While touring the world, I have spent far too many hours sitting at FOH, wondering who in the world designs some of these venues. I decided that I should put my two cents in writing instead of stewing in my own disgust of poor forethought. Here are a few remarks that I would like to make to anyone who is considering designing an entertainment venue.
“It doesn’t hurt to ask.” Taken literally, this well-known phrase implies we should always ask for what we want. However, if you’re a professional and/or over the age of seven, you should know that if you ask the wrong way, it could damage your reputation and limit your ability to ever ask the same question again.
In science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s famed “Three Laws,” written in Profiles of the Future, a book-length collection of essays that was first published in 1962, the third law stated: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Checking e-mails: a few days after another successful corporate awards show. Okay, maybe there were a few minor goofs, but I’ve always been taught to just forget about those and move on. Don’t worry about stuff you can’t do anything about, right?
For a creative and expressive field like live music production, it’s amazing how jaded some people can be at times. But I’m not going to talk about that; I am going to talk about the exact opposite of that. I want to talk about the energy that pushes you to keep moving to create something almost beyond this world. If there is a single word for it in English, I don’t know what it is. It’s beyond enthusiasm. It comes over you like a spell until you see the project through, then it goes somewhere else for a while. It comes back again later. This energy, as I know, it can manifest in at least three different ways.
Your boss heard that you really love the theater and would appreciate some extra hours on show site, so he offers you the chance of a lifetime to come and work on his next show for no money, as an intern of sorts. You jump at the chance to gain experience. The next gig comes along, and he asks you do it for no money again. Now you realize that you have no way to get to the show site because your gas tank is empty.
The horror… The horror.
A New Year presents itself as an opportunity to hold out the torch of understanding and tolerance with those you may have had “misunderstandings” with in the past.
Exes…Former Employers…Promoter production reps.
Q: What’s the difference between a Lighting Designer and a Lighting Director?
A: About $20,000…
As a touring lighting director, I get asked this a lot — and the reality is few people outside the industry really understand it. The roles are similar, but the responsibilities are vastly different. The lighting designer is responsible for pitching, selling, and securing their visual concept for the show to their client. The lighting director is responsible for implementing the design and making sure its vision remains intact for the duration of the tour.
We examine the scenario in which a nightclub LD (me) hosts a show with its own traveling LD. Should make for an easy day for me, eh? Perhaps. In the red corner, wearing cargo shorts, five laminates and a radio with a Jack in the Box head on the antenna, weighing in at 100 pounds soaking wet, is El Vato de la Ruta, the tour guy… And in the blue corner, wearing carpenter’s trousers, an aloha shirt and a grimace, weighing a lot more than he used to, is Surly McGee, the house guy.
These days, putting on a harness before you climb is as automatic as putting on a pair of gloves or checking your radio channel before you start work. But any lighting technician or rigger of a certain age remembers when wearing a harness — even the ones that are illegal today for fall protection — was optional. In the early 80’s I was a house rigger at the Rockford MetroCentre in Rockford, IL. The head rigger there was Bo Medearis. Bo was a thoughtful, methodical, and confident rigger — which made him everything I wasn’t. I was young, brash, and cocky.
Lynyrd Skynyrd is a great band to work with, for several reasons — one of which is they get booked on all sorts of different festivals/gigs because of their iconic music. Since I’ve been with them (2010), we have played every type of gig, from southern/classic rock to classic/New Age country and heck, even hard rock and metal festivals like “Hell Fest” in Europe. I mean we just did a gig with Judas Priest last month! It’s great, because it means this band is always working, and that means I am always working.
