The Country Artist Kicks Off an Epic Weekend of Music and Sports at Bristol Motor Speedway
Kenny Chesney’s 2016 “Spread the Love” tour officially ended the last week of August as this country artist normally does, with a couple of sold out shows at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA. The “No Shoes Nation” showed up in full force for a six-hour show that lasted late, bypassing the curfew that was extended by the local authorities to allow the artist all the time he wanted to perform.
The Tailgate Party
While the tour may have ended, the show must go on, at least for a week or two. The artist agreed to do one more show on Sept. 9 before an audience of around 45,000, the night before a record crowd of 156,990 would gather to attend the Battle of Bristol, a college-football matchup between the University of Tennessee Volunteers and the Virginia Tech Hokies. (That crowd easily topped the previous record audience for a college football game – a Sept. 7, 2013 game at the University of Michigan where a crowd of 115,109 saw the Wolverines defeat the team from Notre Dame.)
The non-conference Battle of Bristol matchup between UT Knoxville and VT was a game first proposed by speedway owner Bruton Smith back in 2005. Along with its ability to accommodate the population of a medium-sized city, the track happened to be located 125 miles from VT and 110 miles from UT. The temporary football field was installed in the middle of the speedway’s half-mile oval track. Between the field and the grandstands, a Premier Global Productions stage was constructed to allow for Chesney’s full production to be erected, but not without a few modifications.
Longtime production designer Mike Swinford designed this year’s tour, while lighting director Phil Ealy drove the light desk for his third stint with the artist. PLSN caught up with Mike to talk about the design and obstacles that needed to be overcome for this concert, where Tennessee native Chesney performed with supporting acts The Band Perry and Nashville-based Old Dominion to kick off an epic weekend of sports and entertainment.
“This year, we still had a show large enough to fill a stadium, but we knew we needed to change the look up,” Swinford says. “In 2015, we had a large, landscape-shaped center video wall with two more large LED walls flanking either side to make for an almost seamless wall that was just enormous. Kenny loves the video aspect, so it was a good call. This year, we changed it up. We still have a large center wall and the two outside portrait screens for the stadium shows.” Screenworks looks after all of the video needs on Kenny’s stage.
This gave Swinford a lot of room for side lighting and getting big scenes from banks of lights, for a distinctively different look from last year. But taking the tour from its usual surroundings and cramming the gear into what is essentially a one-off performance does present some obstacles. So while Ealy was off running the tour, Swinford was home in the office overcoming obstacles with Ed Wannebo that “while not overbearing, still needed to be considered and configured for a different stage.” The stage for this show needed to be torn down, along with all of Chesney’s touring equipment from Nashville-based Morris, overnight.
The stage is facing one side of the grandstands and is erected between the playing field and the track. Audience members were allowed on the track itself, in an area that promoters call The Sand Bar. A thrust shot straight out so the artist could get up close with the fans in the stands. Normally, Stageco provides the stage and roof elements for Chesney’s show, but this event is separate. They have different corporate sponsors, different scenarios and, of course, a smaller stage. The tour’s production manager, Ed Wannebo, worked with Swinford on adapting the normal show.
Swinford explains some of the necessary changes in production to facilitate this event. “We normally have 60 feet of trim on our roof, and we eat up every inch of that. For this show, we lost 10 feet of that. We travel with a large video header, that we like to keep above the tiered lighting trusses. Above that header was a scrim border that proclaimed ‘Welcome to No Shoes Nation’. We needed to have a new scrim made that wasn’t as tall, so we could cheat the video header up. Another issue concerning scrims were the ones masking the P.A. [on] either side of stage. We normally have our tour sponsors, such as Corona, displayed prominently of the painted scrims. But this actual event was sponsored by other companies.” The plan for a solution was to fabricate new sets of side scrims, one set for the Football event and their sponsors and another for Kenny.
