Shortly after Eric Marchwinski graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston with a degree in Music Production and Engineering, he found himself in the hot seat of his first concert tour. The touring wheels were set in motion when production manager for Trey Songz Bryon "Hot Dog" Tate looked to Bob Morrissey of East Coast Lighting & Production Services, Inc. for a touring system with fresh talent. Bob and the ECLPS team assembled a full touring rig and crew in short time and the tour was off and running from one sold out venue to another.
Penciling It In
Marchwinski began the design process by talking about the theme of the tour, brainstorming and sketching in pencil before finally ending up with some concrete ideas. After brainstorming with Nathan Almeida, Marchwinski drafted the lighting plot in Vectorworks 2010. Once renderings and ideas were approved, the final design was modeled in Martin Show Designer 5, where it could be pre-programmed and visualized.
"They asked me to be at rehearsals for the week prior to the tour for pre-programming and to show Trey and the management renderings and visualizations," Marchwinski said. "I pre-programmed about 60 percent of the show you see on stage in MSD at rehearsals." While Marchwinski was at rehearsals, the ECLPS team was prepping the rig back at the shop. "This was the best-prepped lighting rig I had ever seen," Marchwinski said, crediting technicians Nathan Almeida and Steve Foster. "They didn't leave out a single detail, which made for very efficient load-ins and load-outs.
"It was a great feeling to set up the whole rig, hit play on the console and see everything running right before my eyes, just as I had seen it on the computer," Marchwinski added. "I felt confident after that moment."
The design included six Martin MAC 2000 Profiles as an "anchor point" on the upstage truss. Surrounding the MAC 2Ks were six MAC 700 Wash fixtures. Since the stock MAC 2K Profile gobos are familiar to most people in the lighting industry, Marchwinski decided to load them with three custom patterns and swap around the existing patterns. "I had to get the best-looking stock gobos out of the color wheel and into a gobo wheel for rotation," he said.
Playing Favorites
During the programming session, Marchwinski discovered something about the gear. "The MAC 700 Wash has become my new favorite 700-watt fixture because of their sheer power-to-speed ratio. I love the tight beam you can get by running the zoom all the way in. That look is all over the show and makes for some powerful aerial effects."
The mid-stage truss has six more 700 washes and 12 MAC 250 Entours.
"I was leery at first about putting a 250 against a 2000," Marchwinski said, "but kudos to Martin on the updated optics in the 250E. They aren't equally as bright, they can hold their own. I never felt like their intensity was a limiting factor in my programming."
There are also six MAC 250s on the deck, and Marchwinski says these have made him the happiest out of all of the Martin fixtures in the rig.
"These things are killer bright for a 250, and really fast," he enthuses. "There are a lot of intimate moments throughout Trey's show, and I love the power of sidelight. I found myself loving their power and speed all through the programming process.
Sexy, Intimate
During several songs like "Jupiter Love, "Can't Be Friends," and "Ready to Make Love," the six floor fixtures take over from the followspots, providing "a real sexy and intimate feel." Another dominant fixture in the rig has been the Martin Stagebar 54 S, of which there are 31.
"We came up with an interesting concept for the placement of the Stagebars on the mid-stage truss," Marchwinski said. "We used pre-rig with the bars removed and mounted two Stagebars on either end of an empty, stripped PAR bar, then mounted this in the upstage side of the pre-rig truss. That allowed all the data and power to live in the mid-stage truss, making for a ‘semi-swing wing' setup. All we had to do was bridge connections at the joints."
Those 12 fixtures were run in six-pixel mode because Marchwinski likes arrays of LEDs to create "intricate" effects engine visualizations. There are also 12 Philips/Color Kinetics Color Blasts, six in each truss, used as toners. Twelve more Stagebars live upstage along the cyc. Marchwinski controls the rig using a Flying Pig Systems Wholehog III and a Hog iPC running MIDI tracking for backup.
Scenic Challenges
One of the challenges with the rig, according to Marchwinski, was the double kabuki system used on the mid-stage truss. Two 24-foot pipes were outrigged on the downstage edge of the mid-stage truss using six "snap lock braces." Each tube had 12 solenoids – six for the diaper and six for the kabuki. It was used in conjunction with a blackout that was outrigged off of the upstage side of the same truss, which allowed the mid-stage truss to work double duty for the opener, becoming their upstage truss.
Scenic elements on the rig included seven custom fabric columns from Rose Brand (designed by crew chief Almeida) and a riser/set-piece from All Access Staging. The "Tubes," as they were affectionately called, lent a "very classy and sophisticated look and feel to the show," according to Marchwinski. They also take light very well. Each tube is 2 by 2 by 20 feet in dimension with a 2 by 2 foot mirror in the top. A Stagebar lives at the bottom of each tube to provide uplight. Downstage are two MAC 2ks with two full-color dichroic gobos depicting the tour logo.
"We wanted a way to tie together the new records in the show," Marchwinski said, "and we decided that the symbolism of the logo would be very effective. The ‘Triple Ps,' as we call them, appear throughout the set on all of the songs off of the new album, Passion, Pain & Pleasure."
Word Games
To provide more continuity in the show, Marchwinski used word association with feelings and emotions that the artist wanted to convey and chose the colors accordingly. "I found it much easier to take the artist's descriptions, which are based in emotions, and translate that to color, rather than try to get the artist to think like a designer, or more cue-based."
After discussing it with the artist, he picked a color palette for each record, but kept the continuity by tying adjacent songs together with at least one color in common.
"Although it's somewhat subconscious," he said, "I think it's a very effective way to avoid ‘Color ADD.' I value the extremely strong association between color and emotion. I'm sure you could write for days on that topic alone.
"The cyc, the tubes and the rig provided many layers on which to paint with the intricate color palette," he continued. "Some songs have a simple one color palette, including the spotlight, and other have up to a four-color scheme. The layers allow me to place color with purpose and not just throw it up onto any old fixture. Designing with purpose is one of the biggest things I have been working on over the course of beginning my career. It's a great concept taught to me by the one and only Scott Pinkney."
The tour kicked off with a week of studio rehearsals in Atlanta, then three full days of production rehearsals in Mobile, AL at the first venue.
"The tour has been phenomenal in every aspect," Marchwinski enthused. "Our crew is fantastic, the band, the management…the whole team has really banded together to make this a really significant experience for everyone as Trey's first headlining tour. I have learned leaps and bounds grown so much as a designer and a tech through being a working LD on this tour! Every show has been completely sold out to the very last seat, and we couldn't ask for anything more.
"To be the lighting designer for a sold out R&B tour has been a mind-blowing experience throughout every step of the process. I must again thank Nathan Almeida and Bob Morrissey from East Coast Lighting and Production Services for calling me and providing me with this opportunity and Steve Foster for being out here and working towards this dream with me for the past six years."
Lighting: East Coast Lighting and Production Services (ECLPS)
Audio: Eighth Day Audio
Staging: All Access Staging & Productions
Backline: Bergsten Music
Soft Goods/Kabuki: Rent What?
Radios: Road Radios
Trucking: Stage Call
Buses: Coach Quarters
Crew
Production Manager/FOH Engineer: Bryon "Hot Dog" Tate
Production Coordinator: Becky Mendoza
Lighting Designer: Eric Marchwinski
Crew Chief: Nathan Almeida
Lighting Technician: Steven Foster
Monitor Engineer: Marlon John
Audio System Engineer: Chris Berry
Audio Technician: Derek Prescod
Backline Technician: Joe Mora
A Party Band Bus Driver: Kenny Forges
Production Bus Driver: Gary Ramella
Stage Call Driver Audio: Tommy Oplinger
Stage Call Driver Lighting: Curtis Doster
Tour Promoter: Jeff Sharp, AEG Live
Tour Promoter Rep: Eddie Powell Jr., AEG Live
Tour Accountant: Andrea Divine, AEG Live
Team Songz Management: Kevin Liles, JoJo Brim, KWL Enterprises; Chris Celestine, TS Productions
Gear
1 Flying Pig Systems Wholehog III
2 Flying Pig Systems Hog PC USB playback fader wings
1 Flying Pig Systems DP 2000 DMX processor
2 Flying Pig Systems Hog iPCs
1 Flying Pig Systems Superwidget
1 Flying Pig Systems Hog PC USB programming wing
8 Martin MAC 2000 Profiles with custom gobos
12 Martin MAC 700 Wash fixtures
16 Martin MAC 250 Entours
6 Martin MAC 250 Wash fixtures
16 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes
31 Martin Stagebar 54 S LED fixtures
12 Philips Color Kinetics Color Blast 12s
4 Philips Color Kinetics Color Blaze 48s
1 Doug Fleenor A/B switch
4 Doug Fleenor Opto-Isolators
1 Applied Electronics 36ch 2.4K dimmer rack
2 Motion Labs 24-way 208V power distros
12 CM 1-Ton chain hoists
48' James Thomas Engineering 20.5" box truss
11 Total Fabrications 93"x30" pre rig truss
2 Reel EFX DF-50 hazer w/ fan
30 ETC Source Four MFL PARs
6 ETC Source Four 19° Lekos
2 ETC Source Four 50° Lekos
1 30×60 white muslin cyc
2 30×30 15oz Encore black velour
1 Sew What? 30×60 kabuki w/ diaper
24 Rent What? 110V kabuki solenoids
2 24' aluminum tubes for solenoids
6 SnapLocs outrigging braces
