Maxxyz, Maxedia, MAC 700’s for George Strait

Stacey LaBarbera has been handling lighting design for George Strait for the past 17 years and according to Stacey this is one of the best tours to date. “I’ve had a great year so far,” he commented. “I’ve told everybody many times that this is one of the best starts I’ve ever had on a George Strait tour. I’m hooked after this year.”

Hooked on a Martin gear package that is.

“For this tour we changed gear out from another manufacturer to Martin MAC 700 Profiles and MAC 2000 Profiles,” Stacey says. “A light with color mixing was my main objective and I saw a demo of the MAC 700 and compared it to a 2K and said ‘this is going to be a happenin’ light.’ It was a big step for us this year. One of our biggest things is temperature – the fixtures would sit in trucks, ice cold - and we never really had problems at all.”

The country music legend with 53 number one hits took to the road January 12th for his 2006 tour that features a new in-the-round production package supplied by Onstage Systems of Dallas, Texas.

MAC rig
Stacey’s state-of-the-art rig includes 36 MAC 700 Profiles, 12 MAC 2000 Profiles, other automateds and LED lighting. The 700’s, staggered with other automateds on an elaborate eight pointed star truss, provide pattern break-ups onto scrims and down onto the stage.

“It’s called in-the-round but really it’s in-the-square,” Stacey says. “We have four sides and George stands on each side for two songs. We have a custom designed ‘pod’ containing six plasma screens which hangs above the center of the stage and above that is the lighting truss. I added the plasma’s because the people in the front row on the floor see George for only two songs of every eight. The show looks totally different from the mid and upper balconies than it does if you’re at floor level.

“It’s hard to do something in-the-round because there are limitations in new venues that have huge scoreboards and no center motor. So you have to think of things to do. You also have to watch your sightlines so we keep the gear up high enough so the upper top row can see the opposite side of the stage.”

Maxxyz and Maxedia
Martin’s Maxxyz lighting console with Maxxyz Wing is used to control the lighting rig. Although Stacey is an experienced Maxxyz user (George Strait was one of the first high profile tours to use Maxxyz), because of limited programming time, Eric Wade was called in to help out. “Eric came out and programmed the show. We cloned the show from last year and updated with all the 700’s, modified some cues and went with it.”

The show also includes digital effects run through Martin’s Maxedia media server. “Eric suggested using the Maxedia on this year’s tour and we have it running effects on the plasmas separately from my mix screens,” Stacey comments. “Doing them in combination works very well. My lighting guy, Dave Hare, went all sorts of places and shot pictures that we put together – shots of the Alamo Dome, fire stations, fire engines, Mexican seashores, milk cows, all kinds of stuff. We created our own content and we loved it. Once we did the first show everyone was hooked.”

The video system includes hand held cameras, jib booms, four traditional projection screens and the custom designed six-plasma pod. Tyler Truss Systems provided the truss work for both the custom shaped lighting rig and the plasma pod.

Because the show plays in-the-round, a custom made 40' x 40' rolling stage was designed at one end of the arena while the production is flown in the center. Once the production equipment is flown into position, the stage is then rolled into place.

The George Strait tour makes stops in several cities in both the US and Canada, playing 18,000-25,000 seat venues.

Staffing

Lighting
Lighting Designer/Director: Stacey LaBarbera
Programmer: Eric Wade
Tech 1: Dave Hare
Tech 2: Willard Kendall
Tech 3: Jesse Blevins

Sound
FOH Tech: George Olson
Monitors: Eric Goers
Systems Tech: Mike Hawkins

Video
Director: Ryan Stowe
Jib 1: Nick Bush
Jib 2: Tory Robertson
Handheld: Bruce Barnes
Engineer: James Ray Eakins

Staging/Band Gear: Eric Simpson
Rigger/Stage Manager: Mike Anderson
Production Manager/FOH: Paul Rogers

Bus Drivers (Star Fleet Coaches): Sonny Brown, Robert Baynes
Truck Drivers (Xtreme Transportation): Tom Gregory, Victor Ernest, Ben Downey, Terry Foster