Lighting designer Seth Jackson reunited with the Toby team last winter to transform the look of the design, centring less on a specific tour theme and instead focusing on the operation.
"Toby wanted to shake his schedule up and play more of the festivals and fairs this year, rather than the standard amphitheatre run that had become the norm for him," explained Jackson. "In order to accomplish this, we had to design the show in such a way that it could always fit and look like the show we created, rather than have to make drastic compromises from day to day."
To achieve that goal, Jackson used several Bandit Pods in addition to Tyler truss that had the ability to expand wide for amphitheatre stages or shrink when under a fair roof, filling the stage in either scenario.
"The main thing was getting those elements in place," he said. "Once we figured out the layout, things fell into place."
Lighting director Eddie 'Bones' Connell found the Bandit Pods and truss to be his favourite aspect of the new elements, as they proved to be more efficient, especially compared to past years' designs where each fixture was placed one at a time.
"This year's lighting is a bit smaller than past years: it's more about video and content." said Connell. "We used three Bandit pods as our upstage lighting, and it is very fast setting up compared to past years."
Jackson and Connell collaborated to create a large looking rig while being choosing fixtures that could live in the truss to ease with load in and out. The design relied heavily on LED fixtures with the only arc lamps being Martin MAC Vipers and Chauvet Legend 230SR Beams.
Bandit supplied gear included Ayrton Magic Panels, Elation 360 Bars, GRNLite Moving Washes, GLP X4s, Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes, ETC Source Fours, Lycian M2 Spots and two Grand MA 2 lite consoles for control. "One of the great surprises were the Sunstrips," said Jackson. "We used them inside several trusses and found a lot of great ways to use them other than just as blinders. They also have a great tungsten look which helped balance all of the LED and arc sources."
(Jim Evans)
