March 11, 2000 marked the birth of the phenomenon known as 311 Day. At least once every other year since then, fans of the band 311—hardcore and otherwise—have made the trek to hear their guys perform marathon sets of songs they have written to that date and then some. In 2012, the one-day marathon extended to a two-day spectacular, and just before the Covid shutdowns, the band performed three days to mark their 30-year anniversary, performing at the Park MGM Las Vegas’ Park Theater on March 11, 12 and 13, 2020.
Since that milestone event, 311 has performed special concerts every March, starting with a virtual show (due to Covid) on March 11, 2021 followed by their third set of shows at the Park MGM’s concert venue (renamed Dolby Live) on March 11-12, 2022 and, on March 8, 11 and 12 2023, aboard the Norwegian Pearl on the Caribbean Sea.
This year, on March 9 and 10, the band returned for their fourth set of 311 Day shows at the Dolby Live venue in Las Vegas. It has a 135’ x 40’ stage, and with no seat farther than 145’ from the stage, it’s designed to optimize the bond between bands and their audiences. It also includes a 64’ x 32’ 4K LED upstage screen, which Production Designer Bobby Grey of Notan Creative LLC fully embraced in his design.
Grey comments on the connection that the band has with its fans, who have returned year after year for the 311 Day shows in New Orleans and Las Vegas over the years. “I think that’s pretty impressive for any band, especially one that’s been playing with the same lineup for 34 years,” he says. For 2024, they played “86 songs in two nights with two very long sets,” he adds. “One thing about these guys, they have a lot of really obscure songs. They have quite a few hits that they played through the years, but for these special events, they reach deep in their catalog. Their fans know every word of those songs. That’s another reason we try to keep it fresh and make 311 Day really special.”
Never Repeat a Look
Grey utilized a lot of automation in the design this year, reconfiguring the rig throughout the two nights. “We had a lot of geometrical shapes to play with above the band,” he smiles. “Structure played a big part in the design this year, allowing movement and automation to enhance the special moments captured through video and light.” He is referring to the ten 20’-wide pods filled with Robe ESPRITEs. A circle truss with Robe MegaPointes and Tetra2s was flown into a very low trim creating “cool cage-like” moments around the band.
Automation of the trusses lent moments for Chad Sexton’s drum solo in addition to the video enhancement surrounding his kit. During other moments in the show, Automation Programmer, Tyler Jacobs, got very aggressive with the rake of the rig. Expanding a lesson learned from legendary Designer Nook Schoenfeld [longtime designer for 311 in the late 90s/early 2000s] of never repeating a look in the run of a show, Grey incorporates that philosophy in structure automation. “We do our best to keep it fresh over the two nights,” adds Grey. “The band trusts me enough to give me the keys to the car and just lets me drive. I think I’ve gotten about four notes from them total through the years. I have a pretty good bead on their aesthetic.”
Grey favors the Robe FORTE and Esprite because they’re such versatile profile fixtures. Grey points out, “Robe and Elation are both making fantastic fixtures that as designers we know we can rely on. We don’t have to worry about uniformity of lamps and they’re just gorgeous fixtures.” He continues, “It’s practically an all-Robe rig. Robe has been a great partner to us over the years, taking really good care of us. On top of that they make great lights that are workhorses for anything we need. We can slam into the beam looks or create gorgeous textures. Their products are so dependable and uniform. You don’t have to worry about them not being bright enough because the lamp is old, etc. We’re able to really get a lot of different looks out of them consistently.” Grey also explains however that, “We outlined all the trussing with fixtures from another favorite manufacturer of mine as well, Elation.” Grey attached Elation SIXBAR 1000s on all the trusses. The blacked-out stage showcases these movements, creating spectacular looks. The wing trusses SL and SR are loaded with Robe ESPRITEs, as the pods. A hexagon truss midstage center has Robe FORTES complemented by a circle truss of Tetra2s and MegaPointes.
Although the 311 production team has played the Dolby Live venue several times in the past, this year’s expanded rig proved a challenge in setup. With the immense house video screen upstage, weight became an issue. Extra chain hoists were added to distribute the long truss runs. The 220’ wide stage quickly filled in with trussing lighting pods and circular flown video elements. The flown rig and set come in at just under 180’ wide.
Layering the Elements
As late as 2018, 311 had not explored video as an option to their show presentation. They were carrying a low-resolution product displaying mainly pixel effects, but with no real content. The band was eager, however, to develop a video environment in their look. “I took the development of content under my scope,” says Grey. In doing that for 311, he started his own company, Notan Creative LLC, specifically to provide production design solutions for bands of various sizes that were moving into the world of carrying content and high-end technology. “Really the biggest learning curve for me was bringing video into this,” Grey admits. “I was not an experienced media server programmer back in 2017. Thankfully, Alex Parayuelos, who was the Touring Lighting Director for the band, brought me up to speed. We started building the content library and video workflow together, which has really turned into a substantial tool.”
Grey adds that 311 has “some songs that are kind of grungy rock songs where we do dirty CRT textures in the video and add traditional ACL stabbing beam looks. Others are very ethereal—jazz fusion like, with a stellar overdrive into Grateful Dead-like sounds we treat by leaning into doing cool textures and layers with the lighting and more abstract stuff with the video. I’ve sourced a myriad of clips, and I’ve made a bunch of custom content myself for the band. We can layer things with stock, bespoke clips, and live inputs. I especially like layered blending. I try to treat the server layers almost like an extra set of moving lights, and we manipulate a lot of imagery live.”
The media server for this production is Avolites’ Ai server. Grey runs everything off his own machines brought in for the event. “It enables us to take multiple live inputs from our video team and treat it live, and then we can do a lot of live effects. It also allows us to do a bunch of dynamic effects. Blocks really keep things live and keep things on a handle so we can articulate images as they happen.” With an extensive catalog of well over 200 songs now, he has about half of them timecoded, and many of them are fairly complex. “All of the hits, of course, and the regular crowd pleasers they do every night are timecoded,” he notes. “But then there’s another 100 songs they throw into the mix.” He has written a fairly elegant punt page to accommodate these surprises. When the band goes off jamming, they go off timecode. Grey needs to accommodate those jams using his punt page. “We have handles on the grandMA console where we can affect the content live and create in the moment,” explains the designer. He uses I-Mag close ups of the band members. “With those highlights, we layer the images into the content instead of just throwing a video up on the screen. 311 is a gestalt experience, so we treat video aesthetically.”
Adding in SFX
311 loves utilizing special effects for these special events. “We were thrilled to have Grant Sellers and Strictly FX, who provided the 30W lasers, and the audience scanning lasers on the pods, Blue Flame units, and HUGE Orange Wave Flame units,” notes Grey. “Grant Sellers and his team have been doing 311 Day with us since 2016 and we’re so grateful for their brilliant work.” For some of the band’s up-tempo rocking songs, there were big bursts of warm orange flame. For their jazzy-jam sessions, Strictly FX served up “cool blue flames and endless beautiful laser looks,” Grey says. “Especially beautiful were the audience scanning lasers on the moving pods. We also brought in ‘Fobbles,’ a bubble/smoke machine that filled the room with beautiful clusters of smoke filled bubbles for songs like ‘Champagne’ and ‘Hydroponic.’”
Great Support
“We really appreciate 3G,” Grey remarks. “Partnering with them as our turnkey vendor gives us the flexibility to do complex truss shapes that move in and out. We’re able to really reconfigure the rig by combining the unique shape of truss structures with our live automation during the show. The audience is not looking at the same shape all the time. That assures a fresh look every time we walk in there. Really, that’s the biggest challenge; keeping it fresh in the same building.”
Grey then warms to another subject dear to him; the stellar crew 3G Productions put on the road with them, both for tours and especially the special events like 311 Day. “They are fantastic,” he enthuses. “Eric Cruz was our Project Manager from 3G, and Eric really went through and sussed out every detail, figured out the best way to make all the rigging fit and make everything interact well. The Automation Programmer, Tyler Jacobs, is the best. Everything we threw at him, like last-minute set list changes, he just took it all in the flow. He also created some really cool looking moves. We said, ‘Show us what you can do and then we’ll pick and choose from that.’ He was super positive, super adaptable. All of the guys at 3G; I’ve never seen them without a smile on their face.”
Grey expressed his special appreciation for Dave Bellis, the band’s Production Manager, “who tirelessly goes through details. 311 is a band with a niche following. We have to make the budget a factor, and we have to make the most of it. Partnering with Dave who really makes the numbers work every year with [CEO] Keith Conrad at 3G. Then partnering with all the great folks on the crew that make it special. We have Chris Harshfield, who’s been the band’s Master Electrician a long time, there as our Project Manager to be our eyes on the stage to help get everything built. Alex Parayuelos came out as our Key Light Director for the live stream. He wrangled key light and kept all the exposures going great.”
Grey continues, “Then we have Ryan Alexander, who’s now the Lighting Director, who tirelessly keeps the show up and going every night, calling spots. It’s a lot of complex songs to call spots, and he did a great job. So just coming together as a team, it’s almost like conducting a symphony with a lot of moving parts, a lot of elements. We’re always really proud of how it looks, and the band are just great guys too. They give us so much freedom. They’ve taken care of us through the years and they’re very trusting.”
“We’re really thrilled to support the band and create a special moment, not just for their fans, but for them as well,” concludes Grey. “We really try to make it special for everybody involved. This is more than a gig for all of us; a ton of passion goes into it.”
VENDOR VIEW
3G PRODUCTIONS LLC
Keith Conrad, CEO
On solutions 3G provided for the 311 Day shows at Las Vegas’ Dolby Live venue:
We work in that building often and know that along with the massive upstage LED video wall, the rigs from the residencies that play there stay hung and flown out to high trim. So, weight is a lurking factor more often than not. We knew going in the night before we might have to redistribute the weight over the long spans of truss, since we built off renderings rather than drawings. Also, this was a huge rig for that venue. Eric Cruz, our Project Manager, was onsite and took care of all the logistics of last-minute adaptations of the rig to the building. That is just all part of being a production company focused on customer service, which all of us at 3G pride ourselves on.
On supporting designer Bobby Grey:
We have a great relationship with Bobby and have done 311 Day with 311 in the past. I think familiarity with each other always helps. Bobby knows we’re going to deliver. He’s very talented, easy to work with, but also allows us to go ahead and do what we need to do. It’s more about giving us concepts and then we have that design ability as well to make it work. He’s flexible, enjoyable to work with, and has a solid vision of what he wants to see. That type of communication is essential in a successful event.
Also, Bobby enjoys the results he gets from Robe and Elation, and we have an extensive inventory, so we were able to source everything in house. We have also invested heavily in Kinesys; both in product and training. It’s fairly sophisticated and takes some knowledge to operate the computerized system. We always provide an engineer when we send a system out. Tyler Jacobs was the Automation Programmer, and Marcos Minguela the Technician for the 311 Day marathon. Between them and our Project Manager Eric Cruz they sussed out the logistics and adaptation of the hang to accommodate the building.
On why 3G Productions was the right vendor for 311 Day:
We’re local in Vegas, we’re familiar with the venue, the LD, Bobby Grey, and we have the inventory to support his design. Also, we are automation experts, which was a big part of the 311 Day design this year. Add to the fact we are full production, providing the Production Manager, Dave Bellis, and Grey with one stop shopping. These are always great projects to work on. 311 is a fun band to work with; it is truly an enjoyable project. Everybody left feeling really good about the quality of work that was done and the show overall. Hopefully, it’s something that we’ll continue to do as the years go on.
PRODUCTION TEAM
- Tour Manager: Evan Anderson
- Production Manager: Dave Belis
- Production Designer: Bobby L. Grey, Notan Creative
- Creative Producer: Noah Javier Grey, Notan Creative
- Lighting Director: Ryan Alexander
- Key Light Lighting Director:Alex Parayuelos
- Stage Manager: Bryan Manley
- Master Electricians: Chris Harshfield, Derek Lewis
- Automation Programmer: Tyler Jacobs
- Automation Technician: Marcos Minguela
- Head Rigger: Kevin Balani
- Lighting Tech 1s: Ed Gomez, James Tutorow
- 3G Project Manager: Eric Cruz
- Lasers: Nicky Meyer
- Pyro: Tristen Ritz
- SFX Crew Chief: Tony Serrano
SFX Technician: Marquis Hailstalk
VENDORS
- Lighting, Rigging & Automation: 3G Productions, Jay Curiel
- Special Effects: Strictly FX, Grant Sellers
GEAR
- 96 Robe ESPRITE
- 36 Robe FORTE
- 36 Robe Tetra2
- 24 Robe MegaPointe
- 126 Elation SIXBAR 1000
- 2 Antari F-7 Smaze Arena Hazer
- 2 MDG theONE Atmospheric Generator
- 24 1-Ton Motors
- 8 2.5-Ton Motors
- 1 Kinesys Vector Controller
- 34 Kinesys Elevation Liftket 1-Ton Motor
- 1 grandMA3 full-size Console
- 1 grandMA3 NPU L
- 1 Avolites Ai Media Server
- 300’ Tyler Truss Systems Truss
