USA - For rapidly rising (No. 1 on Billboard Airplay Charts) country star Russell Dickerson’s 2025 tour, the production and lighting design came from Scott Cunningham, production/lighting designer at Cut2Black Designs, with support from IPS (Integrated Production Solutions).
Cunningham reflected on the collaboration behind the Russell Mania tour; “The teamwork behind the entire tour has been an inspiring collective, with many thanks to LD Nate Augustyn, tour PM Chris Lee, associate programmer Luke Elrod, video programmer Alex Talbot, and especially Nick Brown and his team at IPS. They made sure we had a rig that could travel well, handle all the different demands placed on it, and deliver powerful looks.”
“From day one, our goal was to provide a flexible, tour-ready rig that could support Scott’s creative vision without compromise,” said Nick Brown, CEO of IPS. “It’s been rewarding to see how the entire team came together to deliver a show that’s both visually compelling and technically sound.”
Playing a key role in delivering those looks are 19 Chauvet Professional fixtures from IPS’s inventory. A collection of Colorado PXL Bar 16 motorised battens, five units across the upstage truss, and eight across the upstage edge of the set, are creating big walls that border the top and bottom of the stage and make it stand out.
The design team is relying on the colour rendering prowess of the battens’ pixel mappable RGBW LEDs to create dynamic sweeps and accents that match Dickerson’s high-energy performance note-for-note.
Joining the battens in whipping up fresh, original visuals are the rig’s six Rogue Outcast 2X wash fixtures. With its wide zoom range (8° to 66°), 2,800 to 10,000K colour temp range, and five pixel mappable zones, the high output wash is accenting the show’s creative set pieces, including its triangular movie-theatre-themed riser, while also bathing the stage in rich, realistic colours, most notably red.
“RD loves the warm red/amber tones as long as they aren’t too overwhelming,” Cunningham said of his palette choices. “So, as we were programming, we made sure to take a very intentional approach to our use of colour. It’s one of my most ‘picky’ things about the show – using colour to express emotion, energy and all the other intangible qualities that go into making a show like this.”
