Kentucky is widely known for bluegrass, bourbon, and breeding world-class horses, and cities like Lexington and Louisville are burnishing their already impressive reputation for producing world-class arts, music, and production. The Louisville-based Kentucky Center, a forward-thinking organization that produces a wide variety of entertainment and education through outreach programs, is always evolving. When the Center wanted to create a space that reached out to live music fans and the increasingly growing millennial community of Louisville, it went to design firm Crossfade Design — Eric Wade and Michael Nevitt, and their team of production samurai.

Working under Christopher Ilitch’s leadership, our team set out to build the greatest arena in the world,” notes Peter Skorich, VP of entertainment services at Olympia Entertainment, the group that manages the sports and entertainment aspect of Detroit-based Little Caesars Arena. The venue will serve as the home of the Detroit Red Wings hockey team and Detroit Pistons basketball team; it will also provide the city with a major new venue for concert touring and other entertainment events. Olympia Entertainment is an Ilitch company, one of a multitude of businesses founded or purchased by [the late] Mike and/or Marian Ilitch. The Ilitch family has been involved with the revitalization of Detroit for decades. “You have to give the credit to Chris Ilitch. The vision these guys have for the city is absolutely amazing, and they are really making a difference,” notes Eric Wade, of Crossfade Design, LLC, based in New Albany, Indiana; the firm handled the entertainment lighting/projection design at Little Caesars Arena.

Little Caesars Arena has been hailed for its revolutionary design since it opened in September 2017, and disguise 4x4pro media servers play a key role in mapping dynamic video and graphics inside and outside the arena.

"I believe we just opened the nicest, coolest arena I’ve ever had the pleasure of gigging in," says Kid Rock LD Nook Schoenfeld after six sold-out shows at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. "It is an amazing structure; the likes of which do not exist anywhere in the world."

There’s little doubt that Maroon 5 are riding high at the moment. This is a band who radiate confidence and self-assured accomplishment in their live performances. Here in the UK and Europe in January to complete a date sheet interrupted by front man Adam Levine’s TV commitments to the US version of The Voice, another outfit might have opted for a pared down version of their stage production for just a few shows. Not so for Maroon 5. With a stage set, laser show, video and lighting design by Eric Wade, a veteran of the likes of Usher, Mariah Carey and Eric Clapton, this was a show to blow away all of those January blues.

It’s good to jump out of your comfort zone from time to time and for me at least Maroon 5 was completely unfamiliar territory. Yes, I knew they wrote ‘Moves like Jagger’ and that they were of the ‘pop oeuvre’; but I really had no idea what I would find when I reached Manchester Arena. Once I settled into the show I discovered that actually they have loads of hits that I recognised, it’s just that somehow I don’t associate the band’s name with the songs. That happens in life: I take against some bands just because of their names, irrational I know, but I think we all do it to some extent.

"Chaos Visual Productions have supplied me with the perfect combination of great equipment and a fabulous crew – I simply can’t fault them – everything has been efficient and stress free since we started rehearsals – they really know how to look after a jet lagged lighting designer! Any problems simply get solved: for example, our main screen won’t fit in a couple of the venues on this tour but scaling everything down to fit is no problem." Straight talking Texan, Eric Wade, is currently at the helm of Californian band, Maroon 5 as designer of lights, video, stage, set, FX – in fact pretty much everything except sound.

Last year was a busy one for Wade. PLSN met up with him at one of his many gigs — the Motor City Blues and Boogie Woogie festival in Detroit. The annual event is a celebration of American music, and it’s a fitting setting for Wade. He grew up in Texas, surrounded by live music, which led to a distinguished career in the lighting industry. PLSN recently revisited with Wade for this interview.

Eric Wade, of FOHShow LLC, is the first US lighting designer to put Ayrton’s RADICAL new MagicPanel™-R out on a major tour – that of American R&B/Hip-Hop artist Usher as he embarks on a fifty-date tour across America and Europe to promote his 8th album, UR.

When phenomenally successful R&B star, Usher, embarked on his latest tour – The UR Experience – he relied on the cream of production providers. Kicking off in Montreal, Canada, in November 2014 and ending at the O2, London, in March, it spanned the globe, visiting various continents and thrilling fans the world over. During its final leg in Europe, TPi’s Kelly Murray visited the crew to talk tech talent and creative vision.

Randy Cline of Time Matters Entertainment, based in Plano just north of Dallas, was the event’s technical producer, coordinating all the staging elements, and working for communications agency Wheelhouse Marketing & PR. He asked lighting designer Eric Wade of Crossfade Design to create a dramatically different lighting scheme to set the scene and a stylish tone for a classy evening of fun and music.

