Bandit Lites at Bonnaroo

The 2011 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee featured a number of green lighting systems from Bandit Lites.

Hadden Hipsley, of Lambda Productions, called on Bandit Lites to serve as prime lighting contractor for the three-day arts and music festival. Bandit's Dizzy Gosnell worked with Hadden, Leslie Radigan, Joel Carmichael, Steve Drymalski, AC Entertainment, Superfly Productions, and Coran Capshaws Red Light Management to provide the artists with their illumination needs at the award-winning event.

Artists at the 2011 Bonnaroo included Widespread Panic, Eminem, Lil' Wayne, Arcade Fire, Buffalo Springfield, My Morning Jacket, Mumford and Sons, The Strokes, Primus, Robert Plant and The Band of Joy, The Black Keys, Galactic, Wiz Khalifa, The Decemberists, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Warren Haynes Band, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Alison Krauss & Union Station, and many others.

The second stage was almost entirely green this year, with a plethora of LED gear on hand. The base wash was provided by the patented Bandit Lites GRN 6 Lamp Bars, each containing six GRNLite PARs. Each PAR offers the same intensity as a normal 1,000W PAR, but with no heat produced and little power consumed, the company says. The moving wash light was the GRN Moving Wash fixture. The audience was lit with eight GRN 8 Lights.. There were a handful of Philips Vari*Lite VL 3000 Washes and Martin Professional MAC 2000 Spots to round out the look and provide a bit of imagery. The entire affair was controlled by two High End Systems Road Hog Full Boar consoles. The system ran off such little power an entire generator was removed from the show in planning stages as the power demand was lessened.

The main stage was a unified design that met the core needs of most acts on the stage. In addition to Martin MAC IIIs, MAC 2000 Washes, and Vari*Lite VL3000 Washes and Martin Atomic Strobes,

there were 60 GRN Batten fixtures providing a monster stage wash. Lil Wayne LD Dan Boland and production manager Curtis Battles worked with Bandit to bring in PixelRange PixelLines, Atomic Strobes, and MAC 2000 Beams for their portion of the show. The same team also steered the Eminem show and supplemented with more PixelLines, more GRN Battens, VL3000 Washes, Atomic strobes, and eight-lights. The strokes supplemented with additional MAC IIIs and additional GRN Battens. MA Lighting's grandMA was the console of choice.

Above and beyond the GRNLite gear onsite, three large Bandit touring clients were on the show, each bringing and setting up their own GRN system. The biggest by far was Widespread Panic on Sunday night with a huge system designed by LD Paul Hoffman. Brought in special for the show were Bandit 36 Lamp Pods custom fitted with Clay Paky LED Curtain and Bandit 5x5 blasters. Flown in the air were several Syncrolite Arena Lites. The base system was composed of curved vertical trusses each full of GRNLite PARs , GLP impressions, MAC 2000 Beams, and VL3000 Spots.

The reunited Buffalo Springfield, with longtime Neil Young LD Keith Wissmar at the helm, carried an old-school, all-GRN system. The vivid washes achieved by an all LED system harkened back to 1968, the last time the band played together. Wissmar had four 16' crank up towers, each with eight GRNLite PARs. The backdrop was illuminated with 24 GRN Washes, while there were a number of GRN Battens providing cross stage floor light. The trademark Wissmar Plastic bejeweled lamp hung over Neil's organ, and four MAC 2000 Profiles did some imaging. A custom backdrop, featuring the Springfield tractor, hung in the rear. Also, Robert Plant and The Band of Joy carried their own GRN system, designed by Chris Lisle.