The other big lighting challenge involved getting good sidelight angles. “I tend to like to use sidelight as my workhorse, especially on a show like this where shapes and forms are more important than faces,” Fitzgerald explains. But the set is completely closed off on the sides, so angles like that were difficult to achieve. “In the end, we were able to do some creative squeezing of lights into the set, but, of course, I never have as much as I want,” she notes.

Despite being an extraordinary production, the lighting setup doesn't use much out of the ordinary, Fitzgerald says. “The Vari-Lite 1000s were our savior in the sense that I had no idea where specials were going to be until I needed them. Being able to dial up a special quickly, as the pieces were being staged, was a critical part of being able to get the job done.”

Photo: Joan Marcus

Apollo Smart Color Scrollers, used on PAR64s for stage washes, and Color Kinetics ColorBlasts, used to color and silhouette the stage elements, also allow for varied looks at a moment's notice. Additional lighting for the stage includes ETC Source Four ellipsoidals of varying degrees, Source Four PARs, four-circuit Altman Ministrips, and Castor Bambinos 2kW Fresnels by Strand. Dimming is via ETC Sensor+ touring and installation racks, and lighting control is an Obsession II console. Lobby lighting includes an ETC Express 24/48 console, Source Four PARs, PAR20 birdies, and a Sensor+ touring dimmer rack. Show lighting gear was supplied by PRG, with house equipment installed by 4Wall.

“One sound challenge with this show was the mic positions,” notes sound board operator Kristofer Nilsson. “The floor of the stage is where most of the show takes place, and the way we mic it is by area or zones. There are three Sennhieser hyper-cardioid shotgun mics on the downstage edge of the stage and two super-cardioid shotgun mics on each side of the stage. On older Stomp shows the floor was much smaller and the set was not as elaborate as the one we have here in Las Vegas.” Because of the set on the Vegas show the mics could not be placed upstage, which is why there are two on each side. Having the mics on the sides of the stage decreased the amount of headroom drastically after many weeks of trial and error.

Photo: Joan Marcus

Sound gear includes a Yamaha PM5D console, Yamaha AD8HR, and Denon T645 CD player, and DN-M1050R Mini-Disc player at front of house; DSP is via XTA DP224s, Nexo NX242, and Meyer Sound S-1s and M1As. Nexo Alpha and L-Acoustics dV-DOSC comprise the main PA; amps are a variety of Crown Macro-Tech amps. Rounding out the PA are Meyer CQ-1s, UPA-1s, and MSL-2s for fill. Monitoring is accomplished with EAW SM200s and JF80s, and Meyer Sound MSL-2s; mic models range from Sennheiser, AKG, and Beyerdynamic.

“There is something about the warm feeling of the Nexo Alpha system that makes everything in Stomp Out Loud sound so much more colorful. You have to remember that the sounds are not your normal guitar, bass, and drums, but toxic waste barrels, cardboard boxes, sweeping brooms, and trash cans,'' Nilsson observes. “When we first got in to the room we noticed that the acoustics were really dry. The sound was absorbed very quickly. In any other case you would want a dryer sounding room, but we wanted a much livelier room. We had to take off all of the acoustic panels off the back wall. For under the balcony we added a small center cluster that just covered under the balcony.''

Stomp Out Loud performs in the Las Vegas Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino Thursdays to Tuesdays at 8pm.