For AT&T's Mobile & Business Solutions Leadership kickoff at the Gaylord Texan, executive producer Michael Nichols of New World Production Group brought on UVLD to join Q2Cue's team as lighting designers. With John Ingram laying out the design, Greg Cohen and Matt Webb served as designers in the main tent, where set designer Gary Cooper transformed a brutal convention hall into a forest.
Cohen was blown away by the transformation: "Typically in a convention hall, designers try to hide the columns, dressing them in skinny black sleeves as a futile attempt to make them go away. Gary went big, adding giant column wraps that turned the columns into trees trees. There was 300 feet of cyc which we treated with cloud gobos, and we had texture on the floor as house lights. It was a blast!"
A blast that involved many hours of focusing many hundreds of conventional fixtures. But the end result was well worth it, and the team was to create the giant country family-reunion feel the creative treatment demanded. There were grills, badminton sets, cornhole boards (no, really), giant marshmallows. It was uniquely unique.
Whatever success we had was due to the collaborative relationship UVLD has with Jason Cain and the outstanding team at Gemini Stage Lighting. Gemini provided a lot of gear, but even more importantly, they provided an outstanding onsite labor pool as well as production electrician Dennis Waite.
The show consisted of an opening general session and an evening banquet, both featuring a singer songwriter Kelly James and a DJ. We were able to get out and enjoy some local fare mostly because Q2Cue's President Gregg Hermanson was also the stage manager, and he is unrivalled in his ability to get us out of the venue -- with a well rehearsed show -- before the kitchen closes. Perfection.