Robe crashes Luke Bryan’s Las Vegas Party
American country music singer Luke Bryan wanted to make a spectacularly BIG impact for his first Las Vegas residency shows at the Resorts World Theatre, so he hired show designer/director Brian Burke and lighting/set designer Tom Sutherland from DX7 Design to work their visual magic on his much‐anticipated performances throughout 2022.
As the show design started to evolve, Tom and his team were delighted to discover that the house lighting rig at the brand‐new 5,500 capacity Resorts World Theatre venue … features large quantities of Robe moving lights, all of which were supplied by Solotech, who completed the install and also co‐ ordinate the venue’s on‐going technical services. Tom lost no time in getting 108 x Robe MegaPointes on the lighting plot for his main effects lights, together with 54 x Tarrantulas – Robe’s largest LED wash beam – and 17 x BMFL WashBeams which are all running on the theatre’s four RoboSpot systems.
All these fixtures were just what Tom needed to develop the “full throttle” rock ‘n’ roll show he envisioned to stun and WOW audiences and present Luke Bryan to his fans, in the process taking country music productions to a new level of excitement and drama.
Opting for an epic widescreen look, the upstage LED screen was 100ft wide as Tom knew he had the fire power to blast right through that with MegaPointes and Tarrantulas.
There is a complete MegaPointe surround to the screen. Thirty along the top and bottom edges with seven a side left and right, consuming 74 MegaPointes in total. “I needed very bright multi‐purpose fixtures and MegaPointes were perfect,” enthused Tom, who has used them on many other designs. The other 34 x MegaPointes are carefully placed on the overstage trusses ensconced in between the chevron‐shaped LED bars. The Tarrantulas are deployed on these same trusses, sometimes in between the MegaPointes and sometimes in autonomous positions. Six of the BMFL WashBeams are rigged on the most upstage truss with another 11 on the front truss, and these are used for all the key lighting.
Luke wanted a big party vibe to the show so Tom made sure to reveal multiple optical tricks as the show narrative unfolded, including a 192‐ fixture PAR can ‘rock wall’, which turned a few heads!
On Tom’s FOH creative team were Hunter Selby who also assisted with the lighting design, grandMA programmer Joe Holdman, plus video director Scott Chmielewski. Custom video content was created by Gravity. The day‐to‐day show lighting operation / direction throughout the residency stints is being overseen by Justin Kitchenman, Luke Bryan’s long‐term LD.
Photos © DX7 Design / AEG
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