Simon Sidi is a well-respected lighting designer, but he’s made a mess of his latest tour — American Idols Live — on purpose. “I wanted it to look messy in the rig and clean on the stage,” Sidi explained. “The lighting trusses are all mangled together, all twisted and mixed up.” Messy truss, Sidi noted, is “not as simple as it looks…you can’t just throw it together,” he said, especially if you want it to “look messy from all angles in the arena. Using a combination of Vectorworks and 3D Studio Max, I was able to look at the design from the point of view of the audience and create great looking renders.” Along with technology and physics, Sidi got an assist from Thomas Engineering, which “made a new type of universal joint so that the trusses could be built on the stage,” he said. “We then attach the motors and let gravity do the work. Getting the trusses in the right place is simple as long as the motors are in the right place,” Sidi added. “All the trusses are straight; it just looks twisted when you see it.”
From “Production Profile,” with story and photos by Steve Jennings, PLSN, August 2009
