“Sam Hunt is one of those artists who is on the cusp of country music,” says production designer Travis Shirley, “But he can rock any crowd and appeal to many. When we first started doing shows six weeks ago, it was like reinventing our stage look from five years ago, when I started out with this act.”
Shirley elaborates, “Country acts seem to follow a popular formula that goes along with the album cycles. They may spend one year booked on their own headline tour supporting their newer songs. Then the next year (they’re off year), they’ll fill up their calendar filling slots at festivals, playing casinos, and state fairs.” 2021 seems to be the off year for many as everyone tests the waters.
Southside Summer to Covid Bummer
The artist was scheduled to play a large tour, to be called “Southside Summer,” when Covid shut it down. Shirley had designed a big rig and gotten it all ready to go before that design went in the trash bin along with his vision of what was to be. So when the artist called this year with a new edict — less crew, less trucks, but still give us a great production — Travis went to work to “basically, build a big-looking show, but stay within logistic parameters.”
Back up to 2019, when Sam Hunt found himself as the opening act on Luke Bryan’s stadium tour. Travis had come up with a floor package that was quite sizeable, yet able to erect as well as load out quickly. This production featured its own floor lighting, a rig that many LD’s would be jealous of, and was not dependent on anyone else’s lights for much of the visual effects other than a wash. They sought their own individual look and got it. Much of that same mindset is in use this year as the festivals and other venues will have their own rigs to complement Hunt’s.
“You know, people have this misconception that I only design the bigger productions, but to be honest I sometimes find it more fulfilling and hard work to make something look great without a whole lot of elements.” So in the pursuit of a new design without having to spend money fabricating something new, he started asking around from some friends about what kind of set carts were already sitting unused in town.
“Some friends out at Screenworks mentioned these crank-up video carts that Miranda Lambert had made by Gallagher Staging a few tours ago. She used five of these set carts to build one big wall behind her set. I thought to myself, ‘How can I incorporate these into a totally different look, while avoiding construction costs for these summer shows?’
Lighting, Video and Staging for 2021
“Lots of venues will have big video walls upstage. But we didn’t want Sam in front of this two dimensional giant wall,” Shirley adds. To make things look different, Travis staggered the video carts a few feet apart as well as up and down stage. When cranked to full, the carts are eight feet wide by 16 feet tall and full of ROE CB8 video panels that offer some transparency. He separated/framed the carts with GLP X4 Bar 20 and 10 fixtures that ran vertically up the sides of the carts, once they were modified with some extra pipe from Gallagher Staging. He has 61 of these GLP fixtures incorporated into his rig.
“I’ve always been more of a fan of sidelight than front light, especially when I have a main star but need to wash the band as well. For that purpose, I added some vertical standalone trusses on both sides of the stage that give the stage a wraparound look — and give me more side light.” Shirley also places five Claypaky Sharpy wash fixtures on the floor on both sides of stage. Lining the downstage edge is another row of X4 Bars, utilized as footlights as well as outward-facing sheets of uplight.
“We knew going into this string of shows that we needed to keep the cues simple and easy to clone with local lighting systems. We knew there would always be strobes or extra lines of X4 Bars in the local rigs, so we wrote cues knowing we could easily clone these outboard items into our show. A lot of the cool pixelated effects I may have normally had in a touring fixture like the [Claypaky] B-Eye were left alone this time around, so my director could adapt to anyone else’s house system quickly. But all along, the whole idea was that we could do the show with just the production we are carrying — and that’s the big point.”
To ensure that his band can be properly lit, he’s added a few Robe fixtures. One of the reasons he spec’d the ROE Visual CB8 product was, “I love the look of a bunch of Robe BMFL WashBeams blowing beams through from the rear. The punch I get and the ability to break up the beam are killer. But what I really enjoy is the Robe FollowSpot system I have out with us that we hang from the from truss.” This is some pertinent gear to his show, as Travis prefers to use them. “You know how inconsistent spots and front light are on this circuit. I like to use the BMLF follow spots more like a down light than a blinding front spot.” The tour is carrying four of these, and Shirley does add local front spots for fill, but usually runs them around 20 percent on this artist.
