By Michael S. Eddy

photography by Ignacio Rosenberg

The multi-genre indie-folk / indie-rock band Mt. Joy is back out on the road for more fun across North America with their Hope We Have Fun Tour: Part 2. Bringing the fun is a team from Lightswitch, including Ignacio "Iggy" Rosenberg, Hailey Featherstone, and John Featherstone. The Lighting Director for the tour is Cory Sperry. Here, they discuss the lighting for Mt. Joy, how it supported the band, and brought the fun to audiences. This is a brand new design for Mt. Joy's ongoing tour, as this is the first time Lightswitch has collaborated with the band.

"This is our first adventure with them," says John Featherstone. "They're one of those bands that seem to be almost perpetually on tour—they really love playing live. All of us equally handled the production and lighting design; it was very much a collaborative effort between us, the band, Cory Sperry, and their management team, Jack Gallagher and Kamryn Kobal."

The Design Team

Hailey handled much of the early mood board work with the band, looking for what resonated with them. "While not really classified as a jam band, Mt. Joy has a jam band tendency," she explains. "That comes from the intimate nature of their music and their shows, as well as a connection with nature and feeling organic; going with the flow. In our initial design meetings, they really gravitated towards an organic, easy, but interesting look reminiscent of nature. Not direct, but like a vibe. They don't use a fixed set list; it's amorphous. Most nights, LD Cory won't get the set list until 90 minutes before the show."

The team did enjoy designing a show that would be played entirely live. "It's like the old days again; the set list is an hour and a half before the show, which is kind of cool," reminisces John. "Our show for Hans Zimmer was heavily time-coded and very accurately choreographed. Playing it live scratches a different kind of creative itch. It's fluid and kinetic. There's nothing better than Cory saying, 'we've never actually played this one live'. This method is interesting because it makes you think about the show differently. Cory has been with Mt. Joy for a while and he did a fantastic job, as well as the great job Austin Schneider did on the programming of the show. The band embraced our collaborative aesthetic and liked that there was a bunch of people throwing in good ideas."

Changing the Structure

The show is structured in two acts. In the intermission between the acts, angled trusses over the stage are repositioned. To be more cost-effective, the team decided to eschew automation and go with chain hoists that Head Rigger, Gwendolyn Hall, moves during intermission via a radio and a laser pointer. "The movement is all manually done with hoists," explains Rosenberg, "and she does an awesome job of it. The idea is to see one half of the show, leaning more into video content. There's no touring I-Mag. Then, at intermission, people walk back into a completely different design that becomes a little bit more of an industrial light show. It's the biggest show they've toured with, so it was really exciting that we got to flex a little bit. The audience gets two shows for the price of one. I would like to tell you that Act 1 is their top hits and Act 2 is new stuff, but it's like whatever they want to play, even throughout a song."

This 'fluid' show approach did present some challenges as four of the trusses that re-position between acts would be in different places; then the programming wouldn't work. The movable trusses are loaded up with ACME Tornados, Elation Proteus Maximus, and Vari-Lite VLSLED Washes, all in groups of five. "This made programming super interesting," states Hailey. "A song might be in Act 1; it might be in Act 2, but the trusses are in completely different places. The alignment process was really interesting in terms of the fluid way of the show so that it would work with a song landing in a different part of the show. We could have a stadium banger of a song that would be at the end of the set, so we would keep our powder dry for that song. Then on the next show, that song could be the second song of the night. So, it was all about designing it in a way that Cory could deal with it."

"When he programmed the show, Austin worked closely with Cory, and they created macros, so if a song is suddenly in Act 2, Cory can press a switch, and all the specials automatically go into Act 2 mode because they're hitting different parts of the stage. It's equally old school in how you deal with a jam band-style, and as new school as a super, heavily programmed show can be at the same time."

In terms of video content, band management oversaw the content creation that would play on a large, blow-through video screen at the rear of the stage. "The band's management found content creators on Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and other visual artists," explains John. "Erica Burgess, the band's video designer and curator, project-managed and creatively directed the visual design with Kamryn Kobal, which ended up feeling like a cool, curated modern art museum. The content was as diverse, frankly, as the band's music is. It has a lot of different voices, in a good way." The content, which is controlled from a Resolume media server and triggered by Sperry's console, is played back on a ROE Visual Vanish 8T blow through screen that measured 13m wide x 6m tall. There are four trusses of Martin MAC Ones behind the screen.

Key Gear Choices

In terms of lighting gear choices, the team went with a range of companies choosing lights for what they could bring to the design. "At one point, Cory, Austin, and I were joking that if we picked a couple more different lights, we could have almost every major manufacturer represented in this rig," Iggy laughs. "That came from picking the right light for the right job," adds John, "because we wanted this notion of flavors. A rig that was inherently disordered, and a bit of a lighting junkyard to get an eclectic, found object, organic vibe. In terms of a fixture that was a big, powerful, hard-edged light—Elation Proteus Maximus. Something that felt old school, like a PAR can—VLSLED Wash. Something that was a little higher tech with lots of beams of light—ACME Tornados. A nice, strong striplight that had two planes of light that could 'box' the band—Robe Tetra 2s. A light that could punch through the Vanish screen—Martin MAC Ones. A strobe that could also blow through the Vanish screen—Chauvet Strike Ms."

