Seth Jackson has created worldwide touring designs for Don Henley, Jason Mraz, Hilary Duff, Melissa Etheridge, American Idols Live, Carrie Underwood, Toby Keith, Kenny G, and Alice Cooper. He has twice been awarded the Parnelli Award for Set Designer of the Year in 2007 and 2008, has received the IES Award of Distinction in 1996, the Redden Award for Excellence in Lighting Design with the creative team for Star Wars in Concert, 2010. Creative Director for Selena Gomez, creative director and production designer for Barry Manilow’s Music and Passion, which ran at the Las Vegas Hilton for five years. He is an assistant professor of design at Webster University’s Conservatory of Theatre Arts.
Jackson joins the faculty of the Live Design Concert Master Classes on the panel: The Blank Page, with Steve Cohen and Butch Allen as they discuss how designers grapple with those earliest moments in the process: Where do you begin? Where do the ideas originate? Once an idea is approved, what happens next?
Set design: do you design your own set? How best to collaborate with the production team and artist for creative concerns?
Most Recent Project: Alice Cooper Raises the Dead
First Big Break: Kenny G, 1997 (was supposed to be the programmer, but LD Valerie Groth was getting off the road, and surprised with a new plan during rehearsals).
Influences: Steve Cohen, Tharon Musser, Marc Brickman, Josef Svoboda
First Concert You Saw: Billy Joel, The Bridge Tour, 1987, in the old St. Louis Checkerdome
Favorite Concert Design Of All Time: Oh come on, that is tough! I'll say Alan Owen's design for the Genesis Mama Tour in 1984. I never saw it live, but I destroyed a VHS tape I had of the show from watching it so many times. The first truly automated lighting rig. Having learned on the VL1 desk, I'll never know how they pulled that off with that desk.
What Do You Most Like To Do When Not Working: I don't really feel like I have a job, so working not/working is a bit of a blur. I'm not too picky, just put me outside and in daylight and I'm good.