concert stage design

Coyote Drive-In Theater Concert

July 1, 2020

The May concert was produced by Onstage Systems at the Coyote Drive-In Theater in Fort Worth. The event was a fun, but challenging event to produce. The Coyote Drive-In Theater concert also had the significance of being one of the first events to bring live music back to Fort Worth in the wake of the COVID-19 shutdown.

coyote drive-in theater concert audience — Photo by Andrew Sherman – Lone Sound Magazine

Featured Performers

Drive-In Theater Concert Event Challenges

drive-in concert performers and sign — Photo by Andrew Sherman – Lone Sound Magazine

The biggest challenge was accounting for the health and safety of everyone involved. That was why the Coyote Drive-In Theater made a great venue choice for hosting a live, outdoor concert. The audience area was large and designed for attendees to be separated in parking spots. Attendees were assigned parking to every other parking spot. This helped create natural social distancing space between attendees. Onstage Systems also followed the latest health guidelines for hand sanitation and wore masks in close proximity. Coyote Drive-In Theater helped ensure social distancing with signage and limiting occupancy around the restroom and concession areas.

See more featured work from Onstage Systems

Onstage Systems fully utilized the Coyote Drive-In Theater’s space while providing the addition of the lighting, mobile staging, and full audio support appropriate to a concert of this size, to included FM transmission. This allowed attendees the option to listen to the concert over their car FM radios while enjoying the air conditioning. However, many concert attendees took the opportunity to get a little sun and fresh air, listening to a full L’acoustics concert PA system out in the open air from lawn chairs and pickup beds.

Photo by Andrew Sherman – Lone Sound Magazine

The second big challenge Onstage Systems had to overcome to make the event a success was the Coyote Drive-In Theater’s schedule. The drive-in was in full operation with nightly movie times starting after dark. The Friday show did not end until 11 PM. The Onstage team hustled in the dark to set up the stage, lighting, and all the integration for the Saturday afternoon show. And once the show was over they struck the scene in two hours and had Coyote Drive-In Theater back to normal in time for its 8:45 PM movie.

While the Coyote Drive-In Theater concert was a one-time event, Onstage Systems looks forward to doing more drive-in concert events in the future. In addition to producing live in-person events, Onstage has experience producing live streams and other virtual events.

Learn more about Onstage Systems virtual event services HERE.

Virtual Concert Event Production for Sonic Soul Tribe

July 1, 2020

Onstage Systems helped produce a 12-hour international, virtual concert event for Sonic Soul Tribe. The performance took place in April of 2020 and featured artists and performers from across the United States and abroad performing live on stage and remotely.

Sonic Soul Tribe is a not-for-profit electronic and experimental music and art experience based in Dallas, Texas, born from the Burning Man festival. The collective is a music, art, and production experience that seeks to gift dance, art, and community to those looking for a new way to connect, celebrate, and rejoice in the human experience.

Learn More About Onstage System’s Virtual Event Production Services

The virtual concert was a great challenge to bring together. Logistics demanded coordinating live streaming performers across the world. The event’s 12 hour duration required incredible stamina and discipline from the Onstage team to produce.

To keep the virtual concert entertaining, Onstage Systems mixed video graphics, picture-in-picture, and simultaneous performance feed switching of remote artists’ live streams. In addition to music and spoken word performances, the virtual concert also featured visual performances including body painters, flow artists, fire performers, dancers, and more. This allowed Onstage Systems to marry visually entertaining performances with auditory entertainment by combining performance streams.

Part of the virtual concert included a live, stage performance at the Onstage Systems warehouse in Dallas, Texas. The stage performance was set up and produced with a “safety first” approach. The Onstage team maintained social distancing during setup and live production. The staff followed the latest health safety guidelines and wore masks throughout. Additionally, Onstage coordinated the performers setup in shifts to minimize contact between all staff and performers.