When American R&B/Hip-Hop star Usher set out on his 50-date The UR Experience US and European tour to promote his latest album (UR), his touring LD Eric Wade (of FOHShow) was carrying an inventory that included no fewer than 216 of GLP’s compact and highly flexible impression X4 S LED spots.

Crossfade Design’s Eric Wade specified the fixtures, while his team – comprising Jason Robinson, Michael Nevitt and John Early - coordinated the installation and programming of the new lights. The crew chose 36 x Robe BMFL Blades and 24 x BMFL WashBeams for their brightness and optics and flexible future sets.

Little Caesars Arena in Detroit opened in September to praise as one of the most innovative and technologically impressive sports and entertainment complexes in the world.

The design goal for the Little Caesars Arena was to create an environment that allowed for everyone, wherever you are in the complex, to be part of the action. The key phrase is “holistic integration.” From the floor to the walkways to even the iPads in the suites, everything communicates and can be controlled by the LD. This was done with layers of lighting and video. There are various pieces of connected kinetic color schemes with a video layer that works hand-in-hand with the architecture and the lighting to create a wide variety of visual opportunities. The result is that the entire space engages, guides visitors from one area to another, creates different moods and disseminates advertiser information.

LD Eric Wade lit up AT&T Stadium for the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’ 90th Anniversary Gala.

The design partnership of Crossfade Design, which now includes principals Michael Nevitt, Eric Wade and Jason Robinson have built a firm reputation for creating better sports fan experiences for the Cleveland Cavaliers, HBO, Top Rank and ESPN Boxing along with the work they’ve done for Super Bowl halftime shows. So it’s not surprising that NHL teams have been calling on Crossfade as well.

The “UR Experience” tour, originally scheduled to support the singer’s eighth album, UR, just finished its first run in the States. The sold-out high-energy tour had many highlights. One of the new songs off his yet to be released album, “Good Kisser,” had Usher behind the drums. Another was his ballad, “Climax,” which had him riding a hydraulic lift to animated video. Then there was the “unplugged” segment, which proved to be another visually stunning moment in the show. The New York Times called the show one of “superhuman precision, control and stamina,” and the same can be said of the behind the scenes design team that put together the lighting, staging, video and pyro. Usher’s music demands flexibility. “In terms of the variety of styles he’s covered, the whole production look couldn’t be specific to just one [genre],” Baz Halpin says. “You have these sexy ballads, you have these big James Brown-like numbers. The look of the show can never be mechanical — there has to be subtle moments.”

“Newsies” ran at the high school, located in Floyds Knobs, last November, selling out all six performances. Lighting industry pro and Floyd Central alumnus Michael Nevitt of Crossfade Design, LLC served as lighting designer and lighting mentor on the production. “Disney wanted to see what the challenges would be for high schools and Floyd Central could then provide them with feedback,” explains Nevitt, who has kids that attend the school.

The Disney Theatricals-produced musical Newsies was originally intended as a property to the stock and school markets, until an inaugural production at Paper Mill Playhouse in Milburn, New Jersey was so well-received that it transferred to Broadway for a run of 1,004 performances. Last fall, Newsies was produced by Floyd Central High School in Floyds Knobs, Indiana, in a remarkably good-looking production that featured lighting by Michael Nevitt, of Crossfade Design, that is a harbinger of things to come for the popular musical.

Since the dawn of time, human beings have had an urge to fight. Throughout recorded history — as far back as 2000 B.C. — men have battled each other to determine who is the best. Back then, it was bare-fisted. Today’s gloved boxers have more rules to follow. But a good fight still draws a crowd.

Recently, broadcasting the sport of Boxing has grabbed a more central position on Network Television. New on the stage is Premier Boxing Champions. HBO has upped the ante with spectacular Pay-per-views. Top Rank and, more recently, TruTV are carving their niche in broadcast boxing as well.

The Special Olympics celebrated its 50th anniversary last month in Chicago with a series of events designed to highlight the concept of inclusion. The first Special Olympics events were held in 1968 at Soldier Field, a joint undertaking between the Chicago Park District and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, whose Kennedy Foundation funded the inaugural event. Athletes from some 170 countries participated in the Special Olympics games this year, and the four-day event terminated with a celebration concert Saturday night at Huntington Bank Pavilion, adjacent to Soldier Field on Chicago’s Northerly Island, featuring artists like O.A.R., Smokey Robinson, Jason Mraz, Francis and the Lights, Usher and headliner Chance the Rapper.