German lighting manufacturer GLP recently teamed up with Nebraska rock band 311 for their biennial celebratory concert for their fans, over two nights at the Park Theater, Las Vegas.
Lighting designer Bobby Grey, of Notan Creative took the lead on this outing of the event.
“We went into this wondering how we could top what we did last time, but ended up taking the whole production to a new level,” he said.
He and his team were working with GLP’s impression X4 Bar 20 and JDC1. Grey had extensive conversations with the band’s management, all of whom share a touring background, to set about creating something that reflects 311’s ‘hive’ theme.
“We all leaned towards something that would break up the form of our usual square video wall upstage, and instead landed on this ‘interdimensional portal’ concept,” he said.
It was also a case of working with 311’s use of geometry:
“I knew we had to have a versatile fixture to line the geometry of those key pieces,” Grey added. “The TV show I was working on leading up to this had several hundred JDC1 [hybrid strobes] and X4 Bar 20s. In the past, while we have used the X4 Bars on this show to line geometry, we have only really utilised the JDC1s for their bright strobe functionality.
“I knew that by packing them tightly it would allow us the kind of versatility this gig dictated. And of course, the X4 Bars did a great job lining the hexagon pods. We were able to go from the RGB pixels framing the set to big blasting looks with the white pixels in the middle.”
This year, the turnkey lighting and automation package was supplied by 3G Productions from Las Vegas. “Our reps Jay Curiel, Andy Ruiz, Corey Felgenhour and Eric Cruz were fantastic from top to bottom, working tireless hours with their team to pull it together,” said Grey.
Regarding touring lighting director Alex Paralueyous, Grey said: “He’s been with me since I took this gig over. We have built the show together from scratch, including all the video content. Plus, he’s an amazing sounding board.”
Regarding working with GLP and its influence on the 2022 version of the 311 Vegas concert, Grey had this to say:
“The biggest challenge was coming into this feeling like I had done absolutely everything we could do in that room, and yet fearing that anything I did was going to not live up to 2020’s show. Just looking back at the pictures I’d say that wasn’t a problem at all, as a GLP fixture was the key factor in every shot I look at.
“We didn’t have a single GLP failure, and that’s saying a lot considering we had 132 JDC1s and 60 X4 Bar 20s in the rig. And I’m not ashamed to say I rode them hard on both nights.
“They performed equally well, both blasting to full, burning retinas. All around, the show was fantastic because these fixtures were the centrepiece of the project.
“I’m just glad to have a manufacturer making such beautiful lights for us to use and am extremely excited to see what comes next from GLP.”