ODESZA is an electronic music duo consisting of Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight. They met while in college in Washington state and have been releasing albums since 2012 and touring since 2014. In the summer of 2022, the duo released their fourth album called The Last Goodbye, supported by The Last Goodbye Tour. (Though the duo has stated it is certainly not their goodbye tour.) In addition to electronic music, they add in live music from drumlines and horn sections, producing a varied dynamic musical live experience. Co-Creative Directors Luke Tanaka and Sean Kusanagi, along with Lighting Designer Kyle Kegan have been working with the band to ensure the visual design reinforces the dynamic music on tour and at festival performances. Keeping the ODESZA tour and team all marching along are Production Manager Shane Crowl and Tour Manager Bryan “Bronko” Aiello. PLSN spoke with Tanaka, Kegan, and Crowl about supporting ODESZA’s performance on The Last Goodbye Tour. With the warm reception from audiences, it is sure to be far from the last tour with this talented team.
Luke Tanaka, Co-Creative Director
Tanaka, who is Co-Creative Director with Sean Kusanagi, has been working with ODESZA since 2014, when the group started touring. Tanaka met Harrison Mills [one half of ODESZA] in college when they both were studying graphic design.
Tell us about your design and how that supported The Last Goodbye Tour.
The core tenant of our show is the live instrumentation that we add to this electronic space. We really wanted to focus on giving the performers a great platform to move around. We always focused on having multiple levels for our artists, especially because right off the bat we bring the drumline out. We’ve always had the challenge of separating Harrison and Clay from the drumline. At times, there are quite a few people on stage. And we’ve always had risers, but this tour, we wanted to add an element where the drum line could move around and have even more levels.
We based our design around the custom risers that we built with the stairs. The risers are in the shape of a hexagon, which mirrors the tour logo, the ico. The stairs that wrap around the risers are also in that shape. Having two main performers, we always focus on symmetry. It’s something that we started with from our very first tour. It is within the content, and we carried that over to the stage design.
What product are you using to outline the stage and the risers?
It is the [Environmental Lights] Neon Flex LED tape. We worked with All Access, who provided us with the custom deck and the LED tape around it all. We were super-pleased with the outcome of their work. We outlined the stage with LED neon because our last run was all amphitheaters where most of the audience were on the lawn looking down on the stage. That was a new challenge for us. Previously we’ve always played arenas or theaters where people were looking up at the stage. We also worked with Dark Moon Designs out of Colorado, to fabricate the controllers for the drums and man, they really turned out awesome.
Talk a little bit about the ceiling piece with the hexagonal design and the echoes reinforcing the logo.
That logo mark was one thing that the artists really, really liked from our last tour. It was something that you can just instantly look at in any video or picture and be like, ‘okay, that’s an ODESZA show.’ With The Last Goodbye Tour, there’s a lot of motifs of replication, repetition, echoing throughout the music and throughout the concept of the album. We literally call those pieces, ‘echoes’ on the outside of the hexagon. It’s a hexagon split in half and they’re mirroring out as if it was echoing out of the hexagon. Those are all made with the LED Neon Flex. We were really pleased with them.
Tell us about the video and the content you created.
I started doing graphic design and animation with Harrison in college in a new media class. I’ve always been first and foremost, the visual and video creative with ODESZA. Then as the role grew, I’ve stepped into assisting on the stage design. This tour was really a massive step forward with the team we assembled to bring all this content together. We had about 15 artists creating content. It was one of the most satisfying experiences of my career, so far. I was able to get a lot of my very good friends, along with a lot of people that I really respect within animation and design to work on the show. It was an absolute joy to work with everyone, and I felt like we created this nice ecosystem where we all pushed each other. I’m thrilled with how the team came together and with all the incredible content.
Sean Kusanagi is co-Creative Director. How do you split up your roles?
It’s such a nice combo because I think our strengths really complement each other. He comes from a video background, so he’s a really talented video director. At rehearsals, he’s amazing at taking the lead in that role. He’s the point man for everything I-Mag, wardrobe, and choreography. I take care of the staging, visuals, and special effects. Then he and I, with our Lighting Designer Kyle Keegan, come together to make it all one.
Who handles special effects for this tour?
We worked with Pyrotecnico and Rocco [Vitale], who I think throughout the course of our last few tours, has become a good friend of ours and has been incredible to work with. We have built this synergy together. We like to blow a lot of things up, so it’s just been really fun. This time, we really leaned on him for his expertise and a lot of creativity for timecoding all the shots. His role in handling the special effects side of the show is massive.
How do you use the special effects to reinforce the music?
In the past we always did what you’d see at a festival—a lot of fireworks right on the choruses. But this time, we tried to do a lot more beyond that, like shooting off mines during a large drum line to accentuate the movement in the drum line. Or by using flash trays right on the build, right before the chorus, to amplify what’s to come after that. We used a lot of flash trays at the end of a particular song to have a big crescendo moment where all the lights turn off. There was a huge explosion, and everything went black. We think of our production as more of a cinematic and theatrical experience.
You also layer in lasers into your design.
Lasers are something that we’ve always really enjoyed, but we always also wanted to use them sparingly. On this tour, we used them a lot more than we have in the past, and I actually think that was probably a good decision. We ended up carving out moments for the lasers. It’s a crowd pleaser for sure. We were able to bring on Jesse Parker to program our lasers, and he did an absolutely phenomenal job.
And your visuals are closely layered with Kyle Keegan’s lighting design.
Kyle’s been absolutely instrumental in this whole process. He’s brought so much knowledge and talent to the team. I talk to him every week and we’re always sharing ideas. One thing that we’ve always strived for is that the final product should always be better when the two halves of lighting and visual. It all has to play together nicely. When we go into it, we’re trying to use each tool to uplift each other. We really like to have moments where it’s lighting only, and then video pops in and then the lighting pops in. We’re really conscious of how those play together and it’s something that we’re always working to get better. Obviously, video screens are getting so bright, it’s also always a brightness battle. You really have got to be careful to keep a balance.
Anything else you’d like to mention about working with ODESZA?
I want to emphasize that this crew has been incredible to work with and it really takes a village. There’re so many people that contributed to this project; I think that everyone brought their A-game to this one. We’re all really proud of it. Shane [Crowl, PM] keeps this machine turning and that is not a small, or easy, job. He’s good at wrangling creatives and he’s done an amazing job. I think our production as a whole has become such a well-oiled machine because of his work. I definitely want to credit Sean, my co-Creative Director and I’d like to thank Sky Irheta and my brother, Landis Tanaka, on the visual side.
Kyle Kegan, Lighting Designer
Kegan has been lighting ODESZA since joining the production team in 2017.
Talk a little bit about your overall approach to the lighting design for the tour.
Well, it’s a collective, working with the guys, Luke [Tanaka] and Sean [Kusanagi], and then obviously Harrison and Clayton themselves. We all work together on the design process from the start of everything. We go through iterations together from concepts to reality, and whittling things down to the nuts and bolts of what we need. Once we know the direction we’re going in, then we start to think about how we’re going to implement this on the stage. The lighting becomes a really big complement of what Luke is doing, with all of his content being such a driving force; telling the story through the visual content and the music. Building the lighting design around the content is something that we work closely on with the content team. We want to make sure that we’re not only complementing all the things we need to in the show, especially because there is a lot of theatrical moments, but we also want to create a really dynamic design for the show.
Also for this last tour we brought what we call, the ‘ico.’ The symbol is used by ODESZA, a six-sided icosahedron, it is a full three-dimensional shape that’s hung in the center. We had a version of it as well on the previous tour, but on this tour we’ve upped it. We used LED Neon Flex around all the trusses above the stage to create it and echo it. Then it’s complemented as well throughout the risers and stairs, which are also an ico shape.
Is that Neon Flex in the drums for the drum line?
Yes, we custom fabricated LED Neon Flex to go inside all of the drums for the drum line. Wireless DMX is running all of the drum line moments, and it’s all timecoded with the overall show.
What are some of your key lighting fixtures choices?
I wanted to have as a workhorse the [Robe] MegaPointe. It’s been around for a while, and I know it really well. We wanted a dynamic hybrid fixture in the rig because we do use a lot of beam architectural looks, but we also wanted to have a soft frost and texture; to look more like a spot at times and then use it as a key light as well. The other big fixture that was new to us was the GLP X5, that complemented the design choice for what we called the ‘echoes,’ which were the repeating trusses from the ico outwards. We use the X5 inside those trusses to really give us some dynamic looks, not only just architecturally, but we are able to use the speed of the zoom and everything to do cool chases and use its pixel effects. We got a lot of dynamic looks out of the X5.
In the center we used Elation Smarty Hybrids. The reason for that choice was it’s a small compact beam fixture that had CMY and we could fit a lot of fixtures in a small amount of space. We went with that for the ico and that let us create a lot of unique architectural looks coming from the center ico; resembling sun rays. We also had Smarty Hybrids on the floor. Again, because of their compact size, we physically were able to load up a lot of them. They really are unique, to get that high-powered output from such a small fixture. The other pieces in the rig were the ACME Pixel Line, which was again new to us. That lined the trusses from the floor up through the vertical ladders and then up and around all of our trusses. That was our big RGB/white strobe fixture, it really created a dynamic impact to the show.
Were you using fixtures coming from behind the blow through LED screen?
We used a couple of fixtures behind the video wall, it was a Roe Vanish V8T blow through screen. There was our main key light and backlight fixtures, the Elation Monet, and then we had ladders of Elation Smarty Hybrids. We also had a couple Elation Rembrandt wash fixtures behind there as well. A mixed bag for different tricks from behind the wall. It was a nice option and we loved having it on the road.
Talk about working with the Luke and Sean as Creative Directors and Shane as PM.
Sean and Luke have become some of my best friends throughout this process. We obviously share a really collaborative effort working on the show together and spend a lot of hours together. We all created a synergy when I first jumped on board, it felt like home for me to be with these guys and working with them. It’s been a really fun experience and we’re still learning every day. It’s been a real pleasure. I can’t say enough about these two.
And Shane has been an amazing PM. He really takes the weight off my shoulders. Other projects I work on, I find myself wrapped up in a lot of conversations I don’t need to be in, on this Shane takes a lot of that off your plate. We’re super happy to have him on board and the whole team from top to bottom is just such a pleasure. We all work really hard for the results, and we also have fun while doing it.
How important is Volt and their support for your design on the tour?
Volt was great throughout the tour. I’ve known Matt Shimamoto for some time now, and this was the first full on tour I’ve done with them. We are excited to continue to use their services.
Is there anything else you’d like to mention about working on ODESZA?
The one thing about this camp is, it’s unlike any others. We really do work hard but also have a lot of fun and everybody gets along. Not that you don’t see it often, but it’s something that when you see it, you definitely want to reflect on it. I think everybody that’s a part of this team would say the same. It’s a lot of fun designing for ODESZA. It’s an exciting show that has a lot of dynamics, for sure.
Shane Crowl, Production Manager
Production Manager Shane Crowl has been working with ODESZA since mid-2017.
What were some of the challenges and solutions you found for this tour?
On the production side, there weren’t any challenges that the creative team or the artists threw at production that were unachievable for the most part. We have such a good workflow that we usually get very far in front of any potential issues. We have very open discussions back and forth, and they’re always open to suggestions and limitations, which is helpful.
The challenges we had with the current lighting rig were that the weight distribution is all upstage. That comes with some point loading capability issues for buildings that we have to get creative with. There’s been many times that we’ve had to bring in additional trussing or mother grids to support those loads in certain buildings. That’s probably the biggest kind of obstacle that the designers threw at me.
Then talk a little bit about working with the designers.
Sean and Luke, they’re fantastic. They’re really good people. When you’re going into a business venture, and that’s what we’re doing—large format business—it’s the free flow of discussions, going back and forth and whiteboarding ideas. They live within the limitations of what’s actually achievable, where some creatives don’t understand production; they also don’t want to limit what’s achievable. The ability to tour it is completely different than necessarily doing a one-off; it has to be financially responsible. And Kyle’s a great designer. His vision that he came up with is stunning. The lighting elements of the show are definitely their own thing. Also, he and his team are great to work with.
How was Volt’s support on the tour?
Volt is fantastic. They’ve absolutely stepped up to the plate on this tour. The one great thing about Volt is, from the top down, they have people that are extremely passionate about what they do. They’re willing to take control of a project and see it through. That’s all I can ask for. One of the things that Volt did on this last round of The Last Goodbye is they were willing to provide the spec’d gear with zero substitutions.
And you also worked with All Access, how was their support?
I love All Access and Robert Achlimbari. He’s been around the block way more times than I have, and it’s fantastic to lean into his experience. He always shares what he knows and how he can help streamline things. All Access came out and absolutely killed it with what they provided for us.
Beware, based out of Atlanta, supplied your video.
They’re a new up and comer. Probably one of my biggest challenges of The Last Goodbye Tour, was that I wanted a very specific video wall—the ROE Vanish V8T. The creatives wanted a certain transparency so we could play some of the lighting gags we do. In the timeframe when we were getting ready to go out, it was relatively new and hard to get. It’s an extremely lightweight product, and the pixel resolution of the screen is gorgeous. On my side, with the rigging issues that we have, with everything being upstage based, it is great that is weighs nothing compared to some other products; about 40% of what another product weighs. Beware was able to guarantee that product to me and delivered.
Anything else you’d like to mention about this tour?
It’s a lot of fun. The team, from the artists to the tour manager and to the creatives and crew. It’s a very fun, professional environment where we try to achieve a very high level of expectations, and have a ton of fun doing it. It really is a gorgeous artistic show, bottom line and well worth seeing. When you’re getting compliments from people that have been in the business for 15, 20 years; telling us how beautiful the show is, and asking ‘how did you achieve this? What’s happening here?’ That’s one of the biggest forms of flattery possible. We want the fans to walk away with not, ‘that was the best show I saw today.’ We want them to walk away with, ‘that was the best show I’ve ever seen.’ It is a very high bar we all set for ourselves. So, when you have people in the industry that are giving you those same compliments we hope to get from the audience, that means a lot. Their eyes are so much more critical, they know so much more than the average fan does. It makes us all very proud.
Production Team
- Tour Manager: Bryan “Bronko” Aiello, Motion Music
- Production Manager:Shane Crowl, Motion Music
- Co-Creative Directors: Luke Tanaka and Sean Kusanagi
- Lighting Designer: Kyle Kegan, Voyage Productions
- Production Coordinator: Zane Phillips
- Production Assistant: Mariesha “Riesh” Klos
- Stage Manager: Neal Nance
- Lighting Crew Chiefs: Jeff O’Brien, Joshua Dirks
- Dimmer Tech: Bartholomew Freed
- Lighting Techs: Ethan Fleek, Joseph Kerr, Kaili Story, Trey Looney, Axl Barsch
- Volt Project Manager: Craig Caserta
- Video Directors: Jonathan Beswick, Sean Smith
- Video EIC: Fernando Cornejo-Vazquez
- Video Crew Chiefs: Andrew Jablon, Ozaer Faroqui
- LED Lead: Nathan “Smokey” Williams
- LED Technicians: Andrew Jablon, Jeremy Colon, Michael Lynxwiler
- I-Mag Crew Chief / Cam Op: Angelo Bartolome
- Rail Cam Op: John ”Jack” Lipke
- Cam Op: Marci Simmons
- Media Server Op: Blake Addington
- Pyro Crew Chief: Ray Mangubat
- Pyro Shooter: RJ Pacella
- Pyro Techs: Nic Koulouris, Sean Moore,Alex Kingry, John Ferrante, Joe Bessner, Anthony Amato
- Laser Techs: John Hruska, Glenn Foy, Brandon Dzurino
- Lead Rigger: Ryan Durocher
- Riggers: Wade Hinshaw, Jason Frisk
- Carpenters: Joey Paulekas, Chris Olivieri, Will Wilson
Vendors
- Lighting: Volt
- Video: Beware
- Rigging: Reed Rigging
- Pyro, SFX: Pyrotecnico
- Lasers: Lightwave Laser
- Set Construction: All Access Staging and Production
- I-Mag Video & Cameras: Gateway Studios & Production Services
Gear List
Lighting:
- 1 MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size Console
- 1 MA Lighting grandMA3 light Console
- 4 MA Lighting MA3 PU L
- 78 Elation Smarty Hybrid
- 26 Elation Artiste Monet
- 3 Elation Artiste Rembrandt
- 36 GLP Impression X5
- 2 GLP JDC Line 500
- 20 GLP Rain Cover 500
- 56 Robe MegaPointe
- 2 CHAUVET COLORado 1QS
- 70 ACME Pixel Line IP
- 12 MasterFX Mystic Hazer
- 6 MasterFX Prodigy+ Fogger
- 10 Solid Industries Mod Torm
- Tyler GT Truss
Video:
- disguise Solo Media Server
- 120 ROE Visual Vanish V8T LED Panels
- 64 Oracle 4.8mm LED Panels
- 2 Brompton Technology SX40 Processor
- 2 Brompton Technology XD Data Distribution Unit
- 1 NovaStar H2 Processor
- 2 Blackmagic Design Teranex AV
Pyro:
- 2 PyroDigital FC3 Controller
- 31 PyroDigital FM-A Firing Module
- 6 Explo X2 Wave Flame
- 10 LeMaitre Quad Pro Salamander
- 16 Artistry in Motion Silent Storm
- 8 Stadium Shot
Lasers:
- 14 Lightwave International Prism Series 21W RGB Laser
- 20 Lightwave International Prism Series 6W RGB Laser
