Chesney. Classical. The country star s latest tour borrows its visual concept from ancient Greek theatre CONCERTS

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1 Copyright Lighting&Sound America June The country star s latest tour borrows its visual concept from ancient Greek theatre By: Sharon Stancavage Classical Chesney 52 June 2011 Lighting&Sound America

2 In the world of classical theatre, the word periaktoi is not uncommon. In the world of 21st-century concert touring, the word is definitely not common. Yet periaktoi columns are precisely what production designer Mike Swinford, of UpLate Design Inc. in Nashville, used to frame Kenny Chesney s Goin Coastal tour. It s basically a three-sided column, explains Swinford. The idea came from old Greek theatre that s how they used to change backdrops before they had fly systems. Initially, Swinford had two designs to present to Chesney, but, before he did so, he consulted production manager Ed Wannebo. Ed has to feel comfortable that he can put it up on a daily basis and do it efficiently, Swinford notes. For the visuals on the periaktoi columns, Swinford went into realms that could only be imagined by the ancient Greeks. On one side, it s all ten mil[limiter] Dak[tronics] tiles from DannyO Video, the second side is all lighting and strobes, and the third side is all mirrors, he explains. The periaktoi give Swinford quite a bit of flexibility in the design. I ve been doing large screens as long as anybody, and that design is amazing you have so many variations in what you can do with them, notes Danny O Bryen, president of DannyO Video of Newbury Park, California, the tour s video gear supplier. The 15'9"-tall-by-48'-wide columns move via rotation devices located on the trussing above them. Jesse Sugimoto, automation/project manager at SGPS ShowRig, of Las Vegas, notes, We have a proprietary machined aluminum gear ring. That ring lines up to the teeth on a steel cog, keeping the motion smooth and highly controllable. The rotation devices are part of the standard flying technology provided by SGPS. For this production, the columns are only using the rotation of the units without using the lifting capability, except during the load-in and load-out here, it s just a static element with rotation only, Sugimoto says. Swinford did have one concern about the periaktoi. We do sheds and stadiums what happens when the wind starts blowing them? he says. We don t want these things looking like wind chimes banging around. To keep that from happening, Eric Pearce, president and lead designer at SGPS, created an aluminum spreader bar system to keep the columns locked in place. The bar sits in the air suspended from the bottom of the column; each column has its own bars that pins to the next one, so there s a male-female pattern that locates these guys and keeps them locked together, Sugimoto explains. The bottom of the spreader bars, which are located 10' off the deck, do indeed solve the wind chime issue. When you re in a shed, there s no way for these guys to move left or Photos: Todd Kaplan June

3 Video is seen on the periaktoi and also on the Daktronics header. right or up and downstage; they re locked in a continuous bar that goes the entire length of the column truss. Ease of installation, one of Wannebo s major requirements, was also a part of the periaktoi design. Ed wanted to make sure these things are quick to install, explains Sugimoto. We line them up, lower the 12'6" truss down, put in the locator pins and then raise the truss up and lifting columns right out of the cart. For the first two songs, the LED columns are hidden. At the very top of the show, one column is mirrored and one column is lighting and they face each other, says Swinford. This is very effective when mirroring the strobe sources, making it appear that there are 98 of them. As the show progresses, the mirrors disappear, and the periaktoi columns transform into an old-school rock n roll wall of lights. When we re in full lighting mode, we re exposing 48 [Philips Vari*Lite] VL2500 spots and 48 [Martin Professional] Atomic 3K strobes, Swinford explains. The periaktoi columns are also illuminated from below. It s a very Tron-looking thing we uplight the whole structure with eight VL3500 washes and this, in combination with exposing the LEDs on the backside of the LED modules, creates a very techno look. 54 June 2011 Lighting&Sound America