The need to be able to set up and tear down the gear in under an hour is important, as many of these gigs the act is playing have shows the previous night and they’re not able to load in early. “PGP is out here as my vendor for that reason — I wanted a slick system that could go together with few techs and no daily lighting issues. We come in and do our own thing, not dependent on any other production if need be.”
Big Looks on a Budget
Steven “Creech” Anderson, the longtime account rep from Premier Global Productions (PGP), has been looking after this act for the last four years. “Premier Global Production Company’s history with Sam Hunt started in 2017 on the 15 in a 30 tour. Our company was also the lighting vendor in 2019 on the tour with Luke Bryant where Sam was direct support, which had crank-up towers for lighting manufactured by Gallagher. These towers were populated with X4 Bar 20s and JDC1 strobes. After Covid hit, [production manager] Nate Smith approached myself and Premier Global to provide the current touring system.” Nate was able to secure the carts they are presently using from Miranda Lambert’s old touring equipment. Gallagher was able to make a quick modification that would allow for the use of X4 Bar 20s that line the video screens that are mounted on the carts. “Due to the return after Covid, there was a need to keep budget costs down, and Nate did a great job sorting through it all. The modification to the Miranda Carts was minimal, and that was fortunate, as Nashville has had a mad crush of work that hit post-Covid.”
Programming rehearsals were done at the PGP rehearsal facility in Madison, TN, and the tour then loaded into the large room for live rehearsals at Sound Check in Nashville. Behind the console, directing the lighting, is Kyle Lovan. Travis notes that Kyle “was my director on some Pentatonix tours I designed, and it was time to take him to the next level. The tour needed a working LD to keep the crew costs down, and he was the perfect fit. He looks after the media servers as well.”
Shirley notes that, alongside production manager Nate Smith, tour manager John “JW” Worthington is on the road taking this thing by the horns. “Nate and I, as well as JW, have a wonderful working and personal relationship,” Travis says. “Nate and I have done several Sam tours as well as an arena run with Pentatonix in 2019. Nate is one of those PM’s where you just know it’s going to get done correctly every time.” Nate and tour manager JW have also had a long history of working together, including a Covid vaccine site earlier this year before the Hunt dates became a reality. Shirley credits both of them along with lighting director Kyle Lovan for keeping this thing rolling.
Besides the lights, Shirley carries some special effects such as confetti and CO2 blasts. “We wanted some elements that gave us the ‘Big Show’ moments,” Travis explains. “We didn’t want to be like everyone else pulling up to a festival stage. We just want to come in and do our thing in a short amount of time, and we end up looking different than everyone else on the bill.”
Wrapping up, Shirley says that “we get a lot of bang for our buck out of this rig. I had to think more aggressively about time for setup and how to quickly look different from everyone else. I was forced to think differently than my normal design process. I think we succeeded in what we set out to do.”
Sam Hunt 2021 Tour
Crew
- Lighting Co: Premier Global Production
- Production Designer: Travis Shirley
- Lighting Director: Kyle Lovan
- Lighting Tech: Jason Lanning
- LED Tech: Gil Martin
- Playback Engineer: Mitch Schnieder
- PGP Account Manager: Steven “Creech” Anderson
- Video Co: Screenworks
- Screenworks Account Manager: Randy Mayer
- Staging Co: Gallagher Staging
- Tour Manager: John Worthington
- Production Manager: Nate Smith
- Production Coordinator: Stephanie Navarro
- Special FX Tech: Nate Jenkins
- FOH Engineer: Phil Bledsoe
- Monitor Engineer: Jared Green
- Audio Crew Chief: Justin Sumrall
- Backline Techs: Kiyoshi Muto, Craig Eck, Matt Ensley
Gear
Lighting:
- 1 grandMA2 console
- 1 grandMA2 Light console
- 2 grandMA2 NPUs
- 61 GLP X4 Bar 20’s
- 10 Claypaky Sharpy Washes
- 9 Robe BMFL WashBeams
- 4 12’ x 12” Truss w/carts
- 4 Rolling Bases
- 4 HES F100 foggers
- 4 Pro fans
- 3 48-way 208V distribution racks
- 1 16-way intercom system
Video:
- 5 ROE CB-8 8mm LED screens (16’ x 8’ HxW, in custom self-rising carts
- 2 Media servers
