- Nashville-based Cour Design is opening the door for artists by implementing a show that triggers its own lighting and video cues from a backing track, making it possible for bands to hit the road with fewer technicians, and more gear. David Nail tour turned to Cour Design to help them create their first ever tour lighting rig, and Cour Design turned to Elite Multimedia to provide them with the ideal gear for the tour.
- “Cour Design was built on the idea of designing efficient and cost-effective touring packages for bands who will be headlining in clubs and performing as the opening act for arena tours,” said Gordon Droitcour, Cour Design Co-Founder and Programmer. “Since most bands want to have the big live show, we developed a system to automate touring productions giving them the big show they desire on the budget they need. When the production manager for David Nail heard we had found a way to make this happen, he reached out about their upcoming tour and we got to work.”
Country artist David Nail onstage
“We like to think of ourselves as both production designers and tour coordinators helping to deal with all the logistics of the tour,” Droitcour said. “We really like to get to know the artist and understand what they want to see in their show. Once we get a sense of what the artist is all about, we then start to look at the budget, the venues to be played, and the number of crew members who will be going out on the road.”
With an understanding of all the tour logistics and design needs, Cour Design reached out to Elite Multimedia to provide them with tour gear.
“We’ve worked with Elite Multimedia on all our projects at Cour Design so far because their customer service is excellent,” explained Droitcour. “They are a large company with a small company atmosphere and we’ve been able to establish a great relationship with everyone on their live event production team. They are very good at helping us come up with the best solution for whatever project we may be working on no matter how big or small.”
Cour Design was able to find the exact fixtures needed through the diverse inventory held by Elite Multimedia.
Droitcour continued, “With the David Nail tour, we knew they would be opening for artists such as Little Big Town and Darius Rucker throughout the year in different arenas, but then the rig also had to fit into clubs when David headlined his own show. The same rig had to give the same impact in all the different venues, but it also had to fit in one trailer. I like that Elite Multimedia carries a lot of different lighting fixtures from a multitude of manufacturers. While we certainly could bid out our projects to other companies, we choose to continue working with Elite Multimedia because they have the innovative equipment we need and their expertise makes the design process very easy.”
Set with Cour Design lighting at David Nail's I'm on Fire Tour
Cour Design and Elite Multimedia agreed on a lighting package that included Elation Cuepix Panels and Clay Paky A.Leda Wash K10 luminaires.
“As an artist, David likes a lot of silhouettes and saturated colors, but he doesn’t necessarily want a lot of flashing onstage,” added Droitcour. “We chose the Elation Cuepix panels because with their 25 RGBW LEDs on each panel they give a big look and can create a variety of pixel mapping effects. We then chose the Clay Paky A.Leda K10 fixtures because the tour also wanted some movement on stage and these gave us the same pixel mapping options as the Cuepix panels. Plus, their zoom capabilities gave us another layer to the design and they worked perfect for both the arena and club setups.”
Cour Design then created lighting carts on which the rig would travel. Once on site, crew members can roll the carts into place, use a drill to raise them to the exact height needed, and then plug them into the self-triggering visual package.
