Florence + the Machine and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
“The Night Three headliners were the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This was only the second stop on the RHCP 2016 Festival Tour designed by Scott [Holthaus]. We used 284 custom LED Viper 7mm tiles for his design, consisting of four circles and a main screen, mid-stage arch. Delicate provided the house side screens. We are carrying this festival configuration worldwide through August.”
John Brown, CEO, Brown United
Brown United has been providing the BottleRock Main stage and roofing all four years of the festival. Simon Franklyn is the Brown United General who delivers a world-class product.
“Since year two, with new partners taking over BottleRock, we’ve been treated with nothing but respect, and they do an extraordinary job taking care of every detail. So we just want to thank them and the production staff for their loyalty and support.”
Red Hot Chili Peppers at the BottleRock Napa Festival
Crew
BottleRock Production Companies:
- Lighting, Video, Audio: Delicate Productions/Smoother Smyth
- Staging: Brown United/John Brown
RHCP Crew:
- Lighting Designer & Director: Scott Holthaus
- Lighting Programmers: Leif “the Don” Dixon, Bobby Brooks
- Set Designer/Spiritual Advisor: Scott Holthaus
- Lighting Crew Chief: Matt Wyman
- Lighting Techs: Robyn Cort Lawrence, Ryan Sclavi, Leith Duvall, Corrina “Blue” Johnston
- Tour Manager: Gage Freeman
- Production Manager: Narci Martinez
- Video Director: George Elizondo
- Video Content: Scott Holthaus, Leif Dixon, Brainbow
- Video Media Server: Leif Dixon
- Video Crew Chief: Scott “Kapakahi” Lutton
- Video Techs: Roy Fountain, engineer Phil Evans, Cliff Hannon, Tyler Raphalian
- Rigger: Gabe Wood
- RHCP Lighting Co: Premier Global Production
- PGP Rep: James Vollhoffer
- RHCP Video Co: Colonel Tom Touring
- Colonel Tom Touring Rep: Van Jarvis
- Staging/Sets: Brown United, Tait Towers
- Delicate Productions Crew:
- Account Executive: George Edwards
- Project Manager: Javier Alcaraz
- Lighting Head: Dave Hare
- Lighting Department Heads: Mark Jones (SF), Joe DiCarlo (LA)
- Lighting Techs: Jason White, Marshall Cooper
- Video Head: Craig Leibowitz
- Video Department Heads: Mike Borton (SF), Richard Galvez (LA)
- Video Director: Phil Keller
- Video Engineers: Oliver Camarena, Sergio Galvez
- Video Utility: Kelly Newman
- LED Tech: Pat Dolan
- Production Manager: Seth Goldstein
- Master Electrician: Ryan Torok
- Dimmer Tech: Mary Wistrom
- Stage Tech: Matthew Fox
Gear
Main Stage:
- 2 grandMA2 Full consoles
- 20 Vari*Lite VL3500 Washes
- 6 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots
- 14 Martin MAC Vipers
- 6 Martin MAC 2000 Profiles
- 18 Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330s
- 14 SunStrip Active fixtures
- 16 Martin Atomic strobes
- 5 8 Light Blinders
- 4 Haze Base BaseHazers
- 4 Martin Jem ZR44 foggers
RHCP’s Show:
- 2 grandMA2 consoles
- 39 Clay Paky B-Eye wash lights
- 44 Solaris Flare Strobes
- 71 GLP X4 Wash Lights
- 8 PRG GroundControl followspot systems
- Catalyst SAMSC media servers
More photos of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ performance at the 2016 BottleRock Napa Music Festival by Steve Jennings:
{gallery}16/07/bottlerock-RHCP{/gallery}
