SECRETS TO A GREAT TOUR DESIGN

Hello, this is Les Goldberg, and welcome to The Road Ahead. The Road Ahead podcast is dedicated to the future of the live events business, bringing together industry experts. Hello and welcome to The Road Ahead podcast. Today's topic is the secret to a great tour design. I have three amazing guests Robb Jibson from So Midwest, Butch Allen from Blame Funnel Creative, and Kyle Kegan from Voyage Productions. Welcome to the show, guys. Thanks for having us, Les. Yeah, well, I'm glad you all are here. I'm going to throw this right to Butch. The first question I have to that secret to a great tour design is first, I want to know how did you get in this touring industry? How did you find yourself doing this business? And maybe you could share that that story with us. I was in college for theater design, and as you do, we worked on all the concerts that came through, and there was a show that came into my school, and one of the lighting guys inadvertently hurt himself during loading, and I decided I'd had enough college and became a lighting guy and went on tour. Well, that sounds like a perfect method. Someone gets hurt and the next thing you know, they find the next able bodied person and it probably changed your life. Absolutely. You know, I'm. I'm some kind of, you know, I mean, roadkill still plays a huge role in my life, so I got it. Let me throw this to Robb. Robb, how did you get in this business and start? Well, last I was supposed to end up on the stage in the spotlight with my guitar. And this was in the tail end of, like, the glam rock era. And I figured to we weren't very good at making music, so we needed to make our show better. So we were breaking into a junkyard, stealing headlamps, and we were trying to figure out how to make our own light show. And when we stole enough headlamps because they're 12V and they keep sort of exploding when you just plug them into your mom's basement. I got caught stealing them, and we had to do community service. And in a weird kind of circle, whirlwind way of events, the community service ended up at a small theater. And so I was like, picking Milk Duds out of the vents one day, painting some door frames, and I saw some guys on stage plug in their car, headlights in, and they weren't blowing up. So I kind of mosey over there with my 12 year old big man voice and said, hey, how come when you plug those in, they don't blow up? And they explained to me a series circuit and the sort of math just kind of clicked in my head, and it really intrigued me. And they allowed me, if I kept working there for free, passed the community service hours to be involved with all the tech in the theater, and I just got bit by the bug and ended up on the back end of the spotlight. That's awesome. So. So playing an instrument makes you a better designer? Yeah. I don't know if it makes you a better designer. It certainly helps to not have timing of tennis shoes in the dryer, though, for sure. Okay, well, Kyle, how did you get in this business and how did you start? Yeah, I started in. Well, let's see. Even before middle school, in elementary, there was like, you know, a few fresh old Altman Fresnel's hanging up above the stage while we were seeing choruses and, you know, the third or fourth grade and I rather than singing, I did not want anything to do with being on the stage. I want to be everything to do with how to get off the stage. So yeah, I got interested in how to work at 12 channel little board. They had there and from there I moved to middle school, and my middle school was fortunate enough to it was connected to the high school with a really awesome program in the theater arts, and we had a great director in the high school. So I started asking questions and working my way in the door there and yeah. Next, you know, I was working with all these older high schoolers that were teaching me the ropes of, you know, how to how to bench focus. Altman 362 and that was like the start of everything, really from there. And it was kind of my playground for a good portion of my young career, I guess you'd say doing a lot of the musicals and whatever there was the outside of the music that we could do and really begin to the music, I was, you know, kind of knew it was like a passion from there and went to school and DePaul and Chicago and it all just kind of flourished from there. You know, the very first thing I learned in our industry when I was very young, I think I was 13, was to be able to flip the light the circuit breakers on, and I could change the stage from blue to read to green based on which circuit breaker I threw. So. So you know that that you know who says you can't learn when you're young? Yeah. Okay, well, let's get into this tour design business, and I'm going to throw this back to Butch. Butch, when we talk about doing a design and when you get a request from an artist for a design, how does your creative process work? You know, how does your mind work and how do you approach that request, and how would you go down this path with us? I spend a lot of time at the beginning listening because my client obviously has something they want to communicate, and there's a lot of discussion up front and exchanging