With its iconic bandshell set against the majestic backdrop of its namesake hills, the more-than-a-century-old Hollywood Bowl casts a uniquely captivating spell. It’s easy to see why Rolling Stone named the legendary amphitheater, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, one of the USA’s ten best live music venues. Replicating this kind of splendor at a modern indoor arena is a tall order, but Bobby Grey of Notan Creative LLC was more than up to the challenge recently when he was called upon to light Audacy’s superstar-studded We Can Survive concert at New Jersey’s 18,000-capacity Prudential Center.
Held annually in support of mental health advocacy, the event routinely features many of music’s biggest names. This year’s concert was no exception, as artists like Justin Timberlake, New Kids on the Block, Tate McRae, Benson Boone, Khalid, and Isabel LaRosa took the stage.
Grey’s design ensured that these artists and their visiting LDs would be supported by a dynamic lightshow. At the same time, he also was able to evoke the magic of the Hollywood Bowl with help from 63 CHAUVET Professional PXL Curve 12 motorized battens, supplied by 4Wall Entertainment.
Describing the challenge, Grey said: “For many years We Can Survive was held at the Hollywood Bowl, which in itself lent grandeur to the whole affair. Bringing the show indoors into an arena brought the challenge of keeping the event’s feeling of grandeur and scale that the event’s previous venue provided. We achieved this by having wide curved trusses with the CHAUVET PXL Curves.”
Grey used the fully pixel mappable battens to line the curved truss that formed the architecture of the stage. This framing helped endow the stage with a bigger, bolder look that conveyed a sense of grandness reminiscent of a venue like the Hollywood Bowl. “We lined the curved trusses with PXL Curves to accentuate the architecture – and man, we got that and much more than that,” said Grey. “I loved that we could zoom these fixtures in and out and get a wide line lighting the linear faces of the fixtures or zoom them in to get sheets of light. We got beautiful complex flyouts, peels, and even/odd tilts.
“Lining the architecture and having lots of tight lines of pixels to complete effects has really become my favorite thing to incorporate into these designs,” continued Grey. “This is especially true as guest’s programming has gotten more complex and cloning into pixels has gotten easier.”
A highlight of the project for Grey was the chance to work with all the visiting LDs on hand for We Can Survive. “This is my favorite part of this type of project,” he said. “We get to work with and see our friends! Most acts did bring in their own creative teams. We especially enjoyed working with Cory FitzGerald and Josh Beard to adapt Justin Timberlake’s show to the festival setting.”
Helping the visiting LDs bring dynamic energy to their shows were the rig’s other CHAUVET Professional fixtures, in addition to the COLORado PXL Curve 12 units. This group included eight Maverick MK3 Washes, and 44 STRIKE Array 4 blinders, which Grey praised for their “tungsten feel,” that he said added a level of warmth to the event.
Working with LD/Programmer Austin Schneider and Screens Director Jackson Gallagher of Fragment 9, Grey was able to create something unique and visually powerful, while keeping the design approachable for six separate guest creative teams. Toward this end, he likes “keep things in chunks,” so lines of beams, profiles, pixels and other effects are in easy-to-work-with groups. It is all part, he says, of making visiting LDs feel at home at the event. And in this case, “home” had a little of the Hollywood Bowl in it, even though it was over 2,600 miles away in New Jersey.
Further information from CHAUVET Professional: www.chauvetprofessional.com
