Garth Brooks Yankee Stadium Live

Garth Brooks Yankee Stadium Live was a spectacular concert event designed and built for Garth’s return to NYC, the first since his epic Central Park show in 1997.  Bruce Rodgers and Bob Peterson teamed up to make this happen, resulting in two sold out July nights and the largest multi-camera 4k music shoot to date.

The directives from the beginning were clear; make it big, make it unique, and embrace the stadium and every attendee in it as part of the show.   This drove Rogers’ design, as he describes, “Garth and Jon (Jon Small, Producer/Director) came to me with a concept of a giant circle representing a circle of family and friends. Garth wanted to be able to get out there in the midst of the audience and touch as many people as possible. Being a Garth fan myself I totally got what he was trying to say and we went forward from there.  It’s always an adventure designing for musicians, taking an idea from scratch and bringing it to life. To me the design represents Garth and the way he embraces each person in the audience with his music and himself. After meeting Garth in person I was reminded how friendly and wide open he is. So I wanted the set and stage to be a reflection of him."

Garth Brooks Yankee Stadium Live, Property of Garth Brooks and 8Ten, Inc.

 

The lighting and screen design continued this embrace of the Stadium and audience as the central driving force for position and focus.  A stand alone event scheduled smack in the middle of Garth’s world record setting tour afforded Peterson and Rogers the freedom to utilize whatever was best for this unique venue, no compromise.

After two tech scouts and months of planning, the team created a 24hour round-the-clock schedule that started the night of July 4th and continued straight into the first show on July 9th. Custom lighting positions were rigged on every level of the stadium, to assure that every fan and every surface of this historic ballpark were lit right along with Garth, the band, and the music.  Jenny Steinbrenner-Swindal exclaimed “Yankee Stadium never looked so good!”.  Peterson took advantage of Yankee Stadium’s recent LED lighting system upgrade, incorporating the stadium’s lights into the design. A 4k screen system that measured 300’w x 50’h made up of 2234 discrete video panels. Over 1200 lighting fixtures, 740 LED Blades, 21 followspots and a Sony 4k camera compliment from AMV of over 27 units.

Garth Brooks Yankee Stadium Live, Property of Garth Brooks and 8Ten, Inc.

 

It was an historic event and all involved were honored to contribute. Bob Peterson and Bruce Rodgers chose each teammate for their work ethic and experience.  Floyd Rodgers Art Directed for the Tribe team, Monica Rose steered Real World Lighting. Brian Petree, Garth’s production manager brought in the Garth team on Thursday the 8th, led by crafty longtime veterans Dave Butzler, Brad Wathne, John Kinsch and Dan Heins. Chris Balogh, Dan Parise and DPS provided all the logistical support, and BIG crews from Bandit, Upstaging, VER, All Access, and Clair made it all happen. With the professional support of Local 1 IATSE and IBEW Local 3, the entire team exceeded all expectations.


Video still image credits to Todd Kaplan and Paul Skaife; all photos and images property of Garth Brooks and 8Ten, Inc.

 

Upstaging
76 Mac Quantum Wash 
72 3500 Wash FX
94 GLP Impression X4 (-2)
21 Robe BMFL Blade
56 Clay Paky Mythos
125 SGM x-5 Strobes (TBD 41)
6 Strong 4.k Gladiator Followspots
 
PRG
6 Strong 2k Longthrows
8 Ground Command Remote followpsots
 
VER
2324 LED Video Panels
740 VER Blades
 
Bandit
48 2 Lite Fixture Inline
36 BMFL 
20 BMFL Blades (2 Free)
32 3500 Wash (2 Free)
26 Mythos (2TBD)
30 VL500 D (2 Free)
54 Chauvet Rogue Hybrid
72 Matrix 5x5
172 GRN Pars  (just added 16)
102 ColorBlast TRX (6 free)
32 B-Eyes (2 Free)
80 GLP X4 Impression (2 Free)
11 Magic Rings (1 Free)
24 Nexus 4x4 
40 Nitro 510 Strobes
4 Lycian Stark Lites
 
Lighting Design Team
Real World Lighting, Inc.
Lighting and Screens Designer Robert W. Peterson 
Garth Brooks Lighting Designer David Butzler
Lighting Director / Project Manager Monica Rose 
Lighting Director / Stage and Scenic Kevin Lawson
Lighting Director / Audience and Architecture Tyler Roach
Lighting Director / Content Troy Fujimura
Gaffer / Technical CAD David Hunkins
Screens Director Don Carr
 Stage Lighting Best Boy Buddy Lunn  
 Stage Lighting Tech Tim Brown    
Stadium Lighting Best Boy  Cole Kiracofe   
Stadium Lighting Tech Jeff Anderson
Lighting Marshal Cap Spence
Follow Spot Technician Stadium Richard Allison
Lighting Draftsman Paul Skaife
Tribe, Inc.
Production Designer Bruce Rodgers
Art Director Floyd Rodgers
Art Department Production Assistant Cassidy Rodgers
 
Stage, Stadium and Video Rigging Carsten Weiss 
Founder & President of C2W Corp 
 
Bandit Lites, Inc. 
President Michael Strickland 
Vice President  Michael Golden 
Project Manager  Donnie Lockridge 
Lighting Crew Chief  Jon Houle 
Lighting Crew 
Billy Willingham 
Patrick Cowden 
Sarah Eucker 
Greg Ogne 
David Hamilton III 
 
Upstaging, Inc. 
Director of Lighting Services  John Huddleston 
Account Rep Dan Curley 
Lighting Crew Chief Mark Powell 
Lighting Crew 
Matt Bialek 
Mike Walker 
Andy Cimerman 
Alex Seiler 
Brian Monahan 
 
PRG Remote Follow Spot 
Account Rep PRG Curry Grant 
Remote Trainer Nash Chris Conti 
Remote Tech Jeremy Wahlers 
 
VER and Video Contacts
Server Crew
Screens Producer Chase Simonds
Content Creator Ben Naff
E2 Programmer/Operator Phil Bristol
System Engineer Joe Denham
EIC Tim Nauss
 
LED Crew
Project Manager Michael Spencer
LED Leads
Luke Pilato
Mike Moxon
LED Techs
Robert Dupont
Addisu łPrince˛ Tilahun
Jeff Rapaport
Trace Deroy
Brandon Oosterhof
Jhon Cardona
Johnny Jordan
Rodrigo Azuriz
Rod Silhanek
Matthew Waters
Gary Madura
Account Rep
 
All Access
Tim Fallon
Tommy Rose
Joey Brennan
Deonte Matthews
Kyle Duarte
Fidel Garza
Jeff Haas
Logan Gibson