John continues, "3G were great about putting together a plot for us. It was all about what do they have? What can we use? We were looking for particular characteristics with the lights. We loved the VLSLED and leaned into them heavily because they have a very specific aesthetic. We wanted that old school look. The same held true for the lights upstage of the video screen—the Strike Ms and the MAC Ones—gave us that combination of a big punch, but also little, shimmery, firefly effects. Overall, fixtures seemed to have a random distribution but are actually arranged in upstage/downstage arrays so that we can do shape out of chaos, and chaos into shape depending on how they're used."

Mt. Joy doesn't like followspots, so the creative team needed to come up with another way to light the band to be seen. "We needed to uplight the band," explains Iggy, "so we tried using some MAC Ones, but they didn't zoom as wide as we needed. 3G swapped them out for Martin MAC Aura XIPs. We needed a good light quality since it's their only face light."

Hailey adds that one of the directives from the band initially, was that "they didn't want front, pancakey looks; something without shape. They didn't want something that looked nice on TV. They were drawn more to dance lighting, more sidelight. There's a ton of sidelight, which we tend toward as a studio." Adding into the sidelight are six vertical trusses, three per side. Each truss has four ACME Tornados on them to really sidelight the band, as well as create some massive looks by making the stage look really wide. "The ACME Tornado, the little fixture that could," quips Hailey. For haze, the Lightswitch team relied on "our friends, MDG theONEs," adds John. "Don't leave home without them when you need atmospherics."

Vendor Support

3G Productions supplied lighting, video, rigging, and crew for this Mt. Joy tour. "3G was fantastic, and Gabe Boardley, the Project Manager, was amazing," says John. "We, as designers tend to do, cram too much stuff into Tyler GT Truss, so Gabe was very good about coming up with good, innovative ways to get that done. And Jennifer Moore, who we've known for a long time, did a great job as the Account Rep in making sure we had what we needed."

Iggy was impressed with the way 3G dealt with a crewing issue so nothing got missed. "Our original Crew Chief had a family emergency that he had to leave the tour," he comments. "Gabe, even though he was the Project Manager and was sorely missed in the office, came out and filled the crew chief role while running other shows. He covered for us to make sure we had someone who knew the show. He was an absolute star."

Working with the Existing Team

The Lightswitch team felt that a big part of what made the design for this show work was working with the existing team, most importantly Sperry, the lighting director. "Some people might think of that as an impediment," states John, "We think of it as a huge advantage. Listening to Cory when he would tell us that we tried purple for this song, and the band didn't really like it. That's not something to push back on out of ego. That's great to know; the band has expressed a preference. He was awesome about helping us guide the process through his learned experience and was really open to our ideas. He's a designer in his own right, so for him to be secure in his ego to welcome us in and to work openly together, was huge. That way we all deliver a product that the band wants."

"I said to Cory, half-jokingly, half-seriously, when he asked about things he'd like to change, I told him 'I could say no, don't change it, and then as soon as we're gone and you're on the road you could change it anyway. So, let's do it together in a way that we both like the end result'."

Hailey continues, "There are times that we work with bands who have somebody they know and trust on the road; we want to honor that. The band decided, they like this person, but wanted to expand the creative pool of ideas. And certainly, with a band like Mt. Joy, who are so collaborative, they want to bring more collaborators in and not shut out existing team members. It just means he's one of their anchors and we should be listening to him. Cory knows Mt. Joy's music as well as the band does. He's really on top of his game."

Summing up working with Sperry and Mt. Joy on the Hope We Have Fun Tour: Part 2, Iggy says succinctly, "We did have fun." Their design certainly ensures that the audience does as well.

The Lighting Direction

Sperry has been with Mt. Joy since the beginning of 2023. He likes working with the band, and the "fun vibe the band creates." He also enjoyed working with the Lightswitch team. "Lightswitch has been great to work with. I was really welcoming to have them in. I was aware of Lightswitch and of the work they'd done with other artists. To be able to work with them; everyone was a breath of fresh air. It was great to be able to have other ideas involved. The one thing I don't want to do is be repetitive; we needed to have fresh, new looks. In terms of challenges, that would be the set list 90 minutes before doors, so there's a bit of busking. With this rig, I was able to produce a large handful of looks that we can build off if they present a new song. The biggest challenge is trying to keep in line with the vision that Mt. Joy has and still stay in the same rhythm, the same groove, and not miss a step."

Programming for Success

Sperry had worked with Programmer Austin Schneider on a previous Mt. Joy tour, so they had a good working relationship. "I worked with Austin in 2024," explains Sperry. "I knew we wanted to bring him in this year as he understands Mt. Joy and is a fan of their music. John and Iggy were very open to making this a collaborative venture where we want the right people in the right places. I think the entire process was great."

Gear Picks

Sperry enjoyed the range of fixtures that's in the rig, and how they all support the asymmetrically designed rig. "The Tornados are definitely very versatile as far as beam and effects," he comments. "I'm very impressed with the MAC Ones and the punch they give through the Vanish wall. Then the Proteus Maximus, being in sets of five, blended well with this asymmetrical rig. I really am a big fan of the Tetra 2s—beautiful color mixing, so we do lean into the Tetra 2s