Music City bid farewell to 2021 with Nashville’s annual free New Year’s Eve celebration. Crowds poured into Bicentennial Park as Bandit Lites supplied Chris Lisle Lighting Design more than 330 fixtures to light several areas of the site, including all public entry points, major walkways, key focus points, and the iconic music note tower. Fixtures chosen consisted of Chauvet COLORado Solo Battens, Elation Proteus Maximus, Elation Proteus Hybrids, Elation Proteus Rayzor 760, Elation SIXPAR 100 and Elation PALADINs.
Welcoming more than 200,000 attendees, the entry points and major walkways featured a combination of truss towers and truss arches outfitted with a mixture of moving profiles, beams, washes and fixed washes.
“The GLP Fusion Exo Beam fixtures were used as sky trackers to ‘send out the bat signal,’ said Aaron Luke, site lighting liaison and programmer of the music note tower. “The washes and profiles provided illumination of the area, both for safety as well as ambience to create a mood of fun and celebration.”
Bandit Lites also supplied Elation SIXPAR 100IP fixtures as architectural lighting to uplight 50 bell towers, while Elation Paladins offered front light at multiple photo-op locations. Conventional lekos were used on pipe and base all around the site with custom gobos to provide additional branding.
In what has become a tradition, the Nashville lowered a music note to ring in the new year. Bandit delivered Chauvet Solo Battens to line both sides of the music note tower, and SGM G-7 BeaSTs were placed atop the platform to act as additional sky trackers.
Weather is always a consideration to outdoor events, and Nashville’s tendency for mercurial winters was no exception. “With the addition of some new fixtures to their inventory, Bandit provided a lighting rig that is 100% IP-rated, virtually nullifying any weather threat,” said Luke. “I was very pleased with the performance of all the fixtures, but a couple that I hadn’t used before and that stood out were both the GLP Fusion Exo Beams and the SGM G-7 BeaSt. Both produced tight, bright shafts of light that were visible even without artificial atmosphere. Combining that with their IP rating, I was very pleased with their performance.”
Bandit’s team worked to make sure load in in downtown Nashville was streamlined. Crew included Carter Hopkins, Steve Strickland, Scott Wesson, Justin Wilk, Mike Stanley, Cheyan DeBrower, Katie Feltes, Jake Riddell, Vanessa Sexton and Jessie Hochinyavong.
“As always, Bandit’s service and support is fantastic, from the top down,” said Luke.
“Bandit always delivers a top-notch product from prep to execution,” added Lighting Designer Chris Lisle. “They worked through wind, snow, and rain to make sure we had a system that was 100% operational at all times.”
Production Management: CLLD – Chris Lisle & Mark Anderson
Site Lighting Design: CLLD – Chris Lisle
Site Lighting Liaison: Aaron Luke
Bandit Crew Chief: Michael Stanley
Site Lighting Programmer: Vanessa Sexton
Music Note Tower Programmer: Aaron Luke
Bandit Lites Client Representative: Mike Golden
Bandit Project Manager: Matt King
