USA - Production/lighting designer Rob Sinclair is using Elation Proteus Maximus LED Profile lighting fixtures to support country star Zach Bryan on his ongoing Quittin’ Time tour. Playing North American dates in support of his fifth studio album, The Great American Bar Scene, which was released in July, the Proteus Maximus has been instrumental in supporting Bryan’s live performances in the challenging conditions of outdoor stadiums.
The Quittin’ Time tour marks a significant milestone in Zach Bryan’s career. His rise to country music stardom has been meteoric, and his production has grown alongside him. The artist took a big step last year when Rob Sinclair came on board as lighting designer as the production grew from a bus and a trailer to playing arenas in-the-round to now sold-out stadium shows.
Sinclair has handled lighting design duties for both the tour’s arena and stadium shows, with the outdoor shows commencing in May. Kyle Lovan operates the show with lighting programming by Andre Petrus. Lighting supply is by Upstaging.
Sinclair says there’s a real honesty and simplicity to the show with Bryan very involved in the design process. “Everything we do with Zach is about getting him as closely connected to his audience as possible,” Sinclair states. “We do that in arenas by putting him in the middle of the room, but we couldn’t do that in stadiums, so Zach and the band perform before a large video screen that is 160ft long and 55ft high with IMAG.”
It’s a roofless setup that the designer says allows Bryan’s audience to be “under the same sky and share the same experience whether that means great weather or a downpour”.
The entire rig therefore needed to be weatherproof. It also needed to be able to operate at a very high trim height of about 60ft, so IP-rated fixtures that could cut through the video wall lighting at that distance were a must. Sinclair not only emphasised the importance of a powerful lighting system that could withstand unpredictable weather, but also insisted on one that could maintain consistency of colour and beam.
Sinclair looked at several options in partnership with lighting vendor Upstaging, who encouraged him to select IP-rated fixtures. "Upstaging was a natural choice for us," he said. "Their support and expertise have been invaluable. We spent time putting a meter on the Maximus and comparing them to the competition and in the end, we decided they were the right choice.”
Sinclair deployed evenly spaced Proteus Maximus along a single upstage truss that follows the length of the 160ft screen with the same number of units lining the upstage floor. He describes his design as “deceptively simple” with few gobo looks or flashy effects and colour choices that complement the video. Bryan and the band are clearly the focus of the show.
“Everything we do is in service to Zach, his songs, and the storytelling,” he says. “The lighting is very supportive of the performance and is not a light show by any means. There’s no time code and no playback, so lighting director Kyle Lovan has to really think on his feet every day.”
There are also smaller sections equipped with additional lighting gear. “Ten years ago, if you had put a system out like this in that type of weather you would have lost lights everywhere. The general reliability of everything we have used on this tour has been really incredible. We’ve lost minimal amounts of fixtures across the whole rig, so the IP rating has really saved us,” Sinclair said, remarking that the tour has received its fair share of rain.
The outdoor leg of the tour wraps up on 21 September in Louisville, Kentucky, while the indoor tour extends through to Christmas.
