Lainey Wilson is the reigning Country Music Award’s “Female Vocalist of the Year” and “New Artist of The Year” and ACM’s “New Female Artist of the Year.” She is known for her signature Bell Bottom Country aesthetic, blending traditional Country with a retro hippie flair that is, at the same time, refreshingly unique. In addition to playing a featured set at this year’s Stagecoach Festival, Wilson has been opening for Luke Combs and Eric Church, touring with Hardy, as well as playing numerous festival dates. In the midst of her packed schedule, on July 29, Wilson kicked off her first headlining arena tour at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. Supporting Wilson’s tour with lighting and video is Nashville, TN-based Production Technology Partners, LLC, (PTP Live). PLSN caught up with Wilson’s Lighting Designer/Director, Mitch Mueller of MAAR Productions and Video Designer/Screens Producer, Olivia Sebesky of Olivia Sebesky Design about working with this high-energy rising star as she sets out to expand her touring presence reaching her growing legends of fans.
Mueller, who started out as Lighting Director for Wilson in the Spring of 2023 and recently moved up to Lighting Designer, explaining his approach to the design, comments, “My direction was to go as hippie/psychedelic as possible, but still keeping it a rock show. The band has their arrangements; there’s a lot of flow with them and I made my lighting adapt to them, being able to go in and out of sections as they wanted or needed.” Having been a lighting tech and programmer, Mueller has worked with a lot of touring rigs and noticed that the ground package often isn’t really utilized cohesively but he designed it specifically. “This is actually the first tour I’ve designed anything from the bottom up,” he says. “I just tried to make it as punchy as possible for big—and smaller rigs—because we’re doing a bunch of clubs, a bunch of arenas. We’ve been doing stadiums with Luke Combs this past year; just kind of trying to figure out what fits and doesn’t fit.”
Creative Direction
Wilson’s Creative Director, CeCe Dawson, gave Mueller some direction on color palettes and other elements but trusts Mueller to run with the lighting design. “I’m a programmer at heart, so I love having as much input as possible,” he states. “CeCe was direct about what she wanted for the show and what they were all looking for with the design. When we did the Mohegan Sun show, Olivia Sebesky, created the content for us. I reformatted my color palettes to work with her content. CeCe played a big role in making sure the lighting and the video tied together for one big experience.” On working with Sebesky, Mueller says that it was, “Super easy to work with Olivia. Her palettes that she picked were great. Once we got that colorizing done, everything was flawless and I’m happy with the way it turned out.”
Like many LDs these days, Mueller’s console of choice is the grandMA. “It’s just been the easiest workflow for me. I really love the gear and the tech support from ACT. For our fixture choices, I love the style of the Ayrton MagicPanels in general. Same with the [CHAUVET COLORado] PXLBar 16s that we’ve got out right now. I also have the ADJ HEX Panel 32s, 10 of which are mounted in amp carts that we gutted out for a set piece. Those Hex Panels are stellar. And, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the CHAUVET Force S Spots. They’re great and punchy; super-fast.”
Mueller has been working with PTP Live for nearly four years now. “I come from a lighting tech background. I’ve always loved that small mom and pop shop mentality of working for a company but, sometimes those small shops don’t always have the support you need and expect. That is not the case with PTP. With Andrew [Sparks] and the PTP crew, I’ve been pleasantly surprised time and time again with how efficient, effective, and professional they are. Their support has been really great.”
Roots as a Musician
Last year, Mueller had considered leaving lighting and going back to his early passion of being a musician. Then he got the Lainey Wilson tour and put that plan on hold. However, yet music still plays a big part in how he operates his shows. “I’ve wanted to be a musician since I was a little kid,” he states. “It’s been my Everest. But I got started working in a lighting shop in college and just went from there. When I got offered to go out with Lainey, I decided to put that on pause because I saw the dedication that everyone in this camp has and that made me want to put my all into being a part of this tour.”