just the pictures and a lot of emails back and forth and conversations and meetings until we figure out what the direction is that they'd like to take. And then from there we get into exchanging drawings. I mean, it's it's not a it's not some magical unicorn of a process. It's just a matter of. Just talking and listening, talking, listening. And, Robb, would you add anything to the talking and listening process for you when you kind of try and think about a design and you first interface with an artist and maybe it's someone you just met. Yeah. Well, you know, we're trying to figure out, like Butch said, what the communication, like what they're trying to get across. Right. And we're trying to figure out like a unique way to deliver that or more and more a cohesive way from all of the visual elements. So, you know, we're we're listening a lot to what they're trying to do, but also trying to understand what all the elements are at play, like what toys, you know, we can use to play with. Got it. And Kyle, in your experience, based on what they responded, you know that first thing working with an artist, do you do any homework on that artist before you meet them and talk to them, or do you listen to their music or how do you go about it? Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, if somebody comes to me and says they want to, you know, approach a design straight away, the first thing I would like to do is always definitely have an idea of what I'm walking into as far as the music goes. Look at some of their, you know, these days, it's nice because you can do so much research online as far as their social media goes. Look at their, you know, what their branding looks like, just to get a quick idea of what what where their minds at, even through that outlet, which I feel a lot of people like to tie all those elements together. So it's a good start. Outside of that, you know, it just kind of look, taking step back, like you said, listening to what you know, who's involved, what creatives are involved. Because a lot of artists come with a different package of people. It could be, you know, a great creative director who has an extreme vision on the whole process. Or it could be an artist with a hand napkin drawing, and they have some really bland idea, and you have to really fill in the blanks. So kind of just goes from there. Yeah. One more, one more thing, less sorry. And I'm sorry to Kyle. I always get everybody's budget. Yeah. What is it? How much are you looking to? What kind of hell are you building? Are you building a small condo or are you building a scale? Scale of the venue is a bit like venues going into the spaces you're going to have to fit into. And that also has a big thing, you know, truck spaces. How many trucks, what's the labor on this tour? What? You know, there's a lot of there. Absolutely. I agree 100% there. So so it sounds like size and scale is a very first important conversation to understand whether you're building a small house, a big mansion or something in between. So, so as you all have done this for many years and your season professionals and we've worked with all of you, I want to know. And I'm throwing this to Butch. What have you maybe learned from when you started doing this that, you know, was something that made you more successful? Having gone through the process, whether it was a mistake or something that you've learned early on that has perfected you to be, you know, the rock star you are today. Well, thanks. That's that's super frigging generous, but I am no, nobody's rock star. Let me tell you, a tough guy. But that makes me the tough guy. Okay? I'll be the toughest. What I do want to say is I've made every mistake. And mistakes are part of the process. It's really how you accept responsibility for your actions. Lead your team to fix that challenge you've created for yourself and and move forward positively and not freak out. You know, it takes a long time just to become calm. Calm. I'll take it. I'm going to stay calm. So. So, Rob, I'm going to ask that question. I'm going to add a little something on to that question. As far as things that you've learned from the early days of when you've done this also is how important is the relationship with the artist. So first question part was like, what have you learned from the beginning? And the second part is, you know, flip that to, you know, how important it is. You're working with an artist and that relationship you have to develop, right? Well, luckily, sometimes the mistakes, you know, sort of become you find art in the mistakes or sometimes things work out in a way that you didn't intend at all. And you have to do a great job of selling that. That was exactly what you intended to do. The relationship with the artist, I'll say, you know, for us personally, if if there is a relationship with the artist, I always find that the project, you know, seems better. And I don't know if that's just because we like it more. Right? Because we're doing it with people that we like and we have a good relationship. I mean, I think everybody here has probably done projects where you almost have very little interaction with the artist and it's management or handlers or creative