31 Days Of Plots: Craig Richter—Halestorm

By Ellen Lampert-Greaux Dec 26, 2022 6:42am

Live Design's fifth annual 31 Days Of Plots features one production per day during the month of December 2022, highlighting a different lighting design, from across theatre, concert tours, corporate events, live for broadcast, and more, as we wind down 2022 and head toward the new year.

Grammy-winning hard rock band Halestorm hit the road for their summer 2022 North American tour with lighting and production design by Nashville-based LD Craig Richter. Using bold, saturated colors, Richter describes the lighting system as "a throw back to the old school par can systems, with a modern twist."

For his color palette, Richter explains: "Again, I tried to stay true to the old par can days and stick with the primary, not overthink things and get carried away with too many colors on stage at one time. I stuck with deep color saturation on the stage with a brighter beam or gobo color cutting through, or even just accenting the darker colors with a lighter saturation of the same color to kind of blend everything together," he explains.

"The set design was based around the idea of a throw back to the hair metal days. Back when things where big par can systems and multiply leveled sets," the designer notes. "I wanted the overall look of everything to seem massive, so having the drummer sitting up high above the band with tapering steps going down to stage level really helped add depth to the stage and demand a presence. It also gave the rest of the band another element that they could mess around on, they had more stage area to play with rather than just the standard space in front of the drum riser to the downstage edge."