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Luke Bryan’s 2015 ‘Kick the Dust Up’ Tour

Luke Bryan 2015 tour photo by David Venus

Luke Bryan’s 2015 ‘Kick the Dust Up’ Tour

Country star Luke Bryan’s meteoric rise to the top has solidified his tour as one of the must-see shows of the summer. The singer has been selling out every show this year from arenas to sheds, special club gigs to humongous stadiums as evidenced by this weekend’s sold out gig at Nashville’s Vanderbilt stadium. Production designers Justin Kitchenman (touring LD) and Pete Healey (touring production manager) co-designed a large-scale system that can fit into any type venue. Through reconfigurations of where to rig the truss and video elements, these transitions between different sized venues are seamless, due to the design team doing their homework ahead of the tour.

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Train 2015 Picasso at the Wheel Tour photo by Steve Jennings

Train’s ‘Picasso at the Wheel’ Tour

At the age of 11 Brock Hogan attended his first concert, Def Leppard’s Hysteria tour. Ever since that moment, he knew he wanted to be involved in lighting. He began in the industry as a stagehand for a local production company in Boise ID. After several years of working every gig he possibly could and always asking questions, Hogan worked his way up from a pusher to lead rigger. In 2001 he began working at a local venue called The Big Easy Concert House (now The Knitting Factory). Within a year, he convinced them to let him learn lighting.

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Illuminate Production Services (IPS) owner Rick Franke and his son, Caleb, helped the church modernize its visual presentation to churchgoers.

Installations – Destiny Christian Church

Destiny Christian Church is a well-established parish with a number of ministries, classes and outreach programs providing for a congregation of over 3,000. A growing ministry located in Rocklin, CA, they sought to change their style of worship and their approach to the worship experience, with lighting as a key component. Rick Franke, owner of Illuminate Production Services (IPS) has been instrumental in this goal. Hailing from a family steeped in ministry, he himself served as a youth minister for 15 years. He tells a bit of his back-story.

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Greg Persinger and Vivid Illumination helped transform Indian Hills Community Church in Lincoln, NE.

A Talk with LD Greg Persinger

Greg Persinger found his calling as a church lighting designer by asking a simple question: Could he augment his touring rig with the church’s in-house moving lights? When the tech director he had posed that question to admitted that only one of his 40 fixtures worked, Persinger dug deeper into the reasons why. You could call it inspired intervention.

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LED video opens the door to entirely new forms of visual expression. Pictured here, Chauvet Professional’s PVP S7 LED panels from at the City Church of New Orleans.

LED Technologies – A New Dawn for Church Visuals

Advances in LED Technology Create New Opportunities to Engage Worshippers

Churches have long recognized that lighting can help engage their congregations in a number of different ways, from reflecting the varying moods of services to creating a more visually appealing presentation on stage. Adding new dynamic visual elements to their services will also help churches attract and keep the attention of younger people.

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Van Halen 2015 tour photo by Steve Jennings

Van Halen 2015 Tour

Eric Cathcart is out directing the 2015 Van Halen tour designed by Paul “Arlo” Guthrie. Back on stage are the Van Halen brothers, Alex on drums, Eddie on guitar with his son Wolfgang on bass and original lead singer David Lee Roth on vocals. The outdoor shed tour will head back to the West Coast where it started, ending the tour in the band’s hometown of Los Angeles in October with two nights at the Hollywood Bowl. Guthrie and Cathcart were in Los Angeles’ Sony Pictures Studios for about 10 days for rehearsals and programming, then moved everything to the first venue outside of Seattle for four days.

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Members of the DPS team hanging out in their Burbank warehouse. From left: Alan Sherin, Rob Kurtz, Jon Tunstall, R.J. Lynn, Anthony Dever, John Lee and Andrew ‘Hamish’ Mills.

DPS Inc. – Multi-faceted Production Company Rides Explosive Growth

I’m in an Audi riding over to the DPS warehouse from their HQ in Burbank along with GM Robert “R.J.” Lynn and the director of marketing, Alan Sherin. At a stop light, CEO/Creative Director Anthony Dever pulls up in his Tesla, rolls down his window and jokes, “Wanna race?” Lynn laughs and points out that maybe that’s not prudent, cop-wise. The light turns green and Dever hits the pedal, if only for a short spurt.

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Vickie Claiborne at FOH during the inaugural Rock in Rio USA festival, which took place in Las Vegas May 9-10, 2015.

Preparing FOH for a Festival

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to head up a talented team of programmers for a major music festival making its USA debut, Rock in Rio.  Having worked in concert touring throughout my career, I am no stranger to music festivals; however, I had never been the “go to” person for a main stage at a festival, so I eagerly took on the challenge and began preparing myself.

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DMD S7udios used eight 40K Barco projectors to create two 4K images on the north and south sides of the building. The projection, a first for the exterior of the arena, promoted Phish’s NYE concerts.

Turning a Projector Positioning Nightmare Into a Fairytaile for Phish

Have you ever worried about losing your job to a robot or a software program? Sometimes in our industry, the same products that are designed to help us be more creative, achieve greater technical results or show a client in advance what they are going to get for all the money they just dished out can be the bane of our existence. Software bugs, technical limitations or just simply being unknowledgeable of a particular product or feature can be a showstopper. This is exactly what we were faced with when we were asked to projection map imagery on the American Airlines arena in Miami for Phish’s run of shows over New Year’s Eve.

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Leatherman Surge multi-tool

Video Technician Summer Camp!

The following is a list that we have compiled to help you, the budding video technician know what to pack for camp this year.  It is by no means a complete list, but it’s a good start for the young camper.  We’re excited that you chose this path and can’t wait to meet all the campers and have them learn this fun, exciting craft!  We’ll do most of our work indoors, but sometimes we’ll be outside so don’t forget the rain gear.  Also, as much as we want you campers to be comfortable and have the right stuff, the bus is a little limited on space- so try not to pack too much.  Even though we have a strong returning group of people, many of you are new to this camp and are pretty nervous.  That’s okay!  We’ll help you out and make sure you have a fun, safe trip!

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Lighting 'American Ninja Warrior' Aboard the USS Iowa Battleship

Lighting ‘American Ninja Warrior’ Aboard the USS Iowa Battleship

Called the “hardest obstacle course in the world,” American Ninja Warrior runs its athletes through such grinding physical trials — i.e. dangling in mid-air while swinging from one set of sharp spiked grips to the next — that no contestant has ever been able to complete them all and emerge a winner. The big winner has been the top-rated NBC reality show itself. Now in its seventh season and drawing over 5 million weekly viewers, ANW has tackled its own challenge of maintaining edge and excitement by continually affecting new themes as it takes its famed truss course to different locations across the U.S.

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