Chauvet at heart of Luke Bryan 2018 tour rig
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The tour, which resumed on 31 May before 40,000 fans at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, features a mix of familiar hits and new material. Contributing to the dynamic lighting frame for this free-flowing energetic performance are 100 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK Pyxis and ÉPIX Strip Tour fixtures, supplied by Elite Multimedia.
Justin Kitchenman, who has been Luke Bryan’s lighting designer since 2012, is using 20 floor-positioned Maverick MK Pyxis fixtures to line the thrust and B stage, as well as the upstage side of the set behind the band.
In addition to the Pyxis units, Kitchenman is deploying 80 ÉPIX Strip Tour linear fixtures. The 1-meter RGB units line the truss on stage and are pixel mapped to reflect the changing moods of the music with a variety of looks.
“The ÉPIX strips line both our pods, which are single 10’ truss on SGPS motion control,” says Kitchenman. “We also use them on our upstage ‘light ladders’. Both of those elements are populated with single cell LED fixtures. The strips and the fixtures are mapped into the video server. They can all act as independent fixtures or as part of the larger map. This greatly adds to the versatility of our rig. Craig Caserta, who programs the show, and Chris Lighthall, who does media server programming and video mapping, deserve a lot of credit for making this complex and vibrant look happen.”
Kitchenman credits the Elite Multimedia team with helping him turn his vision for his multi-faceted design into reality. “Tom Wilson and Jason ‘Cannonball’ Jenkins and everyone at Elite have taken this design and turned it into a functional, working system,” he says. “There are challenges every time you put together a new design, but they were out in front of every obstacle, coming up with solutions long before the problems ever arose.
“Our lighting crew chief Chris Hummel also deserves credit for building an incredibly complex lighting rig that is not only versatile, but also quick and efficient to load in and out,” continues Kitchenman. “His team of Billy Willingham, Derek ‘Magnum’ LeFrance, Kurt Rentchler, Robert ‘Robot’ Harrison, Sean ‘Spot 8’ Wykoski and Dave Meyer are also the unsung heroes of the tour. I have been designing for Luke for seven years now, and our shows become deeper and more complex with each tour. So, it’s been a great ride - and we still have a long way to go!”
(Jim Evans)
