Ben Rector on the road with Bandit
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Named for his sixth studio album, Magic, which debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Americana/Folk Albums chart, Rector’s tour features the songs that have resonated with fans for years. Bandit Lites facilitated an on-site demo for Rector to pinpoint what fixtures best matched his vision for the production, and then following renderings and revisions, lighting designer Chris Lisle and he landed on the current design.
“Ben is extremely hands on regarding his show and he and Chris seem to share an excellent understanding of how the show should look,” says Bandit Lites vice president Mike Golden. “I appreciate an artist that wants the time to visit and explore various lighting elements and applications. Chris and Ben came to Bandit to look at multiple fixtures and although it was a hot August day, Ben spent hours asking questions and moving fixtures around to see how they would look from various audience perspectives.”
Martin Sceptron VDO 10 fixtures make up a wall of video and lighting behind Rector and the bad, with GLP X4S fixtures placed above several Sceptrons. Robe Pointes are then hung from locally supplied upstage truss providing a backlight for the artist and band.
“Ben’s music is super fun and he is a very creative guy,” Lisle says. “Programmer Mike Marcario worked close with Ben to dial in specific looks and feels that Ben was going for. My personal favourite aspect for sure is the Sceptron strips; Mike did some really cool media server driven stuff through them that came out super well.”
“We worked with Ben Rector in 2016 and for this tour he once again brought back a seasoned team of Jordan Powell (TM), Jake Hartsfield (PM) and Daniel Rehbein (LD) to handle the day to day operations of touring this show,” adds Golden.
(Jim Evans)
