PRG Brings Lenny Kravitz Show Alive with Lighting and Rigging Package
Lenny Kravitz headed out the European leg of the Blue Electric Light Tour, a mixture of arena shows and festival headliners, with the intricate lighting and rigging package supplied by PRG.
With the release of his latest album Blue Electric Light, Lenny Kravitz is back out on the road, heading across Europe with a new eclectic show including, for the first time, strong video content and an impressive lighting and rigging package supplied by PRG.
The seasoned team of Production Manager David Bruster, Lighting Crew Chief Florian von Dershau and Lighting Designer Mike Gionfriddo came to PRG for the extensive lighting package after working with them on the last few tours. They were under the watchful care of PRG’s Senior Project Manager Steve Major and PRG’s Event Services Manager Luke Jackson.
Major managed not only the admin side of the rental process, but also worked alongside Jackson and the Kravitz team to ensure the design was optimised with the best package to bring their vision to life. Major and Jackson ensured the Kravitz team had access to PRG’s extensive resources including CAD design, technical teams and warehouse team.
“I really love working with Steve, he’s very knowledgeable on the technical side and has worked on the tours in the past so he was a great partner to have on the rental side” von Dershau said.
“It’s been great having the Lenny Kravitz team onboard again” says Yvonne Donnelly, Sales Director for Music at PRG UK. “With Steve on board and our close relationship with the team, we’ve been able to deliver them a stunning lighting and rigging package for this run”.
The Kravitz team prepped in the PRG warehouse in Birmingham, navigating incoming last minute changes. An additional two extra trusses were brought in in the last stages of the process!
The warehouse space allows crews to set up their trusses and prep cable looms to make loading in and out once out on the road as easy as possible, which was vital with the designs extensive fixture list.
PRG also provided the full pre-vis system for pre-programming prior to the tour.
The full rig consisted of over 300 fixtures, including 82 GLP X4 Bars flanking each of the 7 vertical video screens, 133 Robe Fortes and 115 Chauvet Color Strike M’s. Five Robe iForte LTX’s were flown centre stage with RoboSpot systems situated on designated dollies side of stage. Additional followspots were also sourced locally at each venue.
For control, PRG provided 2 x full size GrandMA3’s running MA3 software plus 3 x GrandMA3 Lite consoles, one for tech and two for the video control. Video screen was provided by Nighthawk and set build by Tait.
The challenge with this particular tour was the wide range of venue sizes for both headline shows and festivals. The total package filled fourteen trailers but, depending on venue size, only a third to a quarter of the lighting fixtures could fit. This meant the design had to be ultra flexible whilst still maintaining the grandeur and spectacle expected from a Kravitz show.