If another LD were to see the Lainey Wilson shows that Mueller has designed, the musician in him hopes that they notice his timing. “When I have an LD watch my show, I want them to remember my timing. I have a timecoded package but most of my bumps are manual triggers, and for me that was instinctual in playing the desk like an instrument instead of operating it. I do not stop moving at all during the set and I dance without shame every night playing the desk.”
Video Design
On the video side of the design, Sebesky says, “A lot of the concepts from that show at Mohegan will eventually roll into the larger tour through 2024. I attribute so much of our success to Lainey’s attention to detail and her artistic aesthetic. Plus, her management and creative directors trust me to create a style for Lainey and carry it through. They are willing to do something that is a little bit different.”
Wilson is a performer who brings a lot of energy to the stage, and that is reflected in the show. “She wanted a production—and the video behind her—that would bring an equal amount of energy,” says Sebesky. “She’s incredible and wanted to find support on stage in which she’s very much feeling like she’s on her own. The video acts as her support system to mirror what the energy is. It doesn’t have to fall all on her shoulders to make this beautiful show.” The video sets up so much of the magic of Lainey’s show and the artist herself is the inspiration, Sebesky explains. “The video supports Lainey in this beautiful structure. Her style as an artist comes from this very vintage-y, old school, tactile world. I expanded upon that and created a whole bunch of different looks that are not all the same, but they all make sense together. The story of the whole show is set up through the arc of what happens with the video and where we go emotionally and how the tone is set for the night.”
Created Content
“We have 20 unique looks in this show,” continues Sebesky. “At this point, we don’t integrate any I-Mag into the stage graphics.” There are some looks that stand out for Sebesky. “We were able to put Lainey on this platform,” she explains. “There’s two looks in the show that we have her standing on this platform; one of them is for ‘Rolling Stone’ where the animation frames her. We worked with Mitch to turn the lights off on Lainey when she’s up there, so she’s silhouetted, and we had undulating textures happening behind her. It looks so amazing. That’s where the collaboration comes in, where she can play with the video. That’s a very cool thing that I don’t get to do very often.” She adds, “Mitch is an artist in his own right with what he does with lights. He couldn’t have been more a team player in looking at the different video with me and talking about colors and tones. The lighting and video have to align, otherwise it’s not going to look like the best show it can be. He was great with that and to work with. Also, working with CeCe as Creative Director couldn’t be better; she is so smart,” Sebesky adds.
“We did all the programming in Resolume, which then got piped into the grandMA console. It was a simple cueing structure and was made possible by timecoding most of the numbers. We were able to build sections of each song that could start at the top and even run through the whole song and just create one playback. On other ones we would give ourselves some fail safes where we did an intro verse, chorus, and then back into the verse all as separate cues.” Cameras, I-Mag projection, and switching was provided by Mohegan Sun. Like the lighting, the video equipment package including the screens for the tour is being supplied by PTP Live and includes 144 LAMPRO RS3.9mm LED panels for the video screen. The LED processing are two NovaStar MCTRL4K processors. Sebesky comments, “The high res LED rental product made such a big impact. The video support was great.”
Vendor View: Andrew Sparks, President, PTP Live
Production Technology Partners, LLC, (PTP Live) is a trusted vendor supporting Wilson’s performances. PTP Live’s President Andrew Sparks is the Account Manager for this tour. “We’ve been working with Lainey since about 2018 and her manager, Mandelyn Monchick of Red Light Management, with different production elements. At PTP we really enjoy starting with artists early in their careers, especially in country music. It’s such a relationship-based industry, and we like to be able to start supporting them before they take off. We help here and there, are their support structure and continue to be there, ready to go as they go up in the industry.”
Sparks specifically notes of working with Wilson and her team, “It’s an amazing camp to work with. They’re understanding, they love new ideas; they’re everything you would ever want out of a client. It’s a partnership. Working with the creative and production team was fun. Mitch came into the office, sat down with some graph paper, and we went through our available inventory. Then we started drawing things out. We started building out the system a few days later so they could have it the following weekend. Not only were we happy to support Mitch, but also Olivia’s video design and what she needed for her vision. It is a great team effort and PTP is glad to be part of it.”
