CHICAGO — 3SRcreative, the design firm comprised of lighting designers Seth Jackson and Nathan W. Scheuer, media/video director Brent Sandrock and project manager Jack Rushen, played a key role at this year’s Lollapalooza festival in Grant Park here Aug. 1-3, 2014. They also got a big assist from Bandit Lites, which provided lighting fixtures from Chauvet, Clay Paky, Martin, TMB/Solaris, Vari-Lite and their own GRNLite brand along with 140 motors, 2,000+ feet of truss and grandMA2 and HES Road Hog consoles for control.
More details from Bandit Lites (www.banditlites.com):
There may have been clouds looming on the opening day of Lollapalooza, but that couldn’t stop fans from pouring into Grant Park. Bandit Lites worked with 3SRcreative, the design firm comprised of lighting designers Seth Jackson and Nathan W. Scheuer, media/video director Brent Sandrock and project manager Jack Rushen to light the event, where more than 130 artists performed on eight stages over three days, culminating in a weekend of great performances by both up-and-comers, bona fide legends, and the most popular artists of today.
In its tenth year at Grant Park, and a massive 300,000 three day attendance record, Lollapalooza included performances from OutKast, Eminem, Lorde, Kings of Leon, Artic Monkeys, Skrillex, The Avett Brothers, Foster the People and Calvin Harris.
“C3 presents and their head of production, Brandon Sossamon run a tight and organized ship,” said Jackson of the event production company that puts on Lollapalooza, and in the spirit of being organized, communication is key. After designing a rig for each of the four main music stages, Jackson sent the plans to the performers, promoting a dialogue between production manager and LDs to work towards giving the performers their own unique designs, while still covering the needs of all the various artists performing throughout the day.
“The real heroes in that process are the two mainstage stage managers, Jeff Wendt and Casey Carter,” expounded Jackson. “They keep everything on time, keep all the bands happy, watch the weather and winds (weather is electronically monitored at each stage site), and are ready for anything! On top of that, I have my dedicated coordinator, Jack Rushen who helps keep everything running between the stages and the change overs.”
One of the main challenges for the event was providing enough of a variety in fixtures choices to give each of the varying acts as much as possible to work with, while still being comparable to their normal touring rigs. Additionally, it was crucial to be flexible with the main stage design as most headliners brought a touring rig of their own, meaning crazy truss configurations were forfeited to make room for space.
“This was a new way of designing for me,” added Jackson. “You have to get deep into the nuts, bolts and hardware of the process and stay organized, or it will get away from you and run you over. It is great for me to exercise that part of my brain again. Sometimes, as a designer, you can get too far away from things and take a ‘let the shop figure it out’ attitude. This kind of project doesn’t allow for that, which is good thing.”
Jackson went for efficiency in the design, studying other designers’ rigs to create a flexible design that streamlined the day.
“For example, everyone has Sharpys in their rig; I put as many of them as possible into the design, and then added more for a couple of the acts. You can’t have a big ego on this job. You are there to support and help everyone else,” said Jackson.
Equipment for the event included 88 VL 3500 washes, 53 VL 3000 spots, 86 Clay Paky Sharpys, 96 Mac 2ks, 44 Nexus 4×4 Strips, 70 Martin Atomic Strobes, 70 Aura’s, 200 GRNLite pars, 140 Motors, over 2000 feet of truss, and was accompanied by an assortment of Grand MA 2 full consoles, Road Hogs, Solaris Flares, Bandit 5x5s, and GRNLite washes.
Following the success of the Counterpoint Music Festival, Bandit Lites was thrilled to support 3SRcreative on Lollapalooza.
“I cannot say enough about working with the team C3 has built as well as the complete professionalism they displayed in every aspect of the production of Lollapalooza,” said Bandit’s Vice President Mike Golden. “I was thoroughly impressed with the leadership of Brandon Sossamon who organized and oversaw the production. Every base was covered and no detail was overlooked. I look forward to working with Seth Jackson and the entire team at C3 on any endeavor they have in future.”
“As you can imagine, this is a project of massive logistics. The Bandit system excels in this capacity. Between Mike Golden, Shawn Lear, and Dizzy Gosnell, everything is checked and double checked for rigging, weights, cable management… you name it. This is in addition to site lighting all over the fields and backstage,” said Jackson.