“I tell you, if you ever need a great company to make scrims for your show, you ought to check out Britten Studios up in Michigan,” says the designer. They custom build the soft goods Chesney requires and were able to print the new ones out easily. “Ed Wannebo came up with a clever system of cables that could quickly lower the event’s scrims and replace them with Kenny’s, just prior to his performance,” he adds.
The stage width was another obstacle to be reckoned with, since the touring production carried a 78-foot-wide custom Austrian drape. “We were short about six feet of width as well on this stage. There is no way it would be affordable to remake or configure the Austrian to a smaller sized truss for a one-off. We ended up moving it several feet upstage so it lives upstage of the two vertical roof support trusses. I got together with Jimmy Vaughan, the tour rigger, to figure out how we could get all the side lights rigged to work for this particular show.”
Morris once again provided all the audio gear along with lighting for the Chesney portion of the show. “Despite the challenges, we jumped at the chance to be a part of this historic college football and entertainment event,” says Morris president David Haskell. “Thanks to our talented team, we were able to quickly adapt to the show specs in order to ensure the audience gets the most immersive and exciting production experience possible in this unique venue. We could not ask for a better way to kick off fall.”
Production for the Game
Along with the Tailgate Party featuring Kenny Chesney and sponsored by Honda, some pretty spectacular feats were accomplished for this event. Only one day after Kevin Harvick claimed a NASCAR victory at Bristol Motor Speedway, the venue started preparing for the big game, the first time football has been played at this location since 1961.
Placing a temporary football field to proper spec is no easy job, either, and the working crew had just 19 days to transform the speedway into a football field. Hundreds of people spent the day laying rocks and sand on the asphalt that the cars drive on for a game so popular that general admission tickets sold out quickly. It took four days for a team from Sports Construction Management to lay the padding and grass field in place. Requiring some 450 dump trucks full of gravel to elevate the playing field an additional three feet was just one of the obstacles.
Once the gravel and sand were in place for the base of the field, the artificial playing surface was added. After that, custom painters were brought on site. UT and VT logos were painted in their respective end zones, and the midfield logo was the final touch. Two buildings on site had to be converted into working locker rooms, and risers for another 5,000 temporary premium seats were installed as well.
A modern-day miracle of video was accomplished as a decision was made to put a giant four-sided LED screen above the playing field with no interference to sightlines by the support system holding the video screens aloft. A team devised of people from digiLED, GoVision and Panasonic erected what became known as the Colossus, a large video cube over the center of the field. The cube, which flew some 200 feet above the playing field, was suspended from truss held in place by four steel cables mounted to purpose-built towers located outside the stadium. The cube’s screens measured 30 by 63 feet (HxW) and comprised 240 digiLED Toura6 6mm LED tiles per side. These tiles were chosen because the video displays were required for HD and 4k broadcast purposes.
The LED was to be used in full sunlight as well as darkness for this game. The team needed to produce the same precision quality when the sun went down. To avoid problems with gray scale degradation at night, the team from digiLED turned to Macroblock for a solution. They provided the MBI 5041 LED display drivers for the event. This product enhances the pulse width modulation, increasing the refresh rate and allowing for various degrees of brightness calibration. The techs could adjust the screens during the nighttime transition to look as stellar as possible for the entire event.
During the game, Panasonic took charge of the event’s Colossus TV Show, which included the direction of a 35-plus-person team for a seamless execution of on-field, video production, bands and fan engagement activities. Panasonic oversaw the complete clock and statistical data paths and acted as a liaison between Bristol Motor Speedway and ABC/ESPN TV, ensuring that all broadcast requirements and needs were met. Panasonic Xperiences, the digital networks content and service team associated within the Panasonic Sensory Solutions group, provided a full suite of production and control room services, including cutting-edge, high-definition content, dynamic imaging technology, custom animations, live game day support, event management and broadcast support.
“We are honored to have the opportunity to develop and support this historic event,” said Michael Rocha, director of content services, Panasonic Xperiences, shortly before the game. “The largest college football game deserves the best technology to create the ultimate fan experience. Bristol is the perfect place for this, as they are continuing to be pioneers in the sporting world, and we are thrilled to be their partner.”
