Production Profile

Selena Gomez officially kicked off her Revival tour at the Mandalay Bay Arena in Las Vegas on May 6. The second solo tour by this popular singer showcases the 2015 album of the same name playing much of the new album among her 20-song set. She reached into her catalogue of five studio albums as well to keep the fans dancing for the better part of the 75-minute set. Baz Halpin put together a talented team of lighting designers, directors, and video personnel to build a cutting edge production together. PRG was called on to provide the lighting and video for the show while Pyrotecnico FX looked after the lasers and Tait Towers built the set.

Projection and Video sere Integral to the Flexible and Kinetic Design of the Bad Boy Family Reunion Shows

Two nights that were 20 years in the making became part of Hip-Hop music history with Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Family Reunion concerts at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.

“Can you recreate a 1980s concert look in 2016?” Bruce Springsteen asked of his longtime LD Jeff Ravitz. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s The River Tour 2016 commemorates the release of the double album of the same name in 1980, and Bruce wanted the old vibe of yesterday to flow into his new shows today. A challenging idea, especially since fixtures and video equipment are light years ahead of where they were then. LD Jeff Ravitz has been working with The Boss since 1984, but he shuddered when the phrase “PAR cans” was bandied about. And video? Not much in 1980. PLSN looked at the lighting from Morpheus Lights and video production from Pete’s Big TVs on this current tour.

Black Sabbath has widely been referred to as the band that started heavy metal music when the band formed in Birmingham, England back in 1968. There have been several incarnations of the band since then, leading up to their farewell tour this year with three out of the four original members. Guitarist Tommy Iommi has been the one consistent player in the band during their career and has joined forces again with singer Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler for 2016’s “The End” tour.

Once again, the fastest live show in television has come and gone. With headliners Coldplay along with special guest performers, Beyoncé and Bruno Mars, the 12-minute Pepsi Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show is in the record books as the third most watched Halftime Show; 115.5 million viewers in the U.S. alone. The Super Bowl was broadcast worldwide from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA.

[caption id="attachment_268213" align="alignnone" width="800"]The projections portray a Piazza with a screen-within-a-screen effect.Andrea Bocelli Cinema tour, photo by Todd Kaplan[/caption]

As part of the release of Andrea Bocelli’s Cinema album, a collection of iconic movie theme songs, he performed a special one-night concert at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre. The show was taped for broadcast on PBS. The reaction to the production was so good that Bocelli and his team decided to modify the one-off production into a tourable concert. The Cinema World Tour recently completed its first leg through the U.S., including dates in Phoenix, Las Vegas, New York City, and Washington DC.

The Weeknd recently wrapped up the sold-out The Madness Fall Tour, which was in support of the artist’s second studio album, Beauty Behind the Madness. Known by the stage name The Weeknd, Canadian singer, songwriter, and producer Abel Tesfaye wanted to build on the success of the album with the tour through extremely effective use of production elements to support his music. Production and lighting designer LeRoy Bennett, one of the principals in Seven Design Works, was asked to realize that goal.

A Look Into an Amazing Institution in Minneapolis

I just witnessed L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz last night, my fourth play at this state-of-the-art theater in Minneapolis. Once again, I cannot believe the production values I just witnessed for a children’s show. But one should expect no less from Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) as they celebrate their 50th year in existence. In 2003, they were awarded a Tony Award for an “Outstanding Regional Theater,” and they strive for excellence with every performance.

This band started as collaboration between lead singer Florence Welch and keyboardist/singer Isabella “Machine” Summers when they were teens. The actual band came together in London in 2007, when they started playing their first gigs. 2015 brought around the release of their third album entitled How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful in June, and the band has been playing handfuls of dates all over the globe since. They recently embarked on some shows here in the U.S. We caught up with lighting designer Rob Sinclair and video director Mark Haney as they headed out to their first show in Nashville.

Last month, AC/DC played a show in Chicago that had local residents listening to the music from their apartments…, a mile away. Amidst a shower of pyrotechnics, the band hit the stage running for a non stop two hour show starting off with their new song (and name of the tour) “Rock or Bust.” Taking a second to cool off before launching into a parade of hits, singer Brian Johnson announced, “Tonight, together, we’re gonna make some rock ‘n’ roll….., and the party starts now.” He wasn’t kidding, as a non-stop two-hour energetic rock ‘n’ roll show followed.

It’s been a dozen years since Shania Twain has hit the road on tour. She picked up right where she left off with a gorgeous production design for her current “Rock This Country” tour. In 2004, she stopped singing to heal her throat and stayed silent up until she took up residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in 2012. Ten months before that run of 105 shows, the artist met with show director Raj Kapoor to come up with a production for those distinct shows. A good relationship was formed and, once again, the singer looked to him and his company for a vision on this tour, which launched in June and wraps later this month.

The growing number of country artists emerging from Nashville and crossing over into mainstream has brought with it a new discipline in lighting flexibility as production ramps up to 20,000-seat arena shows one night, immediately followed by a county fair. In the case of the Justin Moore tour, this has represented quite a challenge for production designer Sooner Routhier (of SRae Productions) and touring lighting director Aaron Luke in terms of carrying easily scalable scenography.