Music City Celebrates the Fourth of July with Bandit Lites

	Photo: Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp.

Bandit Lites recently wrapped another successful event with Music City's Fourth of July Celebration. Striking Matches kicked off the concert, followed by Grammy award-winning blues musician Keb'Mo'. Country super group, The Band Perry, took the stage before more than 26,000 firework shells erupted over the Nashville, Tennessee skyline, making the event the largest firework show in the South to date.

In creating the design, lighting designer Chris Lisle played off the look of the bridges directly behind and adjacent to the outdoor stage. The new GLP X4S fixtures lined the main arch upstage center and two half arches on either side, while the downstage portion of the rig included three more horizontal arches to create a cohesive design.

Bandit worked with Lisle to provide the striking light show, all the while keeping in mind the logistics of weather, space, distance, and security. "We had fixtures spread out over a half mile area, with some of them being all the way across the Cumberland River at the football coliseum," said Lisle. "We had two different bridges that we wanted to light that were over a quarter mile apart as well -- so we had to look at how to get power and DMX signal to these locations, all the while making sure that they were in secure locations that would not be accessible to the public."

Lisle thoughtfully chose a variety of fixtures to each serve a specific purpose in the design. Small LED movers on the arches acted as eye candy and effect, VL3000 spots provided backlight on the band, while MAC 2000 Washes were the front light. "We use more Mac 2000 Wash with beam kits for aerial effects over the stage, and also had VL3500 Spots used to light one of the bridges," Lisle explained. "Over at the stadium, we use the Bandit GRN wash, and it worked great as we had limited power over there."

John Lucksinger directed the lighting, while Dave Butzler acted as crew chief for the event. Additional crew included Cody Cheathem, Josh Fenn, Sarah Eucker, and Keith Buechele.

"The Bandit crew all did a fantastic job on this show, especially given how many fixtures there were over such a large area," said Lisle. "They all dug in and battled the intense rain like pros! A super huge thanks to John Lucksinger who got behind the console and made this design come to life!"