Mason Felps with 46 Entertainment has created an eye-catching lighting design including 68 Robe iFORTE and 16 iSpiider moving lights supplied by Backstage Productions for the 2025 leg of Alan Jackson’s Last Call: One More for the Road tour.
Felps, who doubles as the tour’s production manager and lighting director, began working with the camp in 2017, initially as a backline technician. The 270° visual production design fit into six semi-trucks with Felps taking care of lighting, video and set, working closely with Wesley Owens of PXLBOX – who programmed the disguise media servers to produce video content, citing Jackson’s vast archive. Images were displayed on a 64ft wide upstage screen. The lighting was also developed around the playback content combined with the IMAG mix cut by Steve Thomason.
Feps selected Robe ESPRITES as the main ‘workhorse’ fixtures of the rig. “With ESPRITES having been my key feature before, we then swapped them out for iFORTES which gave us that extra brightness and punch with their excellent optics, colour mixing capabilities and camera compatibility,” he explained.
The roof was filled with a tiered wide-truss design with iFORTES scattered across the trusses and positioned to deliver beam work and specials, while iSpiiders were the main stage washes, chosen for their “smoothness and reliability.” He elaborated: “The iFORTE colour correction is amazing and they are ideal for both back and front key light! The Robe fixtures on this rig have held up phenomenally to the rigours of touring.”
Felps was support on the road by Lighting Crew Chief, Matt Stigile and Technicians, Claude Thomas and Miles Shelton of Backstage Productions.
“I love how light it is for the output,” Stigile said of the iFORTE. “I also love the zoom range, colours, and gobo set. As an IP65 fixture, it’s super easy to work on since it has an internal pressure test, and that makes a big difference.”
46 Entertainment’s video team was spearheaded by Crew Chief, Jesse LaVallee and LED Technicians, Tim Wilbanks and RJ Cavanaugh. Audio was supplied by Clair Global with FOH Engineer, Glen Collett and Monitor Engineer, Carson Brannock assuming mixing duties.
