Singer/songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, banjo, piano, harp), Maggie Rogers was a Grammy nominated Best New Artist in 2019, gained loyal fans with her song “Alaska” in 2016 and her major label debut, Heard It in a Past Life, came in at #2 on the U.S. Billboard charts in 2019.
Dan Hadley & Tess Falcone, Lighting Designers
Maggie Rogers lighting team—Designers Dan Hadley and Tess Falcone, and Lighting Director Ali “Blue” Allison, talked to us about working with the artist for The Feral Joy Tour. Hadley notes Maggie’s management reached out to him as he had designed a tour for Leon Bridges whom they also represent. Falcone adds, “Dan, Ali, and I had all been approached previously about helping out Maggie’s camp for lighting but were unable to help at the time. Dan had worked with her manager previously, so when it was time to reboot the creative for this tour, he gave a little background of Maggie and asked if we could elevate her light show.”
Emphasizing the connection between Maggie and the crowd was one of the strongest through lines in the conversation from start to finish, says Hadley. “We sometimes had differing ideas of what would foster that, and I think the combination of our experience with her understanding of her audience helped us achieve that. In regard to specific staging and lighting elements, we took an explorative journey and wound up quite close to where we’d started, but with a bit more resolve.” Falcone says Maggie’s 2022 Coachella performance had felt to her like a pinnacle in her career, but that was a daytime performance. “She wanted to take the bones of that show that shattered all her expectations for what a live show could feel like, and add some big rock looks from there. She has a really strong connection with her audience, so she wanted to accentuate that, while also delivering a hard rocking, energetic performance.”
There were a few key scenic elements that Rogers wanted to continue from the Coachella show—rugs, daisies, and amp cabinets, adds Hadley. “For lighting she loved the classic look of the Molefay blinder. We hadn’t originally incorporated the video wall, but it played such a huge role in the Coachella show that it was decided to bring it back. Unique to this show is that there is no FOH camera, just four PTZs on stage and a handheld that’s 90% operated on stage. This does lend a certain feel to the I-Mag, and when she gets her face right into the lens, the crowd goes nuts and all my worries about a distracting presence on stage is cast aside. We’re very lucky to have Dan Mardoyan directing those cameras,” Hadley continues, “and Bong Buño is excellent at minimizing his own presence on stage while getting the shots we need. We also only use the I-Mag in about 60% of the show and video content is pretty minimal, leaving room for the wall to have impact when it does come on.”
“We had a lot of back and forth with her about things in her past shows that either took her out of the moment or put her experience and emotions into overdrive,” says Falcone. “One of the things she felt really strongly about was keeping the stage feeling wistful and nostalgic. It meant that our generic color palette was thrown out the window, and in its place was a very desaturated selection.”
Falcone says it was important to get an LED profile that could carry the show without much else in the overhead rig. “Robe’s Robin Forte is a great looking light that can get a knife’s-edge sharpness out of it, to give us some really clean looks onstage.”
Hadley notes that of the vendors that were asked to bid on the tour, LMG made the choice very easy by asking for very few minor substitutions. “There were a couple items that we had to be adamant about, such as the Roxx Cluster FC units for their color and the [ROE Visual] Vanish V8 for the weight and transparency. Add to that our confidence in LMG based on our history of positive experiences building tours with Craig [Mitchell] and Kevin [Maas], and there was no hesitation.”
“Post Covid has been a different kind of world, with supply chain issues and over-saturation of the touring market, so getting past fixture availability issues was the biggest challenge,” says Falcone. “The new fixtures in this design were difficult to find (the ROXX blinders, especially) but Craig Mitchell came through for us immensely! LMG was an easy choice honestly, since they were able to provide us almost 100% of the fixtures we asked for, as well as the Vanish V8 LED panels we needed to achieve our design goals.”
On how the programming process went, Hadley mentions, “There’s a real ebb and flow to the way Tess and I program together, we try to not only play to each other’s strengths, but also switch up between the designer/programmer roles. We do this in order to stave off fatigue in either area, but also to take advantage of the spark of energy created in the switching of duties. With such long hours you can get reenergized by doing something mundane after cranking away on the creative, or vice versa. It doesn’t always work, and there are times when we’re both ebbing or both flowing and waves crash into each other, but patience and mutual respect prevents any rogue waves from completely washing out the bridge.”
