Bandit Lites Illuminated Black Music Honors Bandit Lites was honored to provide the lighting for the third annual Black Music Honors, an evening paying tribute to remarkable trailblazers, performers, and icons. Hosted by Rickey Smiley and LeToya Luckett and held at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center August 16th, the show's honorees included Bobby Brown, Dallas Austin, Faith Evans, Whodini and Bebe and Cece Winans. "On this show, the award winners/honorees are the true stars of the show," said lighting designer Mark Carver. "The idea is to showcase their body of work through various musical artists, and both work hand in hand so that the music and the award fit the genre of each particular honorees, giving them a true honor for their body of work." Bandit Lites supplied nearly two hundred fixtures for the soiree including GLP X4S, Elation Professional ACL 360 Bars, Chavuet Professional Rogue RH1 Hybrids, Robe BMFLs, Claypaky B-EYE K20, and Bandit's exclusive GRNLite Moving Washes. Carver utilized the B-EYE K20s to tone and color the band and stage, setting the color palettes for each musical number, whether it was Bell, Biv, Devoe performing the hits of Bobby Brown or Jonathan McReynolds, Tasha Page-Lockheart, Kierra Sheard, and Donnie McClurkin singing "I'll Take You There." Robe BMFLs provided hard edge gobo air effects along with modeling to the set and stage floor. "The Rogue Hybrids were used for air beam effects, and the Elation 360 Bars were very versatile in offering music color effects, strobe effects, and adding energy," Carver explained. With a tight timeframe for load in, programming and rehearsals, Carver shared that integrating all the necessary lighting and video content can be a challenge. Fortunately, Bandit Lites preps its shows extensively ahead of time, allowing the crew to focus on building the gig, giving production the most amount of time for programming and rehearsal. "I really enjoyed working with vice president Mike Golden and project manager Gene Brian, who delivered a well prepped package exactly fitting our lighting spec," Carver said. "Susan Rose was the lighting programmer, Aaron Swetland acted as crew chief and media content programmer, George (Buddy) Lunn served as gaffer, and Luke Carver was the associate lighting director. Sam Morgan was our Bandit stage tech, and all delivered a one hundred percent rig that performed flawlessly for the show run." The show set is set to air on broadcast syndication from September 1 - 30, 2018. Proceeds from the tickets sales benefit the National Museum of African American Music, scheduled to open in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2019. For more information visit www.blackmusichonors.com. 
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