Elite Multimedia joins Cole Swindell on tour
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Once again working with tour provider Elite Multimedia, production manager James “Mo” Butts began the process of finding the ideal tour design and in the end, it was the creativity of Sooner Routhier at SRae Productions that was chosen to highlight the Academy of Country Music award winner.
“When we started outlining the new tour design we chose four designers that we really felt were doing great work and asked them to submit design proposals for a completely new production design,” began Butts. “As an artist, Cole loves video and it’s a primary request in his designs. He also likes a wooden, industrial look to his tours, and Sooner really did a great job of applying her own interpretation to the design requirements for a creative, new tour design.”
“With the set design, we were inspired by wooden and metal architectural elements. We wanted to find creative ways to incorporate those into the staging,” said Routhier. “Rule number one in scenic lighting is ‘light the scenic’. We did so with small LED up lights along the set carts and larger wash lights downstage.
Working together, Elite Multimedia and SRae Productions decided upon a tour lighting package that included Clay Paky Mythos, Elation Professional ACL 360i, and Martin MAC Aura Wash luminaires.
Routhier continued, “When designing, we like to have a minimal amount of types of fixtures, but a good quantity of those specific fixtures to create bigger and more cohesive look. Since Cole would be opening for Dierks Bentley, we didn’t have the ability to put a lot of lights in the air, so we needed to make sure we were using a fixture that had a lot of capabilities.
“For this, we chose the Claypaky Mythos to operate as both a wash and beam fixture with its gobos and prism capabilities and they are our only fixture across the top. We then needed a versatile effect light to place inside the set so we chose the Elation ACL 360i with its continuous rotation and its ability to create asymmetrical focuses for beautiful fan effects that shoot through all the wooden elements.”
As an artist, Swindell likes to have a significant video presence on his tours, and working with video designer Andy Reuter that is exactly what Routhier and Elite Multimedia provided using a PixelFLEX FLEXCurtain HD 12.5mm LED video wall.
“In the design, Mo also requested a video surface for content but we wanted to make sure we provided a new look. We designed a long LED video wall that extends across the entire set,” said Routhier. “We then contacted Andy Reuter who does a great job creating original video content. Together, we make the relationship between video and lighting as cohesive as possible so that there are not a million crayons on stage.”
(Jim Evans)