Falcone had foot surgery two weeks before rehearsals, so Hadley had to do all of the in-the-room-designer work while she spent all of her time behind the console. “Once things calmed down on the build, Dan was able to join me at the desk so the bulk of the programming could begin,” comments Falcone. “However, the creative conversations put us into a bit of an unexpected time crunch. As a respected programmer in her own right, we didn’t have to worry about Ali taking the show on the road, but we also weren’t able to use her skills during rehearsals as much as we would have liked. The programming was much more than just a “this light here, that light there” process, with Maggie really wanting to nail down practically every musical cue. Dan and I programmed as fast as we could to flesh out each song, and we were fortunate to have Ali taking it out and programming the new songs that came up throughout the tour.”
Ali ‘Blue’ Allison, Lighting Director
Lighting Director and Programmer Ali “Blue” Allison first met Falcone over a decade ago when they were both finding their feet in the industry, and they have been friends ever since. But except for when Allison filled in for Falcone for a couple of weeks on a Jimmy Eat World Tour in 2019, they had not had the opportunity to work together until this Maggie Rogers tour. Allison explains, “Tess knew that I had expressed interest in being on this tour in some capacity as my husband was already a part of Maggie Rogers’ crew, so when they got the call for the design, they reached right out to me and asked if I’d like to take it on the road for them.”
Allison was partly present for the programming process, which she says was great because she liked how Hadley and Falcone work together. “I got to see how they approach the process so that I could continue it once we were on the road. A few songs got added to the mix once we left rehearsals, so I added those in once we were out on the road. Otherwise, my role was just to update each day to accommodate local production and to edit where necessary as arrangements and choreography changed.”
Allison had not used the FollowMe remote followspot system before they used it on the tour but really enjoyed having it. “It’s great when you have an artist who moves around like she does,” says Allison. “We actually had the system as our in-house followspot option at one venue, and I loved it, especially since the angle you get when you are controlling fixtures on a downstage truss means you are able to be more precise with where the light is hitting. One of my constant challenges on this tour was keeping followspots off the video wall since so many venues just do not have the proper angle to avoid it, so I relied heavily on the one we carried in moments where she was close to the wall.”
Every tour can have the usual stumbling blocks, “deck space, trim height, lack of docks had their moment on this run,” notes Allison. “In our post-Covid world, I’ve noticed that haze can be more of a challenge with many venues’ new HVAC systems. I think I will be taking more hazers and fans and running them at a lower intensity on future tours to mitigate airflow problems. We had our usual B rig, C rig, and D rig days, but Dan and Tess left me some macros to make editing the rig that much easier on those days! I absolutely loved getting to work with Dan and Tess. I learned a ton from them. Having the A team that is Mike Keidel [Tour Manager] and Shane Rawdon [Production Manager] was such a bonus as well. There were never any surprises when we walked in the door in the mornings, and I loved that.”
Production Team
- Tour Manager: Mike Keidel
- Production Manager: Shane Rawdon
- Stage Manager: Mike Kadomiya
- Lighting Designers: Dan Hadley, Tess Falcone
- Lighting Programmers: Dan Hadley, Tess Falcone, Ali “Blue” Allison
- Lighting Director: Ali “Blue” Allison
- Lighting Crew Chief: Alex Vasquez
- Video Director: Dan Mardoyan
- Video Crew Chief: Deangelo Murillo
- Handheld Camera Operator: Bong Buño
Vendors
- Lighting / Video Company: LMG / Craig Mitchell, Kevin Maas
- Staging: Gallagher Staging
- Daisy Manufacturer: Upstaging
- Trucking: Upstaging
Gear
Lighting:
- 2 MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size Console
- 14 Robe Robin Forte
- 20 Roxx Cluster B4 FC
- 18 GLP JDC Line 500
- 8 GLP JDC Line 1000
- 6 GLP JDC1 Hybrid Strobe
- 40* CHAUVET STRIKE1 Blinder
- 1 FollowMe Remote Followspot System
- 2 Radiance Hazers
Video:
- 84 ROE Vanish V8 LED Panel; LED Wall Dimensions: 25’ x 40’
- 1 Resolume Arena Media Server
*Correction:
Due to a production error, the number of CHAUVET STRIKE1 Blinders previously listed was incorrect. The correct number is 40.
