NASHVILLE – Dude Perfect, the American sports and comedy group that specializes in trick shots, recently wrapped their 28-city North American tour with a lighting system provided by Bandit Lites. Produced by 46/ Entertainment and Premier Productions, the tour is comprised of Cory and Coby Cotton, Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones and Tyler Toney and featured the hijinks and stunts that garnered the Dude Perfect “bros” their 50 million YouTube subscribers and more than 11 million Instagram followers.
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“Dude Perfect is an interesting show because the action could happen at any corner/level of the arena at any time,” said Production Manager Mason Felps of 46/Entertainment. “The Dudes are always moving around the floor and between stages, so having enough key light was very important with this one.”
The action Felps refers to antics such as funny competitive challenges, trick shots, interactive games and more. Bandit supplied more than 115 lighting fixtures including Ayrton MAGICPANEL-602 for eye candy and stage wash, GLP JDC1 LED Strobes on the main stage thrust for crowd lighting (a crucial component for the show), Robe MegaPointe fixtures along the truss and C-stage for aerial beam looks and VL 3500 Wash units for additional key light, beam and aerial looks. Noll ran the show from a grandMA2 full console.
“Never before have I done a tour where standard statements on com were, ‘Are the ketchup popsicles solid?’ ‘Is the toilet paper gun good to go?’ or ‘Hope you have the clippers good because they are looking to force the mohawk,’” said lighting director Chris Noll. “That level of uniqueness extended to the lighting side of the tour, so while we had a main cue list of the show top to bottom, I’m pretty sure I only ran the show as programmed a few times. The Dudes liked to mix it up night to night in small ways that kept us on our toes. Lighting controlled a bulk of the show, including video, pryo and a few thousand parameters of scenic lighting with DMX triggers, so it became a fun juggling act at front of house some nights.”
“These Dudes are incredibly inspiring and energetic with a positive message for today’s youth through active participation with the audiences,” said Bandit Client Representative Shawn Lear. “Mason and the entire 46/ Entertainment team knock this out of the park.”
Noll spent time programming at 46/Entertainment before heading to rehearsals with Felps and Producer Lauren Charboneau. Felps prepared renderings for each segment which the team used as a starting point for the base looks. “Although we did cross over at times, Mason primarily programmed video content while I focused on lighting,” explained Noll. “Having Lauren in the room was fantastic as she was able to walk us through moments how she wanted them to happen, allowing us to dial our programming in further than I thought we would ahead of time.”
As the tour ran on, both Felps and Noll found opportunities to use the lighting join in the shenanigans. “Paintball Pictionary was a competition between two groups of kids, emceed by Cody, guessing what Garrett was drawing with his paintball gun,” Noll said. “I joked that if the guys on stage got to draw, so did I, and proceeded to put smiley faces on all the Aryton MAGICPANELS in the rig. It became a little Easter egg for kids to notice throughout the tour.”
“My personal favorite moment was the final battle where the dudes would go into the 200 level and shoot an arrow to a gong flown above the main stage,” said Felps. “The JDC1s provided great crowd lights for this moment.”
“I owe a big thanks to Mason Felps for bringing me out as the LD on this one,” Noll said. “We had previously worked together on the Alan Jackson Tornado Relief Concert and Rock the South, but this was the first tour we had done together. An equal, if not bigger, thanks would be to the techs on this tour: Darryl Newcombe (Bandit Lites crew chief), Hayley Elliot (Bandit Lites), Kayla Dietz (Go Live Productions) and Tanner Morris (Strictly FX) for pulling off what was not an easy production day after day. These guys killed it every show and rolled with the punches when we would need to make tweaks on the fly.”
“As always, working with the Bandit team is an incredible experience,” Felps added. “We could not have asked for a better group of Bandit’s to be on the road with us. They kept this rig working at one hundred percent each day, no matter what was thrown at them.”
“This production was full of complex scenery, costume and large props,” echoed Lear. “46/ Entertainment and Premier Productions provided first rate management and execution of this tour. We are also particularly proud of the work our crew has done; Chris Noll led the charge, while Darryl and Haley did an exceptional job keeping fixtures will maintained and building the show every day.”