4 Above and below: The lighting side of the periaktoi at work. Although the VL3500 is a wash light, Swinford doesn t necessarily use it in a traditional manner. Most of the time we use them in the super-tight collimated beam so it has a very edgy look. We do flood them out sometimes for some of the ballads but, for the big up-tempo numbers, we narrow them back down and start doing more graphics with them, he says. Chesney also liked the idea of a giant amp wall, so Swinford created one using Jarag lights and custom- The video side of the periaktoi are on display above.. June

5 built cabinets courtesy of SetCo, of Nashville. He notes, There are 72 Jarags built into faux amplifiers with giant amp heads on top of them. The Jarags are indeed invisible, at least until they blast out into the audience. For the opening of the show, we use them to silhouette the band, then when we punch up all 72 on full even color-corrected behind the screen it s almost blinding. The Jarags did need some tweaking to make them work for the show. When Kenny saw them at rehearsals, he said, They look awful orange. They re incandescent, 3,400 Kelvin, and every other source in our rig is an arc light, so it s more blue color temperature, up around 5,600, the production designer explains. Swinford took some Lee 201 CTB and transformed the Jarags into daylight units. To my knowledge, this is the first time I ve seen the Jarags color corrected up to blue, and it s a very good look, he adds. Swinford s rig also includes June 2011 Lighting&Sound America

6 Swinford did have one concern about the periaktoi. We do sheds and stadiums what happens when the wind starts blowing them? he says. We don t want these things looking like wind chimes banging around. pantographs split between stage right and left featuring two VL3500 washes and one Atomic strobe. Primarily, we use them a lot for toning the band for video, and other times we use them for big graphic effects, he says. The pantographs are also illuminated from the stage, Swinford says, We have some VL3000 spots on the floor that tone the pantographs themselves, because Kenny liked the look of all the metal; it looks like an Erector Set. The lighting rig also includes six fingers of Tyler Truss Systems Green Truss, and each finger has ten Vari-Lite VL3000 spots in it. These units travel with the truss, as do the lights on the periaktoi. Basically, that s 156 lights that the crew never has to touch, remarks Swinford. SGPS ShowRig provided the pantographs. They are a really cool device, says Sugimoto. They travel up and down 26', they have the ability to run up to 2.7' per second, and they lift up to 1,000lbs. June

7 Video periaktoi The final portion of the periaktoi picture is the Daktronics video wall on the third side. All of a sudden, on the third number, there s an LED screen there you never see it rotate, so you think, where did that come from? notes O Bryen. The video package includes a Grass Valley Kayak switcher, five manned Sony cameras, and five fixed remote cameras. There are also right/left IMAG screens, as well as a Daktronics 48' wide x 9' high header above the stage. The headers, in combination with the periaktoi screens, work together as one gigantic palette, notes video director Jay Cooper. Content can be spread between the header screens and the periaktoi, or can be completely different, thanks to a complex video system comprised of four Barco Encores, four PRG Mbox media servers, and a Control Freak System that ties everything together. We use the Barco Encore to 58 June 2011 Lighting&Sound America

