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Excellence Awards 2026: "Sing A Song All Night Long" Summer Tour - Lionel Ritchie & Earth, Wind, And Fire

By Live Design Editor Oct 5, 2026 9:07am

Project Type

Concert (Arena/Theater, primary venue capacity under 20,000)

Project Name

"Sing A Song All Night Long" Summer Tour - Lionel Ritchie & Earth, Wind, And Fire

The client was Lionel Ritchie for a summer arena tour. Eric Wade, one of the Partners and a Senior Designer with Crossfade Design in Garland, Texas and New Albany, Indiana, served as Production Designer for the tour with Keith Hoagland as Associate Designer and CFD design team designers/programmers Sam Brown and Brandon Wade. Wade has had a two-decade relationship with Richie and is also the Lighting Designer for the artist’s continuing Wynn Las Vegas residency.

Design Criteria

Brian Burke was the tour’s Creative Director and Sagiv Karpel the Co-creative Director. “Brian wanted a linear look, so we kept the design linear and beamy with lights above the videowall and blasting through the screen, positioned up and downstage and angled at the sides of the stage,” Wade explains. “There was very little modification from venue to venue. When Keith and I started putting things together we figured what fit the smallest stage – at Madison Square Garden – would work anywhere.” A multi-tiered set was created with the band on two risers: They were in line with Richie at the piano on the upper level for slow sets while the guitar and bass moved to the lower level with Richie for faster numbers. “The goal was not to have the piano on stage when it was not in use,” notes Wade. “So we designed it so the piano, a custom clear plexiglass Yamaha, would hide under the stage and come up and down when Lionel needed it.”

Project Description

An arena and major venue tour of North America for Lionel Ritchie and Earth, Wind, and Fire, which deployed multiple ACT Entertainment supported technologies, such as Ayrton, grandMA3, zactrack SMART, and Green Hippo.

Challenges and Solutions

Four Ayrton EagleStrikes acted as followspots operating with a zactrack SMART automated follow system. All of the EagleStrike key lights were mounted on truss an average of 137 feet from the stage--but had to be flexible from venue to venue, while maintaining the same look each night.

Two Ayrton Mambas were in upstage truss to create big backlight looks at Richie’s piano, for example in his performance of “Lady” with the late Kenny Rogers on the videoscreen. “The Mambas are huge, bright and dramatic, but we didn’t use them for big beams in the sky,” says Wade. “We zoomed out and used them as a high-power shadow light that gave a big silhouette look. It was cool, like a giant wash light."

Photo credit: Toni Wade