![]() Sarah “Sparks” Parker was brought in starting with the North America dates this summer. Split beams fire out of the Elation Platinum Beams. I was so glad she was available to do this run.” “She took my vision on the road and made sure it looked the way it was supposed to night after night while dealing with the inevitable changes that amphitheaters present. “Sarah “Sparks” Parker is a phenomenal lighting director,” Schellenger adds. Having precise control of color changes, blackouts, even strobing in the spots, made all the difference in the look of the show. There are so many cool fixtures that do amazing things on the market, but most importantly, I want to make sure my band is lit properly. I started the lighting design with key lighting. My friend Craig Burros at Robe helped us get the units quickly, as they were just released when we started this. “The BMFLs have amazing color capabilities, and the remote system was so easy to integrate. “I literally cannot say enough good things about them,” he says. Schellenger was also happy about the RoboSpot setup. GLP X4 Bar 20 fixtures line the side stage. “Running simple effects through the video products from the grandMA gives us a nice clean look.” “With the LED blades - think LED tape that is rigid - which run up the ramps, around the drum riser and on the sides of the stage, we drive them both as RGB pixels from the console as well as switch them to let them receive content,” Schellenger adds. The two wall resolutions are broken up by the set, which features a lift and ramps on either side for the band to run up and down. ![]() Directly behind the band is a lower resolution video wall with lighting elements hidden behind it. I broke the walls up and turned them subtly as they moved off stage. “When the band said they wanted video behind them, I had to come up with a way to give them that look without too much in the way of LED surfaces. Some shows pull it off really well, he says, with unique content, but ultimately he thinks it’s all about negative space. Schellenger has never been a big fan of a 16-by-9-foot rectangle of high resolution LED behind the band. The video walls are panned off stage for better viewing. By working through the show in that way, I think we were able to achieve some unique junctures in the show.” ![]() “Wayne, the guitarist, and I would call each other, have ideas about a moment in the show, then he would work out a musical arrangement and I would put together a rendering or treatment and we’d send them back and forth. “From a creative standpoint, building the set list was also an advantage, because I could structure the show in a way that paralleled the visuals and SFX moments,” Schellenger adds. For me, the modern touches were in the little details, which allowed us to still present a big rock show that was still in line with the look of the album cycle. We had a custom gloss black Marley floor with a UV-reactant grid painted into it, a lift hidden within a blow-through video, ramps lined with Revolution LED Blades, etc. “I took the band’s input and built that into a futuresque stage that had the ability to achieve different looks throughout the night. “The Evolve tour, from our early promo work to the summer tour, has been visually inspired a lot by the work of Mike ‘Beeple’ Winkelmann and his futuristic aesthetic,” Schellenger says. This was Mitch Schellenger’s first design with the band. He spoke with them as they started putting this show together to get specifics from them, some were broad requests like big LED screens behind them, no automation, a punchy lighting rig, etc., to the less noticeable but still important specifics like a wider drum riser so Ben the Bass player could easily jump up on it. Having built a relationship with the band over the past few years, Schellenger was already savvy to their creative tastes. Christies standards are high when it comes to gear prep, maintenance, personnel, branding, etc… So having them involved made for a solid summer run.” These, to me, were a critical part of the design. “They also purchased the new RoboSpot systems for us, which was a very important factor. location, it was an easy choice, as this band spends a lot of time outside of the United States,” Schellenger says. Miley and Schellenger have always had a good relationship with Christie Lites, and note their friend Martin Kelly, who serves as account rep, has been a big help in making sure things go smoothly.
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