PLSN spoke with: Brown Note Productions’ President Ryan Knutson, 4Wall Entertainment’s Senior VP of Sales & Marketing Dan Abdalla, Bandit Lites’ Vice President of Production Dizzy Gosnell, Music Matters Productions’ Director of Marketing Lindsay Schwartz and Owner/Lead Production Designer Aaron Soriero, and 3G Productions’ CEO Keith Conrad.Few bands have built more excitement over the last couple of years than regional Mexican band Grupo Firme. Out on a summer stadium tour across the U.S., the Tijuana banda and norteño group are performing beneath a rig of Elation Professional Smarty Hybrid™ and Rayzor 760™ moving heads supplied by 3G Productions.

Electric Daisy Carnival drew large crowds to Las Vegas in May 2022. Photo courtesy of 3G Productions

Name a few festivals you have worked on and tell us what’s coming up.

Ryan Knutson: So far this year, we have provided production for Okeechobee Music & Arts, Buku Music + Art Project, The Smokers Club, and Welcome to Rockville. We look forward to finishing out the year with upcoming festivals Inkcarceration, Global Dance Festival, Jazz Aspen Snowmass, Bourbon & Beyond, Aftershock, GoldenSky, and Decadence.

Dan Abdalla: Many of these festivals are returning for the first time since the pandemic and the overall reception and hype has been fantastic to witness. Already this year we were involved with EDC, Tortuga Music Festival, Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, and iHeart Radio Music Festivals. Upcoming: Excision Presents The Stadium, Project Z, Hard Summer (Stage 4), Made in America, Governors Ball, Faster Horses, and Lollapalooza.

Dizzy Gosnell: Bandit has through the years worked with multiple major festivals, including Bonnaroo, Forecastle, Firefly, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Lost Lake, Hangout, Electric Forest, SXSW, Governors Ball, Big Ears, Blue Ridge Rock Festival, and several others.

Lindsay Schwartz: Year to date, we have provided production services for 16 festivals—such as Shaky Knees, High Water Festival, Atlanta Jazz Festival, Forecastle Festival, Electric Forest, and Something in the Water—and we have 10 already on the books for the fall including Afropunk Atlanta & Brooklyn, Moon River, Music Midtown, Sea.Hear.Now., Oceans Calling, ONE Musicfest, and more.

Keith Conrad: Since the live music industry restarted around the fall of last year, we have provided production support for numerous music festivals, including: EDC Las Vegas, Beyond Wonderland, Vibra Urbana Las Vegas, Wango Tango, Coachella (various artist support), Calibash, Super Bowl Music Fest, and LA Pride Festival. Most of these clients we have long standing relationships with and have worked with for years pre-pandemic.

What Part of Festivals do you Typically Provide?

 Knutson: Audio, lighting, video, SFX, backline.

Abdalla: Lighting, video, staging, rigging, and a wide range of services required for the shows.

Gosnell: Just lighting.

Schwartz: Our team provides anything on the production side of a festival: lighting, audio, video, staging (we’ve got a fleet of mobile stages), creative design, project and production management. We also have a partnership with SES called 360Festivals, which allows us to combine our collective resources. We’ve both been able to expand our festival service offerings to include field protection, crowd control barricades, trucking and transportation, steel structure large format stages, and more.

Conrad: We have historically been more of an audio provider but since the pandemic, we have recapitalized the company and invested heavily in lighting, video, and rigging, so we are now providing more full-service production for festivals.

How does your 2022 festival workload compare prior to the pandemic?

Knutson: Since our return in April of 2021 to large scale concerts and festivals we have seen a steady increase in festival opportunities. As a company we are currently booked for more festivals in 2022 than we were in 2019 pre-pandemic. It’s great to see all of the bands and crews again out there at these events!

Abdalla: For the most part, the amount of festival work is back to what it was pre-pandemic.

Gosnell: Bandit has had a very reduced festival offering this year caused by high touring demand and shortages of qualified people.

Schwartz: Our festival production has more than doubled. We probably used to do around 12 per year, and we’re already at 26 booked for 2022. It seems like we’re adding a new festival every week.

Conrad: Festival work has come back strong. I would venture to say festivals are up from a volume perspective compared to pre-pandemic. We own more equipment now across all disciplines—audio, lighting, video, rigging—so we are able to provide more one-stop shopping to festival producers, which makes our company attractive for these events.

What has changed about festival production since the pandemic?

Knutson: Production is getting bigger and starting to grow again. We are seeing a resurgence in creativity from the festival designers and production teams. It’s exciting!

Abdalla: The enthusiasm and passion from the folks who build these stages to the vendors providing gear, food, and memorabilia is at a level I’ve never seen before. Before the pandemic, when festival season would roll around, yes, everyone was excited, but nobody anticipated what the pandemic would do to the industry for two years. Now that festival season is returning to normal, nobody takes these incredibly difficult, time consuming, and satisfying weekends for granted. We cherish every second of it and when the doors open, the festival goers feel that energy.

Gosnell: The main changes have been more detail on pre- and post-festival logistics with rigging, trucks, local hands/riggers, and so on.

Conrad: Designers are more open to substitute products, particularly on the lighting side. With the shortage of equipment and festivals coming back strong, producers and designers are satisfied when we have the equipment to fulfill the majority of the rider and can find substitutes for others. Talented technicians, engineers, and workers are overall very challenging to find. Many people have left the industry and haven’t come back post-pandemic. This is impactful on the client side from planning and execution as well as for us with technicians.

What trends are you seeing and what go-to fixtures are being requested?

Knutson: We are seeing more scenic elements as well as more IP65 rated fixture requests [for outdoors], which are critical for these systems. Luckily, we have invested heavily in these technologies.

Abdalla: IP65 rated fixtures are becoming requested more regularly and are huge for the festival market. Over the last year we’ve added hundreds of IP65 rated light fixtures from Chauvet Professional, Elation Professional, and Ayrton. We also have IP65 rated LED video panels as that are a huge page of a music festival’s stage design.

Gosnell: This year we’ve seen more requests for remote followspot systems of all types, and higher output haze to name two, but generally acts have been fine with an across-the-board range of lamp styles (wash, spot, beam, strobe/blinder/wash) in the systems and have been more accepting of alternatives of different fixtures in the same style. For example, [Ayrton] Khamsin or Ghibli or [Robe] BMFL or [Martin] Viper FX, which this year have been beneficial with the high project load.

Soriero: Video content is king: I-Mag is bigger, there are more cameras, and there’s definitely a broadcast feel. And there is still a big livestream component to most. There is also a lot of extra attention being paid to lighting and special effects in the production. Moving head LED strobe fixtures opened up a “new normal” as have a lot of [GLP] JDC1s as well. There is also an increased need for IP-rated fixtures on the downstage trusses and exposed areas of the stage.

Conrad: The visuals are the most important aspect, so you are seeing huge lighting rigs and significant video deployed on shows. From a layout perspective you are seeing some changes too that are more beneficial to the fan experience, such as a lack of fencing to allow for snakes to go from FOH to stage. This makes it harder for technicians/engineers to get back and forth. However, it opens up the area for fans in front of the stage and allows for more free movement. This could be in response to some [crowd] issues that have happened at shows such as Astroworld.

On the lighting side, it is Robe, Elation, Chauvet, and GLP, mostly with [MA Lighting] grandMA consoles. On the video side, it is mostly pixel pitch driven but higher end, bigger festivals like to see the ROE Visual product as it is more efficient to put up and down, which saves money. Additionally, we’re seeing the ability to do blow-through video walls, especially in windy environments like Las Vegas.

Some production companies do the festival design themselves rather than bring in outside lighting designers. What does your company do?

Knutson: We do a combination of this. We have our in-house design team as an option for our clients and also support a variety of designers who work with our clients.

Abdalla: We are generally the gear vendor and work with production companies who hire the LDs.

Gosnell: Bandit has worked in both environments.

Soriero: Some promoters hire a designer to provide the general idea of the festival rigs and then we construct everything from their designs. Some promoters look to us for complete design and we can do that in-house. We’re usually thinking about a rig that can give solid looks for everybody but can be flexible enough to fit in headliner needs. I do a lot of the lighting design for festival rigs, but we’ve also worked with Chris Lisle a great deal, as well as PHNTM Labs.

Conrad: We mostly design our own as we have in-house designers. However, we are happy to work with designers as well and oftentimes take a collaborative approach with them.

We’re hearing of equipment shortages. How are you meeting product demand?

Knutson: There is a high demand for inventory and the supply is running short. We kept our steady purchasing up through 2021 to get ahead of the shortages and our growth in 2022. We are focusing on making sure our existing and long-term clients get what they need first as they are the customers who have kept us in business and helped us grow over the years. We are being responsible with adding new clients and only taking on what is manageable with our current inventory and crew. We continue to invest in the new technologies and, more importantly, new technicians and management.

Abdalla: Like many in the industry, receiving new gear has had some delays, but for the most part our new Absen, Ayrton, Chauvet, disguise, Elation, ETC, Tomcat Truss, Tyler Truss, and other gear has been coming in on schedule. We have been—and continue to be—aggressive in purchasing gear for our clients across all our locations. Our rental agents and asset management team meet regularly and often to ensure our gear is where it needs to be for our clients. They do a fantastic job.

Gosnell: Bandit has—and is—purchasing equipment when and where we can. The supply is simply not meeting the demand across all genres. The available list of equipment and great people serve to limit what any firm can deliver, and Bandit will not deliver inferior people or illumination. This drives us to sometimes not being able to service events we would love to service.

Soriero: There is definitely a shortage of equipment and lead times have been insane. We have a lot of fixtures ordered: some can ship now; some are months away and into next year. We are having to cross rent until that inventory has arrived. It helps to have friendly relationships with others in the industry so we can all lean on each other during these weird/tricky times.

Conrad: Equipment shortages are real due to supply chain issues. Further with demand exceeding supply, we are seeing pricing increase from the manufacturers. We had some foresight and put orders in during Q4 2021, which allowed us to receive most of our equipment in time for touring and festival season starting in May. Further, the price of used equipment has increased significantly. Some of our decisions in purchasing were based on availability from manufacturers. Lastly, aiding in the supply/demand imbalance is the fact that companies that went out of business coupled with the majority of bands touring and all festivals wanting to turn the lights back on after two to three-years off. As a result, we have seen the ability to alter designs if we don’t have the specified equipment for a designer.

How are labor shortages affecting your festival work?

Knutson: There are labor shortages all around us. We are doing our best and our headcount is up by 25% from 2019 to 2021. We are continuing to hire all positions. We are seeing more issues in the local labor shortages with stagehands. This seems to be the largest issue in the industry as there have been countless shows with stagehand calls that were well below what was ordered and needed.

Abdalla: It’s no secret a lot of freelancers left the business during the shutdown. Our labor coordinators have had their hands full finding labor for some jobs, but overall, as things start returning to normal, we are seeing an uptick in freelancers responding to jobs. We have worked diligently with IATSE, USITT, ROCU, and more to find talent around the country.

Gosnell: The severe lack of good, qualified people is impacting the entire industry. Bandit has made the conscious decision to accept less work rather than offer unqualified people and less than desirable equipment. This is not a hard decision at all and is in the best interest of our valued clients.

Soriero: The demand for our services is far exceeding our supply of labor. We’re being forced to choose between gigs and turn some down, which is a really interesting feeling considering what we went through with Covid. We’ve accepted that we probably can’t totally solve the problem for this season/this year, but we’re working on solving it long-term and into next year with training programs, internships, and working with the staff we have to expand their skillsets.

Conrad: This is real. Many quality technicians have left the business during the pandemic and still haven’t returned, and probably never will. We have addressed this by finding young talented people that are looking for a career path. If you have a good work ethic and an eagerness to learn, you can be successful in this business. The barrier to entry for someone new is low as there aren’t education prerequisites or prior job training. It is mostly on the job training, so we pair these new candidates with veterans on our team and show them the 3G way to do things. So far it has been refreshing to bring young quality workers in and watch them grow.

Original article https://plsn.com/articles/festival-spotlight/the-festival-landscape/