The virtual concert event production was flawlessly executed by a team of camera operators, video technicians, audio technicians, and lighting designers. To bring the Sonic Soul Tribe virtual event all together, the Onstage team relied on premier equipment from Elation Lighting, L-Acoustics, DiGiCo, and Panasonic.

Watch the Sonic Soul Tribe Virtual Concert on Twitch Video on Demand (VOD)

4 Ways to Enhance Your Concert Stage Design

January 8, 2020

Your concert stage design allows you to intimately connect with your audience and showcase your creativity in all its glory. Therefore, on the day of your event, the last thing you want is to perform on a stage that wasn’t optimized for visibility. Here are 4 ways you can enhance your concert stage design and create memorable moments for your audience:

1. Consider The Audience’s Point of View

Crowd ready to view the concert from any angle

No matter how impressive your concert stage looks, if your audience can’t see you, it won’t matter how many special effects you include in the performance. Before you start designing the stage, take a closer look at the audience’s point of view.

Is your venue located on an incline or small hill that requires the audience to look up? Would it be difficult for those standing in the back of the venue to see your performance? Are you expecting a large turnout or is this a smaller event?

Depending on your audience’s visibility, crowd size, and the design of the venue, you’ll need to adjust your stage design to ensure everyone in the crowd can see every part of your performance.

2. Create Lasting Memories with Memorable Lighting

Knowing how to properly light a stage requires a mix of technical expertise and a splash of creativity. But if you want to bring your concert stage design to the next level, you’ll want to invest in memorable lighting effects that set the mood.

In addition to stage and spotlights, you can work with an event production company like Onstage Systems that has an all-encompassing inventory of LED fixtures, decor lighting, atmospheric lights, dimmers, and any other light fixture you’d need.

These upgraded lighting setups will shower your venue in colorful hues and transform the atmosphere in the room. The secret to designing an ideal lighting setup is to align your performance with your lights. Do you have a high energy, dynamic performance? Consider automated lights that change with the music. Is your performance sentimental and ethereal? Opt for mood lights that complement the music.

3. If You Can’t Build A Tall Stage, Build A Wide One

Stage design is enhanced with a wide stage

The size and scale of your stage has a lasting impact on how the audience experiences the performance. A small stage surrounded by a 360-degree audience offers an intimate feel while a massive stadium with a giant stage offers a completely different concert experience.

Your ability to imagine creative stage designs is limitless, but the technicalities of your venue may constrain how large you can design your stage.

Instead of building a towering stage with sky-high lights and special effects, opt for a wide stage that envelops your audience instead. Wide stages are perfect if your venue is indoors and constrained by the height of the building. A wider stage also allows you to creatively segment your performance into sections so different parts of the performance can take place in various sections of the stage.

4. Cover Up Wires and Cluttered Equipment

Stage design is enhanced by covering the clutter

Now that you’ve secured a venue and established a layout for your stage design, the last item on your to-do list is to cover up wires and mask any cluttered audio visual equipment.

As you’ll quickly discover during your setup, wires, crates, and AV equipment can accumulate on the stage and distract your audience. The easiest way to hide unruly gear is to cloak your mess behind curtains, fences, or other design elements.

If for some reason you’re unable to discreetly cover your tracks, another solution is to use lighting equipment to dim your cluttered areas and spotlight the performers. This simple act of misdirection will keep the crowd focused on the show instead of the clutter.

Putting Your Stage Design Together

When you design your concert stage, your priority should be to enhance the customer experience. Concertgoers want to feel immersed in the performance with zero distractions to get in the way of their enjoyment.

Although these four tips can help guide you towards an enhanced concert experience, there are always unforeseen circumstances that can make your path towards success more difficult. Whether it’s a change of weather, last-minute venue relocation, or a crate with missing equipment, anything can happen.

Avoid the stress of designing your concert stage and contact an event production company like Onstage Systems. Our team is comprised of industry veterans who understand how to produce memorable concerts and have experience attending dozens of concerts themselves. At Onstage Systems, we aren’t just event production specialists, we’re music fans just like you who want nothing more than to create lasting memories.