With tour provider Special Event Services (SES) once again ready to support, show designer James Scott was brought on board to create the dynamic design and he did so using 20 VL3500 Wash, 60 VL3000 Spot and 22 VLX Wash luminaires from Philips Vari-Lite.
"In looking at the automated luminaires side of the design, I needed fixtures that were 1200W or more to really give me the power and ability to create bold looks, and this criteria pointed me towards the Vari-Lite Series 3000 range. SES is a large Vari-Lite house so we truly based the whole lighting design around the use of the Vari-Lite fixtures. With the VL3000 Spot, VL3500 Wash and the VLX Wash luminaires, we now have over 100 Vari-Lite fixtures in the lighting rig and it looks great."
Having previously worked with SES, this was Scott's first tour with the Zac Brown Band. As production meetings began, the design elements of the production needed to reflect the southern rock influences of the group, but they also needed to be as powerful and energetic as the band itself.
Scott continued, "This is my first encounter with the Zac Brown Band. In 2012, I was touring with Ed Sheeran and our US vendor was SES. That's where I first met Michael Brammer, and at the end of 2013, he contacted me to see if I would be interested in putting together the show design for this tour. The concept was to be an earthy almost rustic sort of feel, but also high-tech to bring it into a modern design. The size of the design also needed to be of a large scale, since the band moved into headlining tours. They wanted a lot of power from the lighting rig and that's where the Vari-Lite luminaires really played a big role in the design."
(Jim Evans)
