NASHVILLE — Premier Global Production gear and crews hit the road this fall to once again light one of the most entertaining and classy entertainers on tour today — the incomparable Josh Groban.
Mac Mosier designed the lighting system for the Grammy-nominated singer’s 2015 “Stages” fall run, which took Groban to some of America’s most iconic theatres, including the Beacon in New York City.
“I went into the lighting design with no real idea of what exactly would be on the stage. I put this together for the budget and did a basic four straight truss plot for doing theaters with some torms on it and a floor package. With the time constraint, we had to use “off the shelf stock” that we could put together fairly quickly,” Mosier explains.
Working closely with Premier Global’s vice-president of lighting, James Vollhoffer, Mosier came up with a design that featured 31 GLP Impression X4’s, 27 Clay Paky Sharpys and 13 Philips Vari*Lite VL 3000s flown in the rig.
“I also used 18 Source Four pars and four 2K Fresnel’s from the torms, just for the warmness of the incandescent source, lighting up the orchestra. I also have four ETC Source Four 26 degree Lekos for backlight. How could you do a theater show without Lekos?,” Mosier adds.
The lighting system was programmed at Premier Global’s new headquarters located 20 minutes north of downtown Nashville. During the week-long programming session, Premier Global’s lighting crew for the tour assembled and prepped the system in the company’s new 10,000 square-foot rehearsal room, which is attached to the lighting warehouse.
“The new building Premier Global has is a positive move forward and worked out great,” Mosier says. “It’s a huge advantage being able to pre-viz in one room and step out to see the rig being prepped in another room. Being able to answer any questions the crew might have saves time and money. Making decisions on the spot, I can then go right into the pre-viz room and update any changes. We added some new fixtures and brought one into the pre-viz room, so in real time we could see how the fixture would react. You can do an A/B comparison with any fixture and move on with the programming, which really saves enormous amount of time.”
Once on the road, Mosier says the system toured extremely well, thanks in large part to the Premier Global crew, headed by crew chief Nick Shields. He says Premier Global’s attention to detail during the prep and the excellent condition of the gear in general made life pretty easy for the lighting team as they bounced from city to city.
“(The Premier Global crew) had it down, getting the system up and focused by noon almost everyday and loading out under 2 hours,” Mosier says.
When asked if he would work with Premier Global again, Mosier says he wouldn’t hesitate to tap James and his incredible team for any upcoming tour.
“James did an unbelievable job putting this together when it was all said and done. There wasn’t any drama over adding a few lights here or changing one type of fixture to another. That’s the great aspect of working with a company you don’t have to run the gamut of command to get something done. If it improves the show, we’ll work it out. Premier Global only wanted what was best for the production. James went all out making sure I got what I wanted and there was never a question of why, he just did it."
About Premier Global
Premier Global is a lighting and staging company based in Nashville, TN. With more than 30 years of experience in both lighting and staging, the company’s client list is impressive and includes names like Tim McGraw, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blake Shelton, Florence and the Machine, C3 Presents, Live Nation, Country Thunder and AEG.