I recently worked a corporate gig in Washington, DC. My designer friend that I worked with a year ago brought me on to program. We worked so well together, he wanted to work together again. He knew well beforehand that this new job would have crazy tight time frames. So the more prep work we did before, the smoother it would go on site, we thought.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show is one of the largest trade events in our extended industry. The final attendance count for the 2012 show in Las Vegas was 92,112, up from 91,932 in 2011. Some 1,600 exhibitors occupied 815,000 net square feet of exhibit space, up from 1,550 exhibitors and 745,000 square feet the year before.

Spring is in full swing. The cherry blossoms have come and gone. The blistering heat of the summer is right around the corner. Just like the heat index, this summer tour season is going to be on fire. Production companies from around the country are preparing their tours as we speak. Here’s just a sampling of what production companies have in store for the Summer of 2012.

Lighting Co
Epic Production Technologies

Venue
Various (Tour)

Lighting Co
Theatrical Lighting Systems (TLS)

Venue
Nashville Convention Center
Nashville, TN

Lighting Co
Purple Group

Venue
Koninklijk Theater Carré
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Lighting/Video Co
Complete Production Resources

Venue
UCF Arena
Orlando, FL

Lighting Co
Main Light Industries

Venue
Merriam Theater, UArts
Philadelphia, PA

Lighting Co
Christie Lites

Venue
Various (Tour)

It’s quite understandable if you roll your eyes at the thought of yet another movie being transformed into a Broadway musical, but the outstanding Once is a rare exception. “I had seen the movie on my own when it first came out and loved it,” recalls Tony Award-winning lighting designer Natasha Katz. “I remember reading in the New York Times that they were turning it into a musical and hoped that somebody would ask me to do it. I don’t always feel that way, and I was lucky enough to actually have been asked.”

Regal Looks for Romeo Santos’ First Solo Tour

When Romeo Santos kicked off his Formula Vol. 1 Tour with three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the audience was treated to an elaborate design — and one that was conceived and pulled together in a mere 45 days. Creative producer and tour director Veikko Fuhrmann and production designer Eduardo “Wady” Rodriguez collaborated on the sourcing as well as the set, lighting, and video designs.

A Mountain of Color, Texture and 3D “Infinity” Looks

The album Lenny Kravitz is supporting with his 2012 tour may be called Black and White America, but the colors revealed in the jagged-edged lighting and set design, a collaboration between LD Steve Cohen and production and set designer Es Devlin, are anything but.

Mapping 3D Video Projection in Another Dimension

It started innocently enough. In 2006, the wild idea to use fluorescent lighting for a live music production flashed in the mind of lighting designer Jeff Lavallee, of 44 Production Designs. But for nearly a year and a half, Lavallee couldn’t find the missing piece of his concept: the right band with which to match it.

Like most manufacturers, Clay Paky is responsive to what lighting designers are asking for in the way of new technologies and fixtures, and the design for the company’s recent addition to its Alpha series of fixtures, the Alpha Spot QWO 800, is no exception — it was designed in response to what LDs are saying they want and need.

How do you turn on a lamp? With electricity, of course!  Enough with the lame jokes. In order for anything to happen on stage, from running truss up to getting sound out of a speaker, you need power. Not just any power will do either, you need the correct type of power.

I’ve worked with plenty of small consoles over the years. Some were single universe models, others consisted of various wings and gadgets attached to a laptop. Problem was, I never felt comfortable trying to program a show.  Well, that all changed when I stepped behind Martin’s new M2GO. For the first time ever, I didn’t find myself hunting and pecking on a new desk for parameters and ways to record cues. From the moment I sat behind this console, it all made logical sense.

A lot of what we do as video professionals is nebulous to the uneducated and usually is perceived as being in the world of black magic. But it almost always involves making an image look pristine somewhere in the rig, whether it’s a display monitor, a projection, or part of an LED set.

In a crowded, competitive market, Reel Video Systems (RVS) has a real advantage: LED screens that roll up. Lighter, easier to use and with potential outdoor safety advantages as well — they and the company are getting noticed.

Traditional Christian houses of worship historically have been resistant to adopt newer technologies into Sunday services.  Over the last few years, however, a new style of Christian church service has evolved, one that strives to appeal to a younger generation.  This new type of service, referred to as Contemporary Christian, is not your grandparents’ church service.  It embraces contemporary Christian music and feature bold multimedia stage presentations using professional lighting, video and audio technologies. Even media servers are being used for these energetic and dynamic services.  Let’s take a closer look.

The little town in the Bible Belt turns 100 this year and is drawing a lot of wattage in the process

Last year at this time we looked back at the recovery of Nashville’s staging industry from a devastating flood that swept through the city in May, 2010. This month, we’re looking at another entertainment event success story that had its own brush with meteorological disaster earlier this year and has come out of it just as robustly.

Very early in my career, I saw a cool effect on a TV show that I just had to emulate.  There were dancers on a stage and a lighting effect that created what looked like large, random raindrops hitting the stage.  The look, created with large number of fixtures, presented a fantastic new look for automated lighting. I felt compelled to figure out how it was made, and to program something similar the next opportunity I had. It was a great example of how, by watching other shows, you can be inspired by the creativity of others while gaining insights into what is possible through programming.

He was the voice of Woodstock, gently suggesting you avoid the brown acid.

Chip Monck is one of the most colorful characters in the business, a business he is considered the Godfather of. The lighting designer has been part of some of the amazing events ever staged, including the Ali/Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo). He was tour and staging manager with the Rolling Stones for seven years and stage producer for Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, one of the first big benefit concerts raising awareness and donations.

Prince’s Revolution Reunites for a Night

It was déjà vu all over again for LD Leroy Bennett. He reprised a role he played back in 1984 by returning to the First Avenue in Minneapolis to light the stage again for Prince’s backing band, The Revolution. The iconic club had set the scene for the film and soundtrack album, Purple Rain. Now the band was coming together for one night this past February to celebrate drummer “Bobby Z” Rivkin, who survived a near-fatal heart attack a year ago. Funds raised were donated to mypurpleheart.org and the American Heart Association.

It seems that every product you buy nowadays comes with a disclaimer. A little piece of paper shoved inside the box along with whatever product you purchased. This paper will list all the things that the product should not be used for or things it actually won’t do. It’s my theory that these pieces of paper are there to protect the manufacturer from liability for just about anything that could go wrong. No matter what, the last thing anybody hawking gear wishes to do is refund your cash. So if the item breaks, functions incorrectly, or causes any damage to anything or person in its vicinity, they want you to know, in advance, that it’s entirely your fault.