Seth Jackson, a partner at Darkroom Creative, was the creative director and designer for two Selena Gomez tours, and the production designer for Carrie Underwood, Don Henley, Jason Mraz, and many others. After forming Darkroom Creative with partner, Nathan Alves in 2019, the two have launched tours for Toby Keith, The Doobie Brothers 50th, Lauren Daigle, Hillsong/Casting Crowns, Barry Manilow’s ongoing residency in Las Vegas as well as his Broadway run, and several installation and consulting projects. He has twice been awarded the Parnelli International Touring Award as Set Designer of the Year, the Redden Award of Excellence for his work on Star Wars in Concert, and is author of Concert Design. He will be moderating a panel at LDI2021: Chaos and Opportunity–Dealing With Your Clients in The Age of COVID. Live Design chats with Jackson on then, now, and the future.
Live Design: When did things come to a halt for you at the start of the pandemic, what were you working on then?
Seth Jackson: In the fall of 2019, my business partner Nathan Alves and I started Darkroom Creative. Of course, picked the best time launch a new endeavor, huh? By March we were doing revamps to the long-running Manilow: The Hits Come Home residency at the Westgate Las Vegas, had just confirmed the Doobie Brothers 50th, and were deep into planning a new show for Toby Keith. Then… boom. Manilow was abruptly stopped during a four day break. EVERYTHING was just left as it was. Who knew we wouldn’t be back for eighteen months? As the situation developed and everyone began to realize that this wouldn’t be a two week event, plans starting being made for the long haul. Above all, I cannot say enough about Toby Keith and his organization. They continued to pay us to take things as far as we could go short of rehearsals. They paid Gallagher Staging to go ahead and build the set (even though it was just to be carted up and stored indefinitely), and he kept EVERY staff member on salary. Likewise, the Doobie Brothers went ahead and gave the ‘go’ order to Switch (St. Louis) to build the set locally for me so I could check in on the build. After a few months, there was nothing to do but wait.
LD: What did you do for all the months the "lights were off?"
SJ: Nate and I spent a good deal of time developing an operating model for our company. How would we serve our clients? What kind of paperwork and presentations will we provide? Which communication software works best. Things of that nature. The time was invaluable for us in that sense. All of the questions you never have time to ask when you are in the thick of things. As for me, a dear friend at Clark Technologies invited me to come on board as a draftsman working from home on several ongoing installation projects. I am an AutocCAD diehard and they were having real trouble finding AutoCAD folk in the entertainment world. Happy to oblige! I got every morning early, fired up the computer, walked the dog, and then sat down till mid-afternoon drafting away. I had little clue WHAT I was drafting, I just followed my guides and went for it (I can now say I know more about fiber optic connections than I ever dreamed possible).
LD: Are things back or starting to come back? What are the COVID considerations and challenges? Is the process any different?
SJ: They are coming back, albeit slowly. Delta has thrown everyone a little sucker punch. Every camp is different. Toby’s organization was very early getting out there (mid-May), but were deliberate in their bookings. They did the “COVID dartboard” aiming for markets that were open and lower in their numbers. Backstage became a bubble and meet-n-greets were eliminated, but they moved forward and have continued to with great success. Doobie’s have varying levels of bubbles based on the band’s presence. Stagehands and traveling crew are required to be vaccinated, and temperature checks and documentation are required of every local entering the ‘bubble’. I have heard of tours that are far more stringent and those that are less. Every touring culture is different in a normal world, this seems to be the case with COVID as well.
LD: What are your workhorse lights of choice these days, one assumes you have transitioned to 100% LED? Have you maintained the same look for legacy stars like Barry Manilow? Were you with him for the aborted concert in NYC?
SJ: HA, no, fortunately I missed the deluge of the NYC show. Though calling into Anderson Cooper and singing over the phone gave me a good laugh. The biggest trend I see these days (especially with the summer shows) is for IP-rated fixtures. The move to LED seems to be pretty solid industry-wide as the fixtures have gotten so much brighter, the dimmer curves are working, and the color resolution has gotten to be very solid. I honestly have trouble telling the difference in a lot of these fixtures. Toby is a mixture of LED and arc lamp and the blending is seamless. Doobie Brothers is all LED and still gives us the ‘legacy’ look. We are doing a lot of ‘tilt of the hat’ lighting cues to the 70s and 80s and they are delivering perfectly even as 21st-century tools.
LD: What advice would you give to young designers starting out in the entertainment lighting business now?
SJ: More and more this is becoming a legitimate industry. That is to say, the ‘cowboys’ of the early days are over. The odds of someone meeting a young band and having them say “we need someone to do lights, you want to?” is another era. Today’s LD's need skills, programming chops, and a corporate ladder mentality. I’ve seen a lot of young designers, that at fourteen, have more gear than I could have ever dreamed of and they are teaching themselves to program. Additionally, tools like Unreal, SketchUp, and nearly all of the console software and visualizers are available at little or no cost. If you want to get on this crazy train, there is no excuse not be prepared. Learn everything. I would also say study the past. Take some deep dives into how and what the LDs that started this thing did. Technology allows us to get lazy. We lean too hard on the effects engine and the complexity of the fixtures. Basic things like, “what does the audience need to be looking at”, can get lost. Spending the time looking back at the men and women who did this in the 70s, 80s, and 90s with far more limited technology can give a young designer an edge on the competition by stretching their creative eye.
LD: Can you talk a little more about your panel at LDI2021: Chaos and Opportunity–Dealing With Your Clients in The Age of COVID?
SJ: As an industry restarts, all while COVID continues to rage worldwide, a lot of challenges are developing that require the industry to examine itself and come up with new paradigms. How does a vendor deal with employees who don’t want to get vaccinated yet clients who require it of their crews? Many vendors are encouraging designers to work with ‘what is on the shelf’ to avoid the cost expenditure of new gear, yet the manufacturers need those vendors to purchase new gear. What about the vendors? They are challenged to provide for their clients while fighting impossible shipping challenges and containers of gear sitting off in the harbor. What is the greater risk to the industry – tours that start and then get pulled off the road for COVID after weeks of prep, rehearsals, trucking and so forth or tours that continue to postpone – playing it safe until 2022? Lastly, how are the artists and managers responding? Are they pulling back from the grandiose monster tours and playing it safe to have fewer staff on the road? Is there really a greater move to a virtual tour such as ABBA’s upcoming concerts, or is live an irreplaceable experience?