Lighting Cos
Xblack Visual Products, CTS
Venue
Various (Tour)
Crew
Lighting Designer, Programmer & Director: Luke Hilliard
Lighting Techs: Joe Stoehr, Brent Jamison
Tour Manager: Mike Childers
Production Manager: Adam Duncan
Laser Operator: Luke Hilliard
XBlack Visual Products Rep: Jayme Braun
CTS Rep: Danny Zacharias
Lasers: XLasers/Preston Holland
Trucking: Xtreme Transportation
Gear
1 grandMA2 Light console
24 Xblack X-280 Spots
26 Xblack XL-19 Washes
22 Xblack Spin-Eye 19’s
40 Xblack XL-Bars
6 Xblack XL-Blinders
3 XLaser Skywriter HPX M-5’s
2 Antari HZ-500’s
Tour Details:
Scotty McCreery’s Seasons Change tour included an April 25 show at the Luther Burbank Center for the Art’s Ruth Finley Person Theater in Santa Rosa, CA (pictured above). XBlack Visual Products provided fixtures; CTS provided console, NPU and hazers.
Designer Insights by Steve Jennings:
PLSN spoke with Luke Hilliard, lighting designer, programmer and director for the 2019 Scotty McCreery tour. Country singer McCreery is best known as the winner of season 11 of TV’s American Idol. His debut album in 2011, Clear As Day, was certified Platinum, and McCreery has since released a Christmas album, along with See You Tonight from 2015 and Seasons Change, released in 2018.
Hilliard says that as Scotty has grown, he’s had designers like Darien Koop and Danny Zacharias help create his show. Hilliard has been his programmer and director for three years now and was given this great opportunity to form the design for his new tour and run off shows from the ground up.
“The way our management and design over the years has progressed vastly different from most other artists. Touring year round is very strenuous for equipment and the demand from us to have a consistent show was also a lot for budgetary and rental schedules.
“Most tours would sacrifice quality for a one-off or random run of shows outside a tour. We’ve tackled this by purchasing all of our lighting and most equipment. It has definitely been a learning process for us, and using Xblack Visual Products was an obvious choice after figuring repairs, cost, lifetime, and other variables. They were recommended to us and we were shown a demo of some of their fixtures next to others from companies like Robe and Clay Paky. They are very comparable, and being a small company, Xblack is becoming, and have been, very competitive. I’ve already been shown some of their upcoming fixtures and I’m very excited of the possibility of adding them to our next design.
“I’ve been touring with Xblack pro lights for over 3 years now on the road and they’ve held up really well. Whether we are playing a club, theater, or arena they always preform. XLaser has revolutionized the way I look at and see lasers, and I would highly recommend them to any designer trying to add another element to a show.”
More Scotty McCreery tour photos by Steve Jennings:
