Bandit Lites recently wrapped another successful tour with country music superstar, Carrie Underwood. Underwood rose to fame as the winner of the fourth season of American Idol. Since then, she has become a multi-platinum selling recording artist and is a multiple Grammy Award winner among numerous other accolades.

Carrie Underwood recently co-headlined with fellow Bandit client and country music star, Keith Urban. Award-winning lighting designer, Seth Jackson designed Underwood's rig so that it could coexist with Urban's set. Unlike most co-headline tours, Underwood was joining a production that was already on the road. Designed by Marc Brickman, the Urban show had a specific layout and lighting choices that Jackson said he needed to integrate with.

"After many phone calls, Marc and I got together with Chris Nyfield from Hindsight Studios and put both shows together in several 3D models so we could combine all of the elements together into a realistic production. The goal was to give each artist a unique experience and still fit into the trucks and get in and out of the buildings everyday," Jackson explained. "Fortunately, most of the fixture choices matched my own choices, so the integration was fairly simple."

Jackson said the challenge came when they realized that Underwood's success had opened up opportunities for solo arena dates in the midst of the tour. They had to create something that had all of the elements and personality that Underwood and team wanted, but still fit seamlessly into Keith Urban, and yet stand on its own when they weren't with Urban. They ended up designing one show for two purposes.

"Thanks to the team at Bandit Lites, we were able to engineer a system that would utilize fixtures that were labeled as "universal" and fixtures that were dedicated to "Carrie solo" and "Urban." The result worked," Jackson commented. "We used the same crew for both (fortunately, Keith wasn't doing shows when we were doing Carrie shows), used many of the same lights, and carried additional equipment that we only used on the Carrie dates."

From a conceptual side, Jackson knew he wanted to do something that would be completely different than the Keith Urban show. Urban's show was based on an enormous LED wall and vast array of vertical towers and low-side light. Jackson chose to go the other direction.

He built a show around articulating pods, loaded with VL2500 spots and lasers (Eric Pearce at SGPS designed the pods, Howard Ungerleider and PDI supplied the laser system and a softLED curtain). The cueing was intensive and complex.

"The funny thing is that I was trying to create a show that was very much an homage to the types of shows that Brickman created in the 80s and 90s, to then marry to the design style that he was doing on Keith Urban," Jackson added.

Equipment included Vari*Lite 3500 and 2500 Spots, Syncrolite MX3000s, Element Labs Versa Tubes, and Lycian M2 Truss Spots. Lighting was controlled by a Grand MA and Grand MA NSP.

Bandit also built a custom rack for a pair of Grand MA Video servers, which were selected due to the ease of integration into the Grand MA control console. Jackson said they worked perfectly. He was able to add their custom content and keep everything working much easier than many of the media servers he had previously used.

A major part of the tour's success was the lighting crew. Jackson said that lighting director Brian Jenkins' abilities far exceeded his years and having Nate Alves program the show was a huge help. "Nate Alves is also Keith Urban's lighting director, so his knowledge of the rig and the integration of the shows was invaluable," Jackson commented. "I also borrowed my stage manager from Barry Manilow, Amber Martin, to keep us all on track during rehearsals!"

"This show is an extreme example of collaboration. I have never worked with an equal team like this. You have Carrie, her manager Ann Edelblute, myself, tour manager Keith Dean, production manager, Chris Coffie, and the show creator, Danny Teeson all involved in the creative process. We had many roundtables about all of the various elements, and everyone's opinion shared equal voice. It was a great environment to develop a show," Jackson added. "Everyone's organizational skills, and Mike Golden's (Bandit VP) ability to orchestrate something that at times felt like we were planning the Normandy Invasion, was a real testament to everyone's professionalism and ability."