"My production background is mainly in audio," Pryor says, "So my team has a lot of fun making all the standard lighting/audio jokes to keep things light and fun. I was actually hired in audio but was invited to manage the lighting department when Tom Stanziano, the previous LD, left. Tom was the one who originally specified theses fixtures to accomplish the goals, and he obviously made a great call. I still split my time between lighting and audio, so having Josh Beard and Ryan Johanningmeier here to do all of the maintenance and programming makes it all come together pretty nicely. These guys are both really talented and we are fortunate to have them."
Juggling sound and lighting in such a large venue certainly poses challenges. For the not-inconsiderable task of lighting the Lakewood stage - a lighting system that uses, all told, over 700 individual fixtures and must light dozens of performers - Pryor relies in part on 48 Wybron Nexeras.
"The Nexeras have one very important role at Lakewood," Pryor says. "These are used to light the curtain that millions of people see each week on the broadcast. The Lakewood blue curtain that hangs behind the globe is lit exclusively by the Nexera fixtures. We also use eight of these fixtures as band front wash when colour is needed.
"The main technical difficulty we had was lighting our curtain evenly and having the ability to colour mix smoothly. The fact that the Nexeras can throw 60ft allows us to do this and light the entire curtain evenly."
(Jim Evans)