8 move those layers around and place them wherever we want to within that giant template, Cooper says. While the Encores are handling the layering, the Mboxes are in charge of effects. Cooper explains, The Mbox is really good with no latency, which is pretty amazing. The Mboxes enabled both Cooper and lighting director/visuals programmer David Fuji Convertino to put many effects onto both the IMAG and the video content, which was produced by Lightborne, of Cincinnati, Ohio. They built 11 songs worth of graphics, the video director notes. A lot of it rolls on choruses; sometimes it goes through the whole song. The use of technology has given everyone a chance to flex their collective creative muscles. We have some great moments with the Mboxes using live cameras and the Encore bridge, comments Convertino. One of those moments happens during the song Young. I made a bunch of photo shapes on the Mbox for Young to match what Lightborne sent, so the transition from IMAG to content is seamless, notes Convertino. The photo shapes Convertino created are in the shape of old Kodak ViewMaster slides. Later in the show, during Somewhere with You, animation and IMAG combine to create something magical. There s animation that looks like water in sand the water runs the sand, then the sand blows away like a mirage. We ve used that water/sand imaging that they made for us and blended our IMAG within that, we ve kind of mimicked what s going on in the content, explains Cooper. Programming was, as expected, challenging, and involved Swinford, lighting programmer Mark Butts, Convertino, and Cooper. It s very complex if you re in all lighting and you re going to roll into video, the lighting has to fade out as it s rotating around, and video has to fade in, the production designer explains. Swinford and Butts did pre-visualization using ESP Vision at Swinford s pre-viz suite in Nashville. We had to know which lights where exposed, so we could properly program the show, says Swinford. We basically had to storyboard every song that the lights on the periaktoi columns were involved in, which was about 10 or 12 of them. Swinford rendered out about 18 looks that were referenced when programming; Lightborne also use specific screen looks when creating content. During rehearsals, Butts programmed the lighting, while Convertino handled the video programming. Both were on grandma consoles. The periaktoi, having different looks for each song, made for a presetpalooza not only for the lighting but for video as well, notes Convertino. The grandma controls both the lighting and the video, thanks to the Control Freak System content management rack. With this rack, I can control all the Mbox servers and Encore bridge from FOH. For the 72 Jarags, we use a Pathport merge box so we can run video via Mbox or straight to DMX via the grandma, Convertino reports. Cooper worked alongside Convertino on the video programming. We worked with the Encore and the Mbox to come up with these cool effects and also split the screens up, notes Cooper. The Mboxes were also used to send content to the Jarags. The arena and amphitheatre shows are similar. However, when the tour gets into stadiums, there is a major change in the opening. We fly Kenny around in 3D space, lifting him out of the FOH mix position, through a hole in the roof, says Swinford. Chesney did the gag back in 2009, and wanted to bring it to a new audience. Wannebo put in a lastminute stat call to SGPS, and the gag appeared in the stadium shows. To make Chesney fly, We have four rigging points, two on the main stage, along with two in the house off the spot towers that StageCo provides, reports Sugimoto. Chesney flies the same route every night. It s the same path because of timing it s built around the intro to his song, and the landing on the thrust is a build up to a new chorus. In fact, he ll recognize it if I send him a half-second June

9 Swinford s renderings show his concepts for deploying the tour s abundant video screens. Below: The Jarags in their custom-built cabinets. early, Sugimoto reveals. The 80' thrust is, of course, used for all venues. All of the automation the periaktoi columns, the pantographs, and the Austrian curtain featured at the beginning of the arena and amphitheatre shows are all controlled by one system running Fisher Navigator Software. Chesney s fly rig is on a separate system, with Sugimoto at the helm. There s also a small skycam below Chesney s seat, which Cooper uses during the show. The stadium shows are a little bit more interesting, and a little more challenging, because we re basically broadcasting small video across the stadium and it s being input into our switcher, Cooper explains. When the tour hits a stadium, the lighting rig expands exponentially. We bring in another 60 or 70 lights it s got to look big, because it s a big space, notes Swinford. The majority of the luminaires are from Vari-Lite, Swinford s moving light company of choice; the stadium rig also includes sixteen 8K Syncrolites. We use a custom gel palette, because there are a lot of their stock colors that we would never use, and we don t want one to get stuck in pink, Swinford says with a chuckle. The stadium setup also includes a StageCo roof and two StageCo 70 stage towers. We put four Lycian followspots on each one, which are coming from Christie Lights, the production designer adds. Sound for a sing-along A Kenny Chesney show is a guaranteed good time, and the man assisting in the audience sing-along is front-of-house sound engineer Bryan Vasquez, who has been out with Chesney for the past 11 years. Basically, you just have to turn these guys up, he says. They re such a great band, and I ve got such great sounds coming to me, that there s very little you need to do to it. Vasquez has a new Midas PRO9 console out on the road. It still sounds great, it has all the features I need, he says. It s got 80 inputs and we ve about filled it up, but it s plenty for what I m doing. It s got all the other features the great preamps and the EQ. For Chesney s last tour in 2009, Vasquez was out with a Midas XL8. I didn t need everything the XL8 can do, and I m not one to take out any more than I need, the engineer admits. The transition from the XL8 to the PRO9 was effortless for Vasquez. It is the same layout as the XL8, just in a smaller package, just spaced a little differently so it was really easy to get around on and find things. Where you would naturally reach for a function, it seems to be where you would normally go for that function, so it s real easy, he says. It feels like an analog console, it reacts like an analog console, and I think it s as close to an analog console as you can get in the digital world. The PRO9 has also shrunk down the audio footprint at the front of house, and has assisted in the 60 June 2011 Lighting&Sound America

