With artists like Coldplay, All Time Low, Imagine Dragons, twenty one pilots, Avril Lavigne, Måneskin, and more the first iHeart Radio ALTer EGO Concert of the year served up plenty of star power at The Forum in LA. Thanks to a massive a towering lighting rig that reached up to 48-feet high at points, and splashed colorful patterns across the roof of the famed arena, those stars were able to shine in an immersive setting for the sellout crowd.

Patrick Dierson and his team at The Activity (John Ellar, Justin Cheatham, Manny Conde) created the massive rig that served as the foundation for these celestial looks. Taking time from his busy schedule, he talked to us about the creative decisions behind this impressive rig, and explained how the overwhelming response from fans, who gobbled up ticket in 20 minutes, led to some tweaks in the design for the Diversified Production Services, Firehouse Productions, and All Access Staging produced show.

We really liked how you filled vertical space so effectively. How high was the trim? Can you explain how you built the design vertically?
“Thank you. I’ve always maintained that layering is a key part of stage design and this was chock full of various rows of lighting , video, and scenic elements. Rigged pieces started as high as 48’ off the venue floor all the way down to 11’ off the stage deck. Angles also played heavily.

Why were the pronounced angles so important?
“Upon hearing that tickets sold out within 20 minutes of going on-sale, we immediately realized that we were going to have to expand the production experience to a much wider audience as well as look into ways that we could open up even more seating areas for extra ticket sales. Toward that end, we started angling each of the production elements to create a more rounded look to the overall production so that every seat in the house received a high visual value for their ticket purchase. We ultimately capped the on-sale seating to 270 degrees. We also opened up some available seating on the floor by compressing the FOH area.”

Along similar lines, we liked how you lit the ceiling to match the stage. What was your thinking there?
“It’s no secret that that I’ve always been a fan of lighting the venue in which you’re working so that the audience at home gets a good sense of the iconic space that you’re in, and this was no exception. The Forum in Los Angeles is definitely one of those iconic joints where you want to celebrate your moment in time being there. It’s definitely up there on my list of favorite event spots.

“So, we simply made judicial use of floor lighting that would naturally play upwards for all of the acts as well as having enough of a forward facing wash of light, not just to light the ceiling but the audience as well in a very natural way. This gave us a somewhat effortless way to allow our guest LDs to work their own shows and have those utilitarian lighting elements fall into play without having to “police” them for the broadcast.

“The Forum also has a really beautiful “star light” effect built into the house light system and we traditionally let that play throughout the entirety of the show so that there’s never a dead moment for broadcast on the wide shots. It’s really beautiful architecture that’s visually fun to celebrate.”

Seems like there were a lot of monochromatic looks. Can you comment on that?
“To some degree the world just goes with the fashion of the times, and this moment in time seems to have put a tremendous amount of credence in monochromatic looks. We’re seeing it more and more in music videos and now in live shows, as we return to live event stages. I’ve been hit with this push from creative directors to no avail for the past eight months or so more than any other time in my career.

“We also had multiple artists that did not want anything to do with follow spots and that is always a challenge when you’re trying to make a performer stand out from the background of their stage setup while not hammering the guest LDs. You coach as best as possible but, in the end, you have to throw some trust in your guest LDs and only completely override them if they start hinting at cratering your broadcast.

“This production does not have the extended console infrastructure that many of our other events have where we would build in the luxury of an extra console operator dedicated to correcting things for the broadcast by overriding the guest LDs, so positive coaching becomes the best approach. In the end we seemed to have gotten into a decent place where we were able to get the individual LDs to shift the color tones of their sidelight on the talent so as to help model up the performers and separate them from their backgrounds whilst still maintaining the big, monochromatic looks that they were after.”

The set had to be very versatile given the acts you had. How did you ensure that it was flexible enough?
“To ensure flexibility, we just build the basic tools into the rig, attempted to give the angles and coverage that everyone is going to need, and then allowed the artists to supplement gear as they would at any typical festival event. The reality is that you’re never going to nail it for every different artist’s needs and, as you would hope, the artist lineup would be varied enough to present that exact challenge to the design. You just take all of the elements into consideration and try to appease the masses. In this case we simply played to having a good mix of high-power profiles, big strip lights, intense strobes that could double as audience blinders, LED video panels, punchy beam units, and Maverick MK3 Wash units which became the workhorses of the overall design.

How did you make this show camera friendly?
“Just about every show these days is a hybrid of live and broadcast/webcast so there’s no escaping it. Thankfully, I came from a robust training ground of broadcast lighting in the relative infancy of my career so building this out into the designs is somewhat natural. We’ve rarely done shows without at least having IMAG cameras where you want to have lighting balanced and corrected, so it’s a given for us. It’s easier said than done, but it’s simply a part of our process for every project that has a camera on it. In this case we simply focused on doing a very diligent color and intensity balance of The Forum’s house follow spots as well as picking a decent trim height & angle for our FOH truss that would provide a bit of a safety wash key light for those acts that we knew would demand to be lit without follow spots.

Were there any special challenges with this show?
“Every show where you need to answer to multiple artists, an event producing team, a broadcast unit, wandering film units, and an end client is a challenge. This was no exception. It’s definitely not for the weak of heart and I don’t think that many people realize just how much time and effort goes into the pre-production planning of an event like this, particularly in our age of COVID. That latter part throws an entire bag of extra monkey wrenches into everything that you plan and none of them are the types of challenges that A-type personalities tend to thrive on. They’re just annoying but unfortunately, necessary. But hey…at least we’re back at it compared to having this conversation last year at this time when the discussion was simply about whether there was a chance in hell of the event even happening. It didn’t and we sure are chuffed to be back at it after the pandemic hiatus.”

Where did you position the 21 MK3 Wash fixtures and 18 COLORado 2 Solo units in your rig?
“The 21 MK3 Washes were our workhorses for the overall design. We really do get a lot of mileage out of those units in a very easily controlled package. Narrow, wide, pixelated effects; they really do it all and they do it with a lot of punch. Over the years I started to dislike publicly playing favorites with gear but we’ve been so impressed with these units that they’ve become our go-to wash unit for several years now and I’m thankful to the folks at 4Wall Entertainment for introducing us to them. The MK3s were ultimately layered throughout the entire truss system as the main wash light choice for the design.

“Our COLORado 2 Solo pars were spec’d en masse so that we had extra utility units for various tasks. These ended up doing a bunch of work as scenic up light for various extra set pieces such as our guest DJ booth as well as general area work light for the backstage area. The latter of which is critical to a production and is traditionally unplanned for in many designs. One of the things we do once we’re past the artistic process of the design is start to lay in these utility needs. This particular show moved incredibly fast with a 48-foot turntable that allow set changes to be created in less than 60 seconds. That meant that there was a constant state of backstage set change work happening during each performance and those teams needed to see what they were doing without it distracting from the on stage performance. The Solo pars have also been our go-to unit for tasks such as these, amongst many other things, given their versatility.”

Can you tell us about the roles that you, John Ellar, Justin Cheatham, Manny Conde played in this project?
“We always come to the iHeart Radio and DPS projects with a strong team to ensure that the expected quality level of delivery is maintained and this was no exception. John Ellar is our overall Project Manager who comes to The Activity with a very strong Gaffer background so he tends to oversee all of the minutia items as well as ensuring that follow spots and moving lights are correctly balanced for cameras. Justin Cheatham and Manny Conde always come with their A-game as Lighting Directors for these shows, with Manny taking on the graveyard shift of overseeing the overnight programming slots to ensure that all of the guest LDs got an equal amount of time on the rig and in pre-viz to get their shows in the right spot.

“In this particular instance, Manny was also handling LD duties for Imagine Dragons so he was going to be with us whether we liked it or not so it became a wonderful fit. Justin Cheatham traditionally gets the entire show file and rig sorted so that it’s ready for the guests but, this year, he also handled LD duties for our special guest, Avril Lavigne. He’s really been an anchor for The Activity in coming into his own as an Associate LD over the past few years. As for myself… I like to think that my duties are largely ornamental. I keep the producing teams satisfied so the rest of the team can focus on doing the great work that

Any other people you want me to mention?
“There is an absolutely massive team of people that go into doing these productions but, on this show in particular, we have to specifically commend our friends over at C2W Rigging; Carsten Weiss and Jack Blacketer. The C2W team have been instrumental in working with us throughout the pre-production process to ensure as smooth a load-in as possible and the work that they put in creates constant dividends once on site. They really are a pleasure to work with. They also integrate flawlessly with the team at 4Wall Entertainment who provided all of the lighting, video, and broadcast gear package for this event. Their level of planning and shop preparation combined with the crew talent that they’ve provided as of late is really second to none. Their ability to live up to their tagline has been impeccable in my opinion. Look it up!”