Back in 1998, Seth Jackson was told he was 'filling in for a guy' and now jokes, "I don't know when that guy is coming back!" "Over the years I moved from lighting director to lighting and set designer, production designer, and now I'm the show's creative director and production designer," he said. "We've been around the world a few times, spent seven years in Las Vegas residency, and now I guess we've got One Last Time."
Planning for the tour started back in October with conversations between Manilow and Jackson starting with a blank drawing board and exploring every idea they had imagined. "Little by little we started to see certain ideas, song selections, and concepts start to come together," Jackson said. "It is always a long process for us. We spend a lot of hours on ideas that never even make it to rehearsal, but that process helps us really define what story we are trying to tell.
"At the end of the day we had a show that celebrated an enormous catalogue of hits and was all built on a performer who never planned on being a star looking back at what 40 years of hits has brought to his life and his fans."
Jackson purposefully planned to create a look different from typical concert trappings, such as beams and graphics, in the audience looks, or "Sharpy-ing myself to death." Instead, Jackson chose Robe BFMLs as the spot fixture and Clay Paky B-Eye K20s as the wash fixture. "Both of them were unique enough in their look, both had tremendous flexibility and brightness, and they paired well together. I also used the Robe CycFX 8 for all of the scenic elements and the Robe / Anolis Arc Dots for our runway fixtures. I used a few VL3500 spots so I had the shutters available to light the band."
The result is a specific look that focuses less on beams in the air and instead focuses on illumination of surfaces. Additionally, the overall look of the show was to be a departure from a generic "concert" look, with a red velour set and wood tones rather than silver and gray. "We do very little beam graphics, even our video elements (designed by Brent Sandrock) are set in the context of the environment so you never see the square edges of the video screen," Jackson explained. "The imagery looks like it is a part of the environment, not a giant TV in the middle of the stage."
(Jim Evans)
