The Pentatonix Christmas Spectacular 2022 arena tour spread its harmonious a cappella holiday sounds throughout the U.S. in December. Production Designer Jason Ardizzone-West told Designer Watch that snowflakes set the scene in so many ways. “The creative vision behind the production design was to use the inherent geometric patterns of a snowflake to create a multi-layered stage design that integrated physical scenery, lighting, and video all together in a cohesive radially symmetrical stage composition,” he explains. “This took its form in a 50’ multifaceted snowflake that was created by layering many smaller versions of five unique snowflake designs—one for each of the five unique voices of Pentatonix—in circular patterns that repeated in layers of geometry around a circular tiered stage. These individual frosted acrylic snowflake sculptures each had integrated LED lighting in its center as well as corresponding moving lights that were also part of the overall geometric snowflake design, creating a blurring of the lines between lighting and scenery.”
He adds that behind the layers of geometric scenery and lighting, there was a transparent circular LED screen which had yet another layer of geometric lighting behind it, allowing the creative team to layer physical beams of light through video content that appeared to repeat the patterns of scenery, and backlight the performers as well as the translucent layered scenery. This gave the design team plenty of options in the rig, he says. “The entire rig could be used to create a wide variety of arena scale radially symmetrical glittering and glowing snowflakes, or evoke sacred architecture, fun candy cane swirls, intimate scenes of shimmering winter wonderland as well as asymmetrical compositions of moving shafts of light.” The Lighting Designer was Damian Rogers, with direction & choreography by Lindsey Blaufarb and Craig Hollamon, and art direction by Joe O’Neil. Evan Alexander and Sarah Tester get kudos for drafting and rendering so many snowflakes, he adds.
Nashville’s Big Bash
Nashville’s production community was abuzz with activity surrounding New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash, which aired in a five-hour broadcast on CBS to ring in 2023. Chris Lisle says his company, CLLD, served as the overall production management for the entire live event, and also handled lighting duties for the site and the Music Note Drop.
Stage Lighting Designer Mike Swinford reports in, saying that he and Mark Carver, Mark Butts, Andre Petrus, Han Henze, Cole Kiracoff, and Chris Cockrill also lit five pretaped shows at various clubs on Broadway in Nashville. “All of us shared duties covering the pretapes,” Swinford says.
Henze—who says he is happy getting more recognition as a lighting designer these days over his former lighting director and gaffer titles—served as LD for Sheryl Crow, Ashley McBryde & Jimmie Allen at Whiskey River for the television pre-tape, and LD for Little Big Town and The War and Treaty at Ole Red for a live segment.
The main stage was set up at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. Other acts taking part on the big night included Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, Brooks & Dunn, Zac Brown Band, Kelsea Ballerini, Luke Bryan, Thomas Rhett, Steve Miller, and many others.
Widespread Panic, Warren Haynes
Jam band Widespread Panic stepped it up for Widespread NYE this year, their first since 2019, says Production Designer/LD Paul Hoffman of Pulse Lighting. The band played two nights at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville as opposed to their normal Fox Theater play. They also punched up their touring rig with additional lighting, video projection elements, a liquid light show, balloon drop, and audience ‘party’ effects of streamers and confetti. Most of the design was iterated from their similar Halloween presentation in Savannah, GA, Hoffman notes.
Paul’s brother, Preston Hoffman, designed video content with Olivia Sebesky. Andrew Smith was projectionist, video operator, and liquid light operator, and Mike Smith was Production Manager. Preston also designed the Warren Haynes Presents: Christmas Jam on Dec. 10—after a three-year hiatus—in Haynes’ hometown of Asheville, NC. Artists included Phil Lesh & Friends, Tyler Childers, Gov’t Mule, Brothers Osborne, Dinosaur Jr., and more.
The Revivalists
Eric Cathcart had two New Year’s Eve weekend shows Dec. 30-31 with The Revivalists at the Orpheum Theater in the band’s hometown of New Orleans. “It’s the same rig that I just used for a little two-week tour last month,” he says. The band has been on tour since Nov. 1, which is “supposed to ebb and flow in size” until the end of 2023. Cathcart also had Black Violin out on their second holiday tour as well.
Brandi Carlile
Lighting Designer Mikey Cummings of Bazar Imagination Group LLC continued designing and programming for his longtime client, Brandi Carlile and operated her New Year’s Eve show at the Moda Center in Portland, OR followed by her 4th edition of the Girls Just Wanna Weekend in Mexico. He also continues touring with the Allman Family Revival as the lighting programmer and director, executing a Devon Allman design alongside Video Director Cian Murray.
Quick Cues
Nate Files says he was one of the programmers working with designer Tom Sutherland on the second annual Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party, which featured Miley Cyrus and co-host Dolly Parton, that aired live from Miami on NBC.
Tony Caporale reports a number of holiday related shows, including working with Sightline Design Group as lighting programmer/director for KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas Show at the Forum, as lighting designer for the Titans Thursday Night Football Stadium Christmas Light Show with Lighting Director/Programmer Jacob VanVlymen, and as programmer for Goose’s LD Andrew Goedde for their New Year’s Eve show.
Drew Mercadante and his Supervoid design team brought their year to a bright close with a pixel mapped holiday themed lighting installation at the W Hotel in Philadelphia. “We used 16 pixel mappable string lights and six linear strips to decorate their outdoor garden space, driven by one of our custom media servers,” Mercadante says.
Share your new 2023 tour news with Debi Moen at dmoen@plsn.com