10 More of Swinford s rederings present a more exposed view of the rig. Renderings: Courtesy of Mike Swinford efficiency of the load-in. Vasquez says, I m on wheels now, so I can build while the rest of the load-in is going on, then just roll into place and cable up in 15 minutes and I m done. In monitor world, Phil Robinson and Bryan Baxley are also using PRO9s. As for his outboard gear, there s a definite lack of equipment out in the arena. I don t have any outboard rack. I use all the comps and gates in the console. The only rack I have has a CD player in it, he remarks. While the lack of outboard gear might be a problem for some, it isn t for Vasquez. Sometimes guys will have the mindset that they have to do a certain thing to an instrument, but you don t really know until you turn up the gain and push up the fader and see where you stand. Sometimes you don t have to do anything to it, he says. The PA rig for the tour is from Electro-Voice. Vasquez explains, The EV X-Line is our main PA. We have the X subs, and we also use the XLCs for our sides and delay fills. The count naturally depends on the venue. Amphitheatres are usually 12 mains per side, with some fill on side for the last little pie shape that the main PA can t cover; we also we put up some front fill. In arenas, we hang more, because we have to go taller; in stadiums, we go 20 deep on the mains. Amplification is provided by a handful of EV P3000s and the EV NetMax N8000 digital audio system controller. With NetMax, you can control all the functions on the amps, EQ, everything from the computer; it s all run down a fiber cable from a computer running at FOH to each side of the stage, he says. The audio team on the Chesney show includes system engineer John Mills, and system techs Justin Meeks, Phil Spina, and Robert McTigue. Theses guys are my support system out there, states Vasquez. Vasquez has a variety of microphones on stage. His primary units come from two firms: Audio-Technica and Heil. We ve had a relationship with Roxanne [Ricks Buchanan] with AT for years; It s a great company, with some of the best support in the business, says Vasquez. It was Ricks Buchanan who hooked Vasquez up with two of his new favorite Audio- Technica mics. She let us audition some of the new 4080 and 4081 ribbon mics, which are great. Vasquez uses them on the lead guitar player s cabinets, and has nothing but good things to say about them. The new ones aren t nearly as fragile as they used to be those guitar cabinets are smoking loud, and we ve had no issues with microphone problems or failures yet. Chesney himself uses an AT Artist Elite Series It s a wireless hand held basically, he s all over the The transition from the XL8 to the PRO9 was effortless for Vasquez. It feels like an analog console, it reacts like an analog console, and I think it s as close to an analog console as you can get in the digital world. place, notes Vasquez. It s also Chesney s favorite handheld, and has been with him for a number of years. This year, there are also some Heil microphones on the tour. Vasquez says, Our drummer turned me on to them. He actually bought the mics for his drum set during rehearsals. And we put them on the drum kit and they sounded great. In fact, Vasquez liked the Heils so much that they ve migrated beyond the drum kit. We put them on different guitars, on different guitar amps, different cabinets. I even put one in a cajón that our drummer plays during an acoustic set. (t s got bottom, plenty of top end, and no muddiness. I was really surprised by it, he says. The mic package also includes Shure SM57s and Beta 58As (on the June

