Designing for Your Performance Venue

When one writes a blog, they must spend time contemplating the topic(s) for the next entry. This is the case with me. I’m periodically asking the question, “what is the next topic?” Most of the time, the topic just lands in my lap. As is the case for this entry.

My “real” job is serving as the assistant director of bands at a division 1, land grant, flagship university in the Midwest. A large part of my duties is serving as the visual designer for the 300 member university marching band. The venue the band normally performs in is a 95,000 seat behemoth of a stadium. While the stadium is great, it also has its challenges. The rake for the lower bowl of seating is really flat. You can be 30 rows or so up and still not have a great vantage point for reading big forms on the field. I usually can’t tell how things look until I see them on the big screen during performances on game days or when we receive the video from our video recording service. This sometimes leads to surprises. “Wow, that looks amazing and I had no idea!” Or “Wow, we just didn’t get that clean!” I’m usually telling the performers that I’m really relying on their eyes on the field level to clean forms. They can actually tell more about most of the shapes than I can from row 25. To further complicate things, our stadium is constructed in such a way that the North and South end zones actually have more seats than the “Home Side”. Most bands/drum corps prepare their shows thinking about 1 primary vantage point from the “front”. Nope, we don’t really get to do that. So, during the rehearsal cycle (for our pregame (especially), I really have to consider seeing the band from all 4 sides.

This means that I have to also consider the view of the band in our home stadium when creating the visual designs for halftime shows. Questions like: Which direction will the show face? Will the show face multiple directions (either side line, end zone, or even corner)? And then I move onto questions like: I want to incorporate this shape into the design, will it be readable by the majority of fans in the stands? Will it have to rely solely on the high camera/big screen for fans to understand the design? How elaborate can I make the design and it still be read? Do I have to remove any layers or alter the form to make it more readable? In short, I have to design to the venue.

This past show cycle, our band had the privilege of performing in exhibition at the state high school marching band festival site here in town. We decided upon which show we would perform that night before designing it. I started thinking not only about our home venue, but also the venue for the high school performance. I know it sits down in a bowl, has about 40 rows of concrete bleachers on both the home and away sides of the field with no end zone seating. I know from past experience that the vast majority, if not all of the spectators would be seated on the “front”, meaning that back wall of concrete would be uncovered. That would allow for some really cool backfield playing effects. We could get the sound of the band to “bounce” off that back wall of concrete. Marching groups have been doing this for years, but I never grow tired of it. Just check out this clip from the 2009 Santa Clara Vanguard. There’s just something magical about the sound bouncing around and not being immediately directed at the listener. The sound is diffused and mixed in the air.

Anyway, my plan was clear. I would use the backfield playing right away in the first few measures of the opener, Maria and then turn the band around leading into the first impact. Then I would use the backfield again for an extended time in the closer, Tonight. I was going to use the venue to enhance the design/performance quality/effect. Here is the animation video of the Tonight design (audio is from an old rehearsal recording).

An effective visual designer will always take the venue into account. Will the design be performed in smaller/lower venues where the spectators will not be elevated much above field level? If so, then the perspective must be considered giving proper distance front to back between design elements/forms otherwise there will be distortion of the design’s intention. If the goal of the performing group is to perform at BOA Grand Nationals in Lucas Oil Stadium, then that perspective may actually override the lower/smaller. It’s really a situation by situation consideration. You can check out my post, The Field as a Stage for more information.

I love to hear from readers. Please leave me a comment or share this blog. Thanks—DB