Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546033
I did the design a couple weeks prior but for various reasons they couldn't pull the trigger until just four days before the show. I had to beg Center Line to build it, 5-axis carve it, cover it in fur and build the exploding tummy gag. It was delivered from LA to Vegas three hours before the Katseye's rehearsal…more stress for me. This whole thing is about managing stress. I have never fainted in my life, but during rehearsals, I did start to go down and fell into a chair. And after the Country Music Awards I threw up, just the relief of it all going so well after a four-and-a-half month buildup and an intense no sleep two weeks dealing with band looks before load in. The show must go on. Fitting It All Together There were over ninety band risers/carts and then a lot of scenery, be it giant Teddy Bears or Teyana Taylor's sci-fi egg or Teddy Swim's grungy warehouse set. Scenery couldn't fly out above the stage because the venue was maxed out on weight capacity, so everything had to roll, hundreds of wheels. Behind the set at stage level there's space, but that is needed as a pre-staging area for the next act. Everything was stored across the street in the bottom floor of a parking structure. Then there's an army of stagehands that all they do is roll the next three acts' worth of crap out of that parking structure across a parking lot, avoiding striking the band BTS's limos or bumping into the satellite trucks that are beaming the show across the country. Then they hand off at the arena doors to a second crew that must get everything up a ramp to stage level. Honestly, it would make an incredible documentary to see this process. There's hundreds of people and that's just the staging department. No one watching has a clue. Is There an Easier Way? No. These shows have grown and grown in scale. The music-based award shows are the toughest to design. They are 25-percent awards and 75-percent live concert, with sixteen different acts all competing and wanting the best for their three minutes. A regular awards show that's just actors coming up and giving a speech is honestly a cakewalk compared to these music performance-based award shows. ADG A. AMAS STAGE. SET PHOTO. Andy Walmsley, Production Designer Patrick Adair, Lead Art Director Christopher Goumas, Michael Leonard, Art Directors Carli Panice, Set Decorator A