11 guitars), a Royer 121 (on the electric guitar), and a Sennheiser 902 (for the bottom of the organ.) The biggest challenge for Vasquez and his sound team comes when Chesney flies over the audience during the opening gag of the stadium shows. You can only get so loud in front of a speaker before it s going to feed back, he says philosophically. Vasquez does, of course, have a plan in dealing with Chesney s flight into the audience. During the day, when we re doing our mic check and sound check, we try to ring that mic out really good ; we also do any kind of feedback prevention and EQ certain things out of it so it doesn t seep back before he ever gets to the building. That way, I can get the max level on it and not have to worry about feedback, he notes. Chesney and Swinford s 21stcentury interpretation of Greek theatre will be on the road visiting amphitheatres, arenas, and stadiums until the end of August, when the tour wraps up in Foxboro, Massachusetts. Back in the Game with DannyO In the song That s Life, Frank Sinatra recalls life as a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king. That song could be applied to Danny O Bryen, a fixture in the video industry who, he says, has been a ticket taker, a stagehand, a promoter rep, a lighting designer, a shareholder, and a business owner. O Bryen s foray into the live entertainment industry started in 1971, when he was working for Don Law Concerts in Boston, putting up concert posters. He found he liked the concert industry, and stayed the course over the years eventually running most of the concerts in Los Angeles for Avalon Attractions for 15 years. I ve been in the entertainment business for 40 years; who would have thought I would have made a livelihood out of it? he says. In 1989, O Bryen and his partner, Tom McCracken, started BCC Video, which eventually morphed into Screenworks. The firm then became part of NEP broadcasting, which provides mobile teleproduction services. We sold to them, we were shareholders, and that worked really well for quite a few years. As they progressed in their own bi-equity groups, they got quite a bit more corporate then they had been, O Bryen explains. The corporate philosophy of the parent company became difficult. NEP was branching out in a lot of different directions, but we were just a small part of the overall NEP company, and that was OK for a while, O Bryen admits. In the long run, the corporate climate at Screenworks NEP began to wear thin, and O Bryen made a decision to go back to doing the thing he does best: giving birth to a new company. I just wanted to fine-tune it--you can never go back to the way it exactly was, but you can get pretty close. O Bryen started the firm alone, but that situation changed quickly. After I left, I had a lot of people call me up who wanted to move over here and work with me, he admits. Amy Segawa, who had worked with O Bryen as his assistant since his days as a promoter rep with Avalon, left Screenworks, as did sales rep Randy Meyer. We also use a lot of independents that have been around for a long time and have worked a variety of tours for us over the years, O Bryen adds. When a newcomer to an industry starts a brand new company, clients can sometimes be scarce. O Bryen, on the other hand, has been in live entertainment for his entire career, And, he notes, With 30- and 40-year relationships, when you tell people you ve left, they ask what you re doing. When you say I m going to start this, they say, I want to work with you. And indeed, DannyO Video got off to a fast start. I left Screenworks January 3, and, in the course of the first 90 days, we put five tours on the road. Currently, DannyO Video has Daktronics 10mm LED walls out on Kenny Chesney and Sugarland, an Everbright 15mm wall on the Jimmy Buffet tour, and a WinVision 8.75mm wall out with Rush. Most of the systems available from DannyO Video are high-definition. In the end, DannyO Video is a family run firm that does care about their clients and staff. According to O Bryen, You re only as good as your people, and our people are family to us. DannyO Video is located in Newbury Park, California. They company can be reached at (805) or at info@dannyovideo.com, which will indeed land in O Bryen s inbox. O Bryen, like the man is the Sinatra song, is back in the race with a new project: Batman Live. This arena spectacular, featuring a 100 LED wall, will be premiere next month in the UK. Sharon Stancavage 62 June 2011 Lighting&Sound America