Hosted by O, The Oprah Magazine, the Live Your Best Life tour was billed as "A day with friends, an afternoon with Oprah." The all-day workshop consisted of a morning of motivational entertainment and esteem-building exercises, followed by a presentation featuring Oprah Winfrey herself in the afternoon. UVLD's Greg Norgeot designed the lighting for the event; Paul Sharwell, assisted by Angus Sinex, was charged with recreating the design on each stop of the tour.
"This was quite different from most of the shows that we light," remarked Norgeot of the Live Your best Life tour. "Whereas most events we design are very busy, with challenging time constraints and heavy cueing, this show had a rather simple format and relatively few moving lights." The afternoon presentation essentially consisted of a number of walk-in looks coordinated to music and video clips designed to build anticipation and introduce Oprah Winfrey's two-hour talk. Oprah's speech was followed by a lengthy question and answer session, making for a long and challenging day.
"Lighting Oprah was all about respect, showing how good she looks, and helping her to deliver her message," notes Sharwell. "There was a lot of input from the client - O, The Oprah Magazine - about colours and we also received lighting information from The Oprah Show about general light levels. Apparently, Oprah likes very high levels of light on her, as well as on the audience - particularly during the questions and answer period." This high light level onstage, as well as the high light levels on the audience, meant that significantly more equipment was required than would normally be used on a show of this scale. Each area of the stage was lit with at least six 750w ETC Source Four fixtures, not including backlight.
"Production Electrician Angus Sinex's television experience was a huge asset on this show," comments Sharwell. "In each city, Angus worked with me to painstakingly meter the stage wash to achieve truly even light levels and a consistent color temperature. Our final levels were about 350 foot-candles across the stage. The video crew repeatedly remarked that they wished they always had such high levels of key light." Consistency between the venues in Denver, Colorado; Dallas, Texas; and Washington, D.C., was of prime concern. Sharwell undertook an extensive amount of liaising between the different departments on the tour - including carpentry, rigging and electrics - to ensure that every dimension was measured so that the relationship between lighting and set could be recreated exactly at the next venue.
The set itself consisted of a giant, three-dimensional "O" suspended above the stage as its focal point. Two layers of walls surrounded the "O," which was backed with a cyc upstage. "Although it appeared to have a lot of depth, the set pieces were actually all very close together," remarked Norgeot. "To add depth, we lit each surface differently; however, it was a significant challenge due to how little room there was between each of the walls." To light the set, Norgeot used 13 Martin MAC 2000 wash fixtures and 21 MAC 2000 Profile fixtures with an additional 14 MAC 2000 Profile fixtures front-of-house to create movement and project custom gobos around the room. The majority of the lighting rig was made up of conventional sources with 89 ETC Source Four fixtures, 24 Source Four PAR fixtures, 74 1K 14" Scoop floods and 21 Ianiro 2K 7" Bambino Fresnels.
The sold-out Live Your Best Life tour was a challenge for all concerned and not just because of its high profile and the intense attention to detail of the producers. "While it was called a tour," notes Sharwell, "it was more like a tele