directors, or you're just a cog in the wheel, or we've done projects where you know, you're every cog on the whole gear. So, you know, I personally like when when people are communicative and expressing how they feel about the project. You know, obviously our takeaway is greater, but we're sort of capable of kind of, you know, to do this job, to do this, to have this career, you sort of have to be flexible to do all kinds, all of the projects, from little interaction to, you know, being best friends and texting every day. So, Kyle, what are your thoughts on things you've learned early on? And, and maybe whether there is or isn't a relationship with the artist and it makes a difference? Yeah. No, absolutely. I think I can definitely relate to all of those things just previously said, and I think you really take a lot away from the experience. You have this industry, you know, not a lot. There's not a whole lot telling you the right or wrong way to do things. There's a lot of you can experiment with and learn from and take away from. I've definitely made some of those mistakes, whether they were big or small. You know, sometimes we've put let's just say, for example, we've put together stages for festivals and they have to go on and off. This, this thing has to roll on and off the stage and a change over and less than an hour or maybe even 30 minutes. And if that, if that our heads are too big there. We learn from those mistakes and moved on to the next one how to make it better. And, you know, you just take a lot from a little the little things and grow into over the years how to make things more successful for everybody involved. Yeah. All right. So this questions to Butch and to this question is where do you draw your inspiration as a creative designer who has to listen and interpret what the message or the the theme, whatever the artist wants. Where do you find inspiration? If you're talking just specifically about a music project, it always comes right from the root of the music. And I think that's kind of it all starts with whether, you know, like a play comes from the script and a musical comes from the libretto. A concert tour comes directly from the creation. Then from there, where we draw different inspirations. There's so many things, and that's where it goes. Back to your last question with relationship with the artist communication, because then maybe an artist comes to you and just goes, I love the Rococo period. And so then you deep dive into it and figure out how to bring all those elements together. References. An artist or sometimes people, reference other shows which are the hardest roots to work from. Got it. So, Kyle, where do you get your inspiration from? Yeah, I would say, you know, I always like one of the first questions in this was about, you know, do we listen to the music right away? I think absolutely. Like you said, I think the root of the of the creation is going to come from the music, from the artist, what they created. And then from there it kind of depends. You know, sometimes we're working in, out, even outside of the lighting design to production and staging design. So I look a lot into architecture. It could be just walking through a city, walking through different cities around the world. I even sometimes some. And this might be more coming through, you know, my inspiration out of my own inspiration, but for aspirations but walking through even just like going for a walk through the forest sometimes and the right lighting and seeing something that might spark some interest of, you know, it goes for, for me, it kind of I'd like to take it from all different angles, whether it's an architecture in the city to the backwoods, traveling, hiking up a hill to even, you know, other shows. Like you said, it's always hard to find, you know, get artists away from looking at other shows because you want to create something that's unique and individual. And sometimes a lot of people will just send you pictures of yours. Well, this show did this and that show did this, and then it becomes a graveyard of of what other people have already done. And that's you try to steer away from that. But yeah, I like to take inspiration from many, many places. Got it. So so Robb, the same question to you, but I'm going to add another question. So everyone says you have to listen to the music. So first where do you find your inspiration. And then the follow up question for you is do you always like the music? Is there ever a time when you're listening to the music and you're like, oh, I got a design for that. Oh man. Yeah. I mean, I typically try to go back 20 years and look at what Butch Allen was doing, and then that makes you famous. I told you, a rock star that makes the old blast. It makes me everyone's grandpa. You are seasoned like fine wine. No. You know, there's so much inspiration in so many different things, you know? And lately it's been looking at, you know, the world of motion graphics and and drawing, you know, from shapes and structures and things that can't be done in reality with, like, truss and welding and then trying to figure out like how to, you know, make a composition of things that appear unique and cool, but like, you know, figuring