Colombian singer and songwriter Karol G, has among her many accolades—a 2018 Latin Grammy Award for Best New Artist, in 2019 the music video of her single “China” had over one billion views on YouTube, and her song “Tusa” charted internationally and was certified 28 times Latin Platinum on the Billboard charts for 25 weeks. PLSN spoke with the tour design team—Creative Director and Show Designer Travis Shirley of Blank Wall Creative, Lighting Designer/Programmer Chris Smith, and Lighting Director Ryan King.
Travis Shirley
Creative Director & Show Designer
Creative Director and Show Designer Travis Shirley, of Blank Wall Creative, says working with Karol and the team was an absolute delight, and one of his favorite projects recently to be part of. “I had the opportunity of producing Karol’s Coachella Festival performance last year, so it was a natural transition leading into the $trip Love Tour. While some of my past business dealings and experiences do give me the understanding on how certain tours work, I really do look at each project as a blank wall and try to manifest a production in the direction that will work best for that given show. As with most projects I have the chance to work on, there’s some narrative or specific album artwork that we’re pulling inspiration from. Karol’s $trip Love Tour was no exception. While $trip Love doesn’t represent a specific album or even single, it is intended to highlight a sultry side of Karol and showcase the PG13 meets R version of the otherwise sweet, fun-loving artist.”
The overall stage design was pulled from a fan-favorite tattoo of a barbwire heart that Karol has, notes Shirley. “Of course, there’s some back story to the tattoo, and it seemed to offer a unique and intentional stage layout all while keeping it true to the artist and the goals of this tour. There were definitely a few items and gags that didn’t come to fruition, but rather by design choice than anything else. In my opinion, there’s a very fine line of using gags and special effects in a show. We laid out the setlist and looked at the proposed concepts for each song and put very intentional thought into how to properly structure the show in a way where you can smile, cry, laugh, and experience a wave of emotions throughout the performance.”
Shirley says, “you’re only as good as your team, and my oh my, do I have a great one! Chris Smith and I have been fortunate enough to work together on several past tours I’ve produced. Pentatonix, Bad Bunny, Sam Hunt, etc. Chris has a unique ability of being a hotshot programmer yet keeping cue structure and content classy and true to form. During rehearsals, I’m spread somewhat thin working with the artist, dealing with production, and so on, so Chris keeps things rolling on the consoles, so we have some base to work from. Of course, as the show progresses, we find ourselves adjusting and fine-tuning, as you’d expect. But Chris has laid a wonderful bed of cue structure and information. Ryan King is a rising star who has done an outstanding job on this tour. I met Ryan at a Bad Bunny one-off last year and knew right away that he has what it takes to rise in this industry; I’m very excited he’s part of the team and look forward to seeing his career skyrocket in the coming years.”
“When you have a Production Manager like Omar Abderrahman on the team, I mean what can you say about Omar? B-A-D-A-S-S is one word that comes to mind. Omar and I have worked together throughout the years on a few different projects, most notably Jennifer Lopez. I have always remained in contact and we have become good friends. As I was putting this tour together, I knew we would need a production manager who had experience not only with a show this size, but a production manager who understands the process that will undoubtedly happen. Things change, things go away, and then come back; it’s easy to lose your cool when under the immense pressures of managing the show and crew, but Omar has always been such a cool breath of fresh air and has always been helpful and adaptable with myself and the artists he works with.”
Shirley says the vendors he worked with on this tour are no exception to this. “I have wonderful relationships with all of our vendors and, yes, while they are there to provide the gear and support of the design, the relationships and service is what keeps us coming back. Big kudos to Robert Roth at Christie Lites. He’s not only a great friend, but he has done it all and can offer the team solutions and answers on whatever might arise. Same goes to Nick and Danny O’Bryen at Screenworks, Aaron Siebert at TAIT, David Mendoza at ShowFX, Dan Brown at Pink Sparrow, etc. Without our vendors and crew, none of this would be possible. Myself, as well as the entire management party are forever grateful for the hard work these fine folks put in each day.”
Chris Smith
Lighting Designer & Programmer
Lighting Designer/Programmer Chris Smith and Shirley handled Karol G’s Coachella Festival show in April, and Smith says it was pretty clear that her team wanted them back to do her arena tour in the Fall. “Travis had some great renderings done early and the artist loved them, so we knew what we were walking into for the most part. Even so, there were a lot of moving parts in this production, and I knew it was going to be a big challenge pulling them all together during the rehearsal process. Between the flying Ferrari, flying artist, flaming stage, flying and flaming scenery, moving stripper poles, magic stairs, etc., there was automation, pyro, or scenic moves on almost every song that required a lot of precise timing that, as we always know, don’t come together until the last minute.”
“Luckily for us, Production Manager extraordinaire Omar Abderrahman didn’t bat an eye at anything and found a way to accommodate pretty much everything Travis had envisioned. He really helped us squeeze every little bit out of what was already an ambitious and multifaceted show. Omar got us a good chunk of time for production rehearsals, which was completely invaluable. However, a lot of the automated scenery and other special effects were not able to be implemented and/or rehearsed until late in the rehearsal process, which gave us a huge time crunch to stitch things together all at the end. We had the time to make some great individual pieces, it was pulling them together to make a seamless show at the end that was the really difficult part.”
Smith notes Karol G was very involved with the look of the show. “Travis and I basically offered up our ideas for the songs and flow of the show and Karol would build off of that and make suggestions and changes as she saw fit. Travis always does a great job of working with the artist and this time was no different. I think we had about 26 songs by the end of it. The lighting and video were about 80% timecode, so just enough manual action to keep [Lighting Director] Ryan [King] busy all night long. The automation was not on timecode, though, which caused us to turn to live motion tracking for some of the flying gags, especially the Ferrari. I’m really happy with how well that worked with 40 fixtures following it seamlessly. If we had timecoded that and she flew 5 seconds too late or early, it would have looked terrible.”
“I really can’t say enough about how well the touring crew did with this show. This would be an ambitious project in normal times, but in the post-pandemic landscape that we live in today it was downright brutal. Between large portions of local crews calling off sick, trouble keeping a full complement of working buses, trouble finding replacement gear that should be easily found, this was touring on hard mode. I was truly impressed with everyone from the production teams of audio, lighting, video, automation, SFX, carpenters, and dancers. My congratulations to them for pulling off this show every night regardless of what challenges they faced that day.”
Ryan King
Lighting Director
Lighting Director Ryan King began working with Travis Shirley in December of 2021 on Bad Bunny’s P FKN R concerts in Puerto Rico providing console and network support. “I’ve since worked with both Travis and Chris Smith in July of this year to get the Bad Bunny World’s Hottest Tour on the road in a similar role. I hadn’t worked with Chris but for a couple of weeks before diving into programming for Karol G. However, in that time I gained a good understanding of the way Chris likes to program and how Travis wants the show to look.”
King says it was nothing new to be dealing with Martin MAC Axioms, Viper Performances, and GLP JDC1 lighting fixtures. “Out of all the fixtures in the rig I’m the most impressed with the [Martin] MAC Ultra Performances. We use them in a versatile way for both key and effect lighting. They have plenty of horsepower to cut through with big aerials and their color depth is clear to see when used in a key light role. Additionally, as a young programmer, working with the ETC Cyberlight LED was something completely new to me. They added a great look to the show. The single point source mirror is really fast, and the colors are rich. The position focus each day was a bit of a challenge, but once it was dialed in, the positions were sharp and consistent.”
Karol G had some requests throughout the tour, notes King, such as blocking changes and wanting a blackout to last longer or even in one case redoing the intro to a number. “We also had a good deal of guest artists throughout the tour as well, so it became pretty common to throw together some cues for the songs the guests would be adding to the set list that night. The odds seemed stacked against us logistically at times on this one. Yet city after city, the guys got the rig in the air. I’d like to say thanks to each member of the crew for busting ass and getting things looking good each day. Getting this rig in the air required a good bit of coordination and teamwork between departments. Hats off to all the people from Christie, Screenworks, TAIT, Clair, All Access, and all the rest of the Karol G crew for making this show happen flawlessly each night.”
Production Team
- Creative Director & Show Designer: Travis Shirley
- Lighting Designer & Programmer: Chris Smith
- Lighting Director: Ryan King
- Lighting Crew Chief: Brandon Leadham
- Lighting Techs: Ryan Morris, Jarret Borodenko, Megan Moelhman, Collin Frye, Sam Raphael, Ryan Demarco, Reese Mixion, Kane Tinajero
- Video Director: Chris Jones
- Video Programmers: Jean-Luc Williams, Jordan Bradley
- Video/LED Crew Chief: Greg “Grit” Fredrick
- Video Engineer: Kevin Williams
- Video/LED Techs: Matt Lindstrom, Kim Lindstrom, Tim Cerola, Clay Sprankle, Jake Richmond, Hugo Zarate Salazar
- Tour Manager: Ana Rodriguez
- Production Manager: Omar Abderrahman
- Production Coordinators: Gala Santos, Courtney Christian
- Road Managers: Andres Delgado, Alexandra Frittela
- Stage Managers: Alejandro “ADO” Arias, Rafael Monsalve, Chris Malta
- TAIT Crew Chief: Robin Henry
- Automation Operator: Jeff Junsford
- Automation Techs: Timothy Italiano, Tim McCarthy, Michele Fields, Zachary Sands
- Pyro Tech: Travis Fedytnyk
- Laser Tech: Jason Barton-Gillman
- Carpenters: Joe Rogers, Baylor Masincupp, Sergio Hernandez, Gunner Christensen, Richie SegoViano, Danny Villarriel, Rod Vanegmond, Jake Vanegmond
- Riggers: Chernel Lamaine, Chris Gooden, Kenneth Ramseur, Tyler Jacobs, Jerry Sierra
- Pixmob: Guillaume Chalifour, Bethany Watson
- Edgelight: Kala Dietz
Vendors
- Lighting: Christie Lites/Rep. Robert Roth
- Video/LED: Screenworks/Rep. Randy Mayer
- Video Content Creation: Sturdy Co.
- Staging/Set: All Access
- Automation: TAIT
- Pyro & Lasers: JDL FX
- Flying Props: ShowFX, Inc.
- Stage Props: Pink Sparrow
- Trucking: Upstaging
Gear
Lighting
- 2 MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size (MA2) Console
- 36 ETC Cyberlight LED
- 100 Martin MAC Axiom Hybrid
- 54 Martin MAC Ultra Performance
- 42 Martin MAC Viper Performance
- 60 GLP JDC-1 Hybrid Strobe
- 28 GLP impression X4 Bar 20
- 4 GLP impression X4 Bar 10
- 23 Elation Proteus Rayzor Blade L
- 8 Robe BMFL WashBeam
- 332 Edgelight RGB Pixel
- 2 MDG Max 5000 APS Hazer
- 4 Reel EFX DF-50 Hazer
Video
- ROE Visual CB8 8mm LED Video Panel
- ROE Visual CB5 5mm LED Video Panel
- NovaStar Processing (CB8)
- Brompton Technology Processing (CB5)
- Outer LED Wall 520 x 1,560 Pixels
- Inner LED Columns 360 x 1,040 Pixels
