Event Production Reviews & Trends: 48th Annual CMA Awards Wrap-Up

LIVE EVENTS

The 48th annual Country Music Awards went down on November 5th in a flurry of big hair, big hats, and big white smiles. We turned our event production eye to some of the show s breakout moments of fabulousness and folly.

Tribe kills it again

The set was masterful but that s hardly a shocker, considering that the industrial-style exposed-fixture staging was created by the talented folks at Tribe Inc., arguably the best live design team in America. If you re not familiar with Tribe s work, these are the guys behind the 2013 Super Bowl XLVII halftime show (check out this interview with Tribe s Bruce Rodgers for a look into the vastness of that skillset), some DNC and political conventions, stage design at the Olympic Village WINNING!

Dimensional Sets

Really excellent job with the dimensional set designs. This is a high-impact trend we re seeing throughout the industry, one we expect to continue to see, and one that can be executed inexpensively. I m not sure who did the design for the CMAs specifically, but the style was at least reminiscent of the work done by Atomic Design, one of Decibel s set creation partners.

Projection on Fog

When Carrie Underwood took the stage to perform Something in the Water , she was backed by an ethereal waterfall created by projecting abstract swirling rain patterns onto a wall of fog. The effect was isolating (I mean that in the best possible way) and a little unearthly the world collapsed inwards and placed the singer at the center of it. Thumbs up for an appropriate and interesting pairing of song content and visuals.

The Drums. Oh, the Drums.

Just because you can doesn t necessarily mean you should. Little Big Town and Ariana Grande s collaboration on Day Drinking generated some buzz less for the actual content of the show and more for the candy-cane explosion of lighting effects that accompanied the set. Little Big Town began, dressed in LED-piped Tron-inspired outfits, flanked by a stacked wall of drummers playing drums trimmed with that s right LEDs. When Ariana emerges, she s wrapped in (say it with me now) an LED-edged plastic Barbie dress. Eye-popping, yes. And yes, people talked about it. But we re gonna go ahead and say that this could have been executed with a tad more tact.

LED Video Walls

You might have caught a look at the background behind Dierks Bentley while he did Drunk on a Plane see those squares? That s an LED Video wall, and if you look closely, you can see the same effect being used on the floor to create an LED runway that changed to accommodate the song. A little bit of blur on this video and we don t have the best angle on the floor, but you can get a look at the vertical face of the wall good stuff:

Audience Engagement: Chevy Partnership

Three cheers here: the 2014 CMAs took a holistic approach to audience engagement that encompass. Leveraging a sponsorship by Chevy, the CMAs asked Instagram users to post pics in answer the question What does country music mean to you? (hashtag #chevycmasweeps). The best pictures were posted on stage. This worked a whole heckuvalot better than live Twitter integration does in terms of getting your attendees involved.

Recent Posts

WEATHERING THE STORM: ENSURING SAFETY IN AN ERA OF CLIMATE UNCERTAINTY

KEEPING FIT ON THE FLY: MY GUIDE TO STAYING HEALTHY WHILE PRODUCING EVENTS

NAVIGATING EVENT SAFETY: ADAPTING TO NEW FIRE MARSHAL RULES AND VENUE CHANGES

EMERGENCY EVENT ACTION PLANNING: A HIGH WIND ACTION PLAN

Contact Us!