it out with stuff that you have sitting on your shelf in your warehouse, less like trying to to to use things in a unique way or a unique placement and just looking at all of the influences around us. You know, like Kyle said, walking through nature, walking through architecture, walking through, you know, I don't know. The cast, the 2700 degree cast that the microwave bulb puts on my, you know, there are some unique, inspiring factors for you, obviously. So so so moving on. Now I'm going to ask this to all three of you. Do you any of you have signatures that you always put in a show or, you know, or like they say, like an architectural style? You know, if you were a special architect and Lloyd Wright, he had a style. So I'm going to throw this to Kyle. Do you have anything that is typically in we would see in every one of your shows? That's just kind of the the Kyle footprint. Yeah, I'd say probably mostly through the programing. It's I think that's where we where we pull a lot of the same styles throughout. We're not the same styles, but you know, we pull a lot of same tricks of the trade through, like what I like to express and get out of a design that we create is usually comes out through the programing and programing the music and getting into the details, the fine nitty gritty of that, that's where we're really I think everything really comes to full circle with the design and yeah, that's I can expand on that quite a bit, but that's for me, definitely a staple of what we like to do and pull pull out of all the shows we do. Got it. Butch I would like to throw that question to you the same question. Is there a hidden signature that's got like a hidden be somewhere and Butch was here, and it's based on how you approach design. Yeah, it's truck nuts. There's truck nuts hanging in every show somewhere. Truck? What is a truck nut? Oh, next time you're following a pickup truck through Orlando, look for the animal testicles hanging from the pitch. Oh my goodness. Okay, now I've learned a new thing today. No, there's there's no signature style. Everything tries to be as individual in a you know, I mean, nothing nothing's actually original. Everything's kind of in its own way, derivative. But, you know, just try to push as hard as we can every moment we have in production to make something unique and distinctive. And hopefully people can look at one thing and then look at another show and not even realize that I had anything to do with either of them, including quite of the few people that I work with. Like to feel that way about it too. Got it. Okay, Robb, do you have any signature things that you put into your shows that say, Robb Jibson was here? Key light okay. Yeah. No. You know, we unique Keely. Yeah. Like pointing some of the lights at the stage. You know, we we tried, like Butch said, to be individual and make things grow as they, you know, for each project. But the thing that is cool about our industry is that we're consistently collaborating with a lot of different other artists and like their flair gets put into it. But if I had to, like, hone in on your question, you know, we've been doing this thing where it's I've become adept at explaining to production managers that, yes, I know the videos not blow through. And yes, we would like to put a system of lighting way in the back. And we've been doing this kind of like drop shadow rig illumination thing on the last 3 or 4 designs of the last four years or so. And, you know, that's kind of becoming a little weird staple thing that we've been doing. We did it with train 2019 last year. Yeah. That was a beautiful tour, by the way. Train 2019. Beautiful show. We very much enjoyed doing that with you. Okay. So so Butch, what is a crazy request that an artist has given you that you had to figure out or accomplish just something so absolutely off the wall? This this doesn't sound that off the wall, but the way it was put to us was. And it was. What do you mean? I just want to fly through the arena. That doesn't sound unusual to me. Just a little bit of rigging motors, a little bit of suspension, maybe some safety cables. What else? Well, I mean, you just you look at something simple like that. First off, it's prefaced by the word just, which is a horrible word to hear when you're in a conversation. And at the table, you see the tour manager, production manager, artist, manager, accountant all crinkle up into balls and start to quiver because, you know, it's something that sounds simple. As always. The seriously most not only complicated but expensive thing that you can add to a show and it has risk. But yeah, yeah, you know, I whatever you fly the artist, there's risk. Yeah. But I think that we're at a point now with automation technology where that risk is mitigated from a safety standpoint, but it will never be mitigated from a it's a live show and it's going to happen standpoint. Got it. Okay. Kyle, have you ever had one of those crazy requests. Oh yeah. So like yeah just depends on the artists. But yeah they sometimes can't grasp what it means when they say, can I fly through the air? Right. They just don't. It should be simple, right? But there is so much involved. And we all know that your budget better be, you know, a blank check at the end of the day. At that point, it's like you got to have so much involved with that. And there's a lot of those small requests that turn into, oh, okay, now I understand when you put in front of them, because of course you have to show them what it takes. And, you know, we all know what it takes and what we can do. We can make it happen. We can make anything happen. It's just a matter of reeling it back in and reeling in some of the some of the expectations, if you will. Yeah, that happens all the time. So so I'm going to switch gears here and throw this to Robb. Take me into the future. What will tours look like in the future that might be different that we can't even or you're just starting to dream about now? Well, I think we're we're in the midst. You know, we're recording this in July of 2020. And I think we're in the midst of figuring that out. You know, right now, I think there's technology is going to continue to push. Right. I think that we're going to figure out ways to have augmented reality, extra reality. You know, in a weird way, what's old is new again, you know, holograms and those sort of kind of things. But I think people are tired of looking at like a bunch of lights and a big LED wall with a bunch of, like, video game looking motion graphics on it, you know, and it's we've gotten to the point now where even your bar band at Joe's Crab Shack has, you know, time coded snare hits with strobes and everything else. Every little hi hat, 16th note is is chiseled out with some kind of like, flashing LED emitter at Joe's Crab Shack. So, you know, I think that finding ways to trick the audience, you know, like, my favorite thing to do is go to a show and go like, what did I just see? How is that even possible? Finding out ways to composite all of these art forms the video content, the lighting, the lasers, the pyro right into one kind of cohesive sweet image? That's really the trick. And sometimes as production designers, we get to be in the driver's seat of all of that, and sometimes we kind of have to play political games and figure out how we, you know, get everything dialed to look pretty cool. So, butch, is there anything you're excited about in new technologies? Or I could say excited about getting back to touring. So but is there anything that is other than getting back to touring? Is there any new technologies that are things that you want to incorporate in future designs? I think where my interests are going right now, other than providing what I'm asked to provide for people, is a more traditionally theatrically designed environment, rather than a flat stage and a video wall and a bunch of lights all over the place. To really try to take this setting and try to tell a story, I think is something that I really haven't seen a lot of in our industry. And so storytelling is important. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Kyle, between the the tour design in the future and and the things that you get jazzed about, what are your thoughts on the future of design and where we're going with it? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely I think we're there's a lot up in the air right now with everything going on. And I think we're going to see it's going to be like a almost a hall. And we're starting over with, with fresh minds and obviously really back with Rob said a really back with Butch said, I agree with both of them entirely. And I think, you know, I couldn't say it any better. It's, it's getting away from that flat LED wall and lights, which has become so simple and easy for everybody. And like you said, a lot more people can obtain those things for smaller budgets these days. And, and people are really good at it. And, you know, I think to to step away from that is going to be like creating a story, creating, bringing more. Yeah. It's interesting to just just differentiate yourself away from what we're so used to. You know, guys, what I hear from all three of you is some passionate inside you that allows you to come out and put on the best shows that we've ever seen and combined. You all have probably done hundreds and hundreds of shows, and the people that are listening to this won't realize the the depth of all the the different artists that you've touched and how many bands they've gone to arenas or, or sheds to see. And I salute all of you for being consummate professionals and for providing the design for entertainment to make people happy. And whether that's the artist or the people that bought a ticket to sit in the audience, or whether it's been put on YouTube, and I've seen all of your work in one capacity or another, and you should all be proud. And I'm happy that you were able to join us today on our podcast, and I look forward to many shows in the future, and to doing live touring again as soon as possible, or even soon. Before you wrap up there, buddy. And I don't mean to speak for everybody here, but to everyone who's seeing this, I miss you all so much. I miss what we do and hang tough. We will be back. The quote of the day is we will be back. Okay. Anyway. Well guys, thank you again for joining. And this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead.