Lighting Designer Abigail Rosen Holmes: “I was very pleased to be asked to work with Martina again. She’s very involved in the design and very clear about what she likes, and really knows what is going to feel right for her and the music. Martina’s great production team and crew, Trevor included, were just fantastic to work with. They make touring a show like this look a lot easier than it is!”
Holmes: “Tom McPhillps’ set for this tour is stunning; it’s been great to work with it. The set has a clean, finished look. It seemed really important that all the lighting positions be integrated into it, that they be a part of the set rather than extraneous trusses with lighting slapped on. Tom worked with me to find those positions during the design process. It works great for Martina; she has such strong stage presence and is such a great live performer. With some other performers, you would have to be very careful that a set like this didn’t take your attention away from the artist, but with Martina we were really able to take full advantage of it.”
Holmes: “The range of possibilities of the set made it exciting to work with — from developing the video content to choosing moments when we could take advantage of lighting through the rotating panels, we were able to get a really wide variety of looks. Although the set is very modern and sophisticated, it was also really possible to get looks that felt right for the ballads and softer numbers.”
Scenic Designer Tom McPhillips: “Apart from the fix of building lights into the set, the layout also gave Abbey another issue to solve. Because the convex curve allowed for audience seating right back to the 270º line, to find a position for lower side lighting for Martina was a potential sightline obstacle. I came up with the side diamond frames that each supported a moving light, since they could be hung at an angle that didn’t impede sightlines, which worked very nicely — plus, there was a way of continuing the diamond motif beyond the set, which was fortuitous. I think the harder part from Abbey’s point of view was integrating the mass of video with artist lighting. But that plays exactly into her skill set — she’s probably one of the most ably technical lighting designers I’ve ever worked with.”
Lighting Director Trevor Ahlstrand: “Working with Abbey was great. She has a great vision and is extremely descriptive in letting you know what she wants to accomplish. The biggest challenge with this show is that we constantly go into totally different venues everyday — from arenas to small state or county fairs. You constantly have to decide how much to hang due to size, width and depth. This affects everything, but mostly adjusting the video playback, because we’ve gone down from 12 panels all the way to four.”
CREW
Lighting Company: Bandit Lites
Bandit Account Rep; Michael Golden
Bandit Project Manager: Don Lockridge
Art Director: Conway Allison, Atomic Design
Lighting Designer: Abigail Rosen Holmes
Lighting Director: Trevor Ahlstrand
Lighting Programmer: Kille Knobel
Media Server Programming: Laura Frank
Lighting Techs: Chris Hallman (crew chief), Aaron Swetland, Phil Mikesh
Production Manager: Michael “Meesha” Kosciolek
Tour Manager: Mark Hively
Stage Manager: Pat O’Neil
Tour Carpenter: Tyson Clark
Set Design: Atomic Design (Tom McPhillips)
Set Construction: Setco (Nashville)
Video: Moo TV
Video Director: Andre Nolan
Video Engineer: James Duer
Projectionist: Randall Garriott
LED Techs: Quentin “Q” Voglund, Don McKim
GEAR
13 Coemar Infinity Wash fixtures
2 Lycian M2 followspots
2 MA Lighting grandMA
57 Martin MAC 2000 wash lights
3 Martin Maxedia
200’ Thomas A-Type 150 egg strobes
44 Vari*Lite VL3000 spots
7 Vari*Lite VL500
20 8-light units
