Claypaky on Cole Swindell’s Reason to Drink tour
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The country singer-songwriter kicked off his headlining tour in Allentown, Pennsylvania in February and wrapped the first leg in LA in April. He resumed the tour a month later in Austin and will continue to play dates across the country through September. Nashville-based Elite Multimedia is the production provider for lighting, LED, video and IMAG video support.
Production designer James ‘Mo’ Butts deploys 16 Claypaky Scenius Unico and 24 Mythos2 fixtures for the tour. His design for the show, in which video plays a key role in the storytelling, depicts Swindell’s evolution as an artist from playing cover songs at a college bar to becoming a country superstar headlining arenas.
“The design really seemed to come together organically starting with a complete redesign of our previous rig to expand out to the 48-foot wide stages,” says Butts. “We then looked at what production elements had been most successful on our past tours and morphed [them] into a much larger stage design.”
The show features a 40x20-foot LED wall that displays one big look or as many as six different areas of content designed to give each song a different look and feel. IMAG from seven cameras is integrated into the content instead of occupying side screens.
The lighting rig is outfitted with many of Elite Multimedia’s new fixtures, including Claypaky Scenius Unicos and Mythos2. Lighting programmer Andre Petrus, who has toured with Swindell for years, uses the fixtures to support the story of the artist’s creative journey.
Kyle Lovan is the lighting director for the tour with Andy Reuter the video content creator and Meesha Kosciolek the production manager.
Francesco Romagnoli, Claypaky area manager for North and Latin America, added, “We’ve seen our fixtures on Cole Swindell tours in the past and it’s gratifying that they keep coming back. It’s also always a great pleasure to be working with Elite Multimedia.”
(Jim Evans)
