As our partnership with Bon Jovi nears on 20 years, we were honored to have worked on the latest tour in Bon Jovi’s extensive career. The European leg of the “This House Is Not For Sale” tour spans 21 shows in 20 cities and pairs a powerhouse display of screens to match the strength of Bon Jovi’s music. With the imagery designed to support the theme and sound of each song, the concert follows the history of the band through hit tracks and fan favorites from their wildly successful albums. This production design is executed through 853 video tiles being pieced together to build one cohesive wall of graphics and live show footage. Utilizing a touring crew of 253 people to assist in assembling, dismantling, transporting, and controlling the immense stage set, the production design also includes four delay towers to assist in creating the best sound and light design for the massive crowds. A new addition to the Bon Jovi experience is the inclusion of social media in the production design, allowing the band to share a special bond with their fans. This exciting new feature encourages fans to share their favorite Bon Jovi memories with a hashtag specific to their city, which could be shared on the video wall during the live show.

The Smashing Pumpkins hit the road in 2018 to celebrate the band’s 30^th anniversary and to tease out new music that was yet to be released. The tour consisted of 41 shows and stopped at 39 cities across North America.

Thirty years of music deserved a tour production to compliment the depth of the Smashing Pumpkins catalog. To achieve this, our team designed a multi-faceted theatrical approach delivering a wide variety of visuals. Imagery ranged from themes between the tracks including celestial graphics to love and death illustrations. In creating this immersive experience, we utilized automated lighting trusses, a full-stage tracking LED video screen and six periaktoi units, which were covered with a different material on each face to maximize the design possibilities. The lighting and scenic elements of the show were the creative collaboration of Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, Linda Strawberry and Nimblist design team leader Spike Brant.

Smashing Pumpkins embarked on a European tour in 2019, performing 17 shows across Europe at arenas and popular summer festivals. After having worked with the band on their previous 2018 tour, our team was looking forward to collaborating with frontman Billy Corgan and Creative Director Linda Strawberry once again.

Drawing inspiration from artist Oskar Schlemmer and his Bauhaus movement, three enormous figures were designed to share the stage with Smashing Pumpkins and “wow” the audiences. The 30-feet-tall figures, dubbed “Zero,” “Mother,” and “Glass,” were constructed as inflatable puppets and were brought to life by Airworks Inflatables. The inflatable sculptures were designed with duality in mind, featuring a black and white surface on one side and a colorful, patchwork surface on the other. The figures were also internally lit with LED. This execution allowed for an endless combination of incredible looks throughout each show. Given the large figures as the centerpiece of the stage visual, our team, including Nimblist principal designer Spike Brant, partnered with Kille Knobel to create a lighting design that captured and amplified the smart simplicity of the stage design.

Balancing bold and bright color palettes with mono-chromatic themes, a dramatic chemistry was highlighted between the band and the puppets. Whether presented in an arena or at an outdoor festival, the Smashing Pumpkins European tour design was created to be as inspiring and provocative as the much-loved songs it accompanied.

Grammy Award winner Chris Brown hit the road for the epic INDIGOAT Tour with some of the hottest names in hip-hop. Following last year’s highly successful Heartbreak on a Full Moon Tour, he returned to the stage, where he wowed audiences across America with an innovative high-energy show complete with fresh music from his new Indigo album.

As the production designers for the tour, we brought Chris’ vision to life by “inventing” an array of lasers as a truss spot for the tour. These special lasers from Image SFX connected to a FollowMe system so it could track the artist across the stage. With help from Dark Matter’s Mat Fuller, we were able to have unique and compelling video content enhancing the lasers, lighting and impressive inflatables recreated from a 2D image of the album cover. Light direction and programming was done by Whitney Hoverston and lighting design was done by Sandy Paul, who stayed on tour with Chris Brown throughout the duration.

The Great Unknown is the fourth concert tour by American recording artist Rob Thomas and features songs from his third solo album with the same name.

With a minimalist approach, the production was designed to be compact yet impactful. Four bold vertical columns and a graphic backdrop framed a theatrical performance environment. The lighting and scenery worked together to create multi-layered visual effects that were transformative and intimate. The resultant was a raw classic rock design with a contemporary touch.

Our Co-Founder and President, Justin Collie, has been gigging with Maxwell for years. Justin has been his longtime production and lighting designer crafting tours and broadcast appearances. For this tour, which was co-headlined with Mary J. Blige, he handled the bulk of the drawing and CAD work factoring in shared elements and elements specific to each artist. This was the first time the two artists had toured together and while each had distinctively different shows, they also had to provide a cohesive experience for everyone onsite.

The design was based around columns of LED tiles on a tracking system forming a cinema-aspect screen for a changing array of video content when they came together. Maxwell’s soulful performance included text, images and featured footage of the late Prince as well as victims of police brutality. It was a moving performance reminding the audience of the unfortunate reality at that moment. The show was described as “a message of much needed love.”

Commemorating their historic 25th anniversary, the original band members reunited for their first ever tour. Everyone involved was excited by the opportunity to do something different and explore crafting a show unlike any other.

It was only fitting we would partner with our long-time friend and collaborator Kille Knobel for this 8 show tour. There were tight design and financial parameters (we had to design into one truck…) which had to be met but we were all up to the challenge.

Our team drew inspiration from trees depicted in the “Hunger Strike” video and got to work on the production design. Traveling with live trees was not practical, so the design team came up with the idea of using a forest of ropes instead. We explored concepts from realistic to abstract throughout the process. The idea of the ropes creating the tree shapes satisfied all the design requirements. They were organic; transparent for 360-degree shows; and packed small. Once everyone approved the concept, we brought in Atomic’s Scenic Division to manufacture the trees. With our office in Lancaster and Atomic in Lititz (a short 15 minute drive) it was awesome to be able to hop over and look at prototypes while working through the many steps in the design process in person.

Primary lighting concepts used by Kille were the feeling of darkness, starkness, unconfined washes, hidden sources, asymmetrical lighting, and heavy floor lighting. We were honored she brought us in to this labor of love with her.