Chris Lisle Turns to Elation for Three Major Summer Events

	Perry's Stage at Lollapalooza. Photo: courtesy of 4Wall

Nashville-based lighting designer Chris Lisle put Elation lighting to work across three different summer projects: Perry's Stage at Lollapalooza in Chicago, the inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival in Irvine, California, and Nashville's July 4 celebration.

A veteran of the lighting industry, Lisle has increasingly focused on festival work, particularly through C3 Presents, where he moves between large-scale house rigs and more creatively driven projects. His common design thread involves lighting systems that deliver a strong visual identity while remaining adaptable to each project's needs. At this year's Lollapalooza, July 30-August 2 in Chicago's Grant Park, he designed the rig for Perry's Stage, for electronic and dance music. Unlike the festival's two main stages, which need to remain relatively generic to accommodate numerous headlining artists and their production teams, Perry's gave Lisle more creative freedom.

"For me, Perry's is one of my favorite stages to do every year," he says. "It's one of those places where I really get to have a budget to do fun shapes with truss and architecture and be creative. I can fill up that space without having to accommodate headliners and their supplemental production."

A defining element of the 2026 design was an overhead structure Lisle dubbed "Podzilla"-- a large central pod incorporating smaller mini-pods. He positioned 12 Elation Proteus Brutus fixtures at the structure's points, giving the stage a powerful aerial element, while also giving visiting lighting designers opportunities to interpret the fixtures in their own ways.

"I wanted something up there that would have this big accent and some real horsepower when needed," Lisle says of the 75,000-lumen Brutus, an LED wash effect fixture that he has often used on other projects. "With these festival rigs, you don't always have the opportunity for that kind of fixture. A lot of them are just a spot, a wash, a strobe, a blinder, and done. But anytime I can really do something creative, I like to put some big aerial stuff out there, and that's what that Brutus is for."

The Proteus Brutus fixtures, supplied by 4Wall, became one of the more versatile elements of the Perry's Stage rig. Some visiting lighting designers used them for punchy beam looks, while others positioned their programming around the DJ and used the fixtures as part of the stage's key lighting.

Lisle brought the same design philosophy to the inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival, founded by Olivia Rodrigo and produced by C3 Presents at Great Park on August 29. The one-day event featured two stages and a lineup of women-led artists, including Sarah McLachlan, Stevie Nicks, and surprise guest Alanis Morissette, with net proceeds benefiting organizations supporting women and girls.

For the festival's main stage, Lisle designed a highly customized lighting rig around an equally distinctive scenic environment. The stage was wrapped in pink mesh fabric, with a series of button-like elements across the fascia. An opening in the mesh created a large arch, which Lisle echoed through the lighting architecture.

"The scenic really defines that stage," he says. "There were these buttons along the fascia, and mesh fabric covered the downstage front and upstage, creating this defining arch. That gave us some really fun architecture to play with and light around."

Lisle created downstage and upstage trusses connected by a series of finger trusses, creating a large-scale arch of lighting fixtures. The rig incorporated 56 Elation Proteus Hybrid Max fixtures, with additional Proteus Hybrid Max fixtures positioned on vertical ladders on the wings. Forty Rayzor Blade L linear battens ran along 120' of the downstage edge.

The Proteus Hybrid Max fixtures also provided the flexibility required for a festival. "It can be a wash, a beam or a spot fixture, so that everybody could use it in a different way," says Lisle. "For me, the fixtures formed this whole arch of light that looked really nice, but the visiting LDs could take that same rig and make it their own." PRG supplied the lighting for the Daisy Chain Fields festival.

For Nashville's July 4 celebration, Lisle served as production manager and designed the site's lighting, extending the visual impact well beyond a conventional stage environment. The 2026 Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th celebration spanned downtown Nashville, with activity centered around Nissan Stadium and the Cumberland River.

Lisle used Elation fixtures throughout the event to illuminate major architectural elements across the city. At Nissan Stadium, 12 Proteus Excalibur fixtures provided aerial beams, while 52 Paladin LED wash fixtures illuminated the stadium's underside. On the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, 16 Proteus Maximus fixtures created additional aerial impact. Twelve more Proteus Maximus fixtures and 48 Paladin fixtures lit buildings along Broadway.

"Here we were really trying to paint architecture with light," Lisle explains. "Whether it was the underside of the stadium, the pedestrian bridge, or the buildings along Broadway, we were using the light to define those structures and then using the Excaliburs and Maximus to put the big beam looks into the air.

"When we did our helicopter and drone shots, we wanted those beam looks coming down Broadway, off the pedestrian bridge and off the stadium," he says. "You had all these beams around you, so it made the whole city feel like part of the show." Bandit Lites supplied the Elation lighting for Nashville's July 4th celebration.

The IP rating of the Elation fixtures was an important consideration for all three projects, but the balance between flexibility and visual impact also draws Lisle to Elation's Proteus family and other IP-rated fixtures.

"Every one of these projects gives me a different canvas and the gear gives me a lot of different ways to build a picture with light," Lisle concludes. "That's what keeps festival work interesting. I'm very grateful for the vendors and crews on all these projects. Good crews, good service, and good gear make all the difference."