Recently the Zac Brown Band launched their “Jekyll
+ Hide” North American Stadium Tour presented by BAI. Production designers
Louis Oliver and James Scott from Okulus worked with Special Event Services
(SES) that provided grandMA2 full-size and grandMA2 light consoles. With
offices in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee, SES is
marking its 28th year offering full production services, audio, video and
lighting equipment. It has been providing lighting for Zac Brown Band for more
than five years.
James Scott and Louis Oliver are cofounders of
London-based Okulus, a show, lighting and production design group for live
music and broadcast. Okulus launched last summer, and its clients include You
Me At Six, Chvrches, Passenger and Disclosure. Scott was production designer
for the Zac Brown Band last year under the banner of Times Design Ltd.
The brief for Oliver and Scott for the tour was
the band’s desire to use the vertical stage space. “It gets boring, static
standing in front of a mic stand,” says Scott. “The band wanted to roam about
the space, so we designed a multi-level set structure with stairs and ramps
that enables them to vary the performance area.”
Two grandMA2 full-size consoles run the lighting
for the tour; two grandMA2 lights, one active and one back-up, run the video
system with a handful of MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) distributing.
“Okulus is 100 percent MA,” says Scott. “We
stick with one brand so the console becomes an extension of our brain path. We
don’t have to think about how to create effects; we look at the stage and don’t
worry about the hardware.”
“Every day we unlock a new feature – it’s
amazing,” he adds. “And the consoles are very robust, too.”
Oliver and Scott spent three weeks doing the
initial programming for the tour; lighting operator Kevin Moore runs the
grandMA2 on the road. Zac Brown Band has more than 60 original songs and dozens
of potential covers rehearsed for the tour, and “they can pull out any songs
for any show – they want to be amazing from start to finish,” says Scott.
“The programming Louis and James did for the
tour has been masterfully done utilising the great power and features of the grandMA2
consoles. The show is a lot of songs and a lot of cues but grandMA2 is very
fast and efficient,” says Jeff Cranfill, vice president of SES. SES began a big
transition to grandMA2 in its inventory last year when more and more clients
migrated to the console. “We have purchased quite a few grandMA2 and will
probably purchase more any day now,” he reports.
Oliver and Scott say that most of the shows they
do in the US are with SES. “It’s a refreshing experience working with a company
so open to different ideas and how to better their systems,” says Scott. “Jeff
is really on top of his game and very enjoyable to work with.”
A.C.T Lighting, Inc. is the exclusive
distributor of MA Lighting products in the USA and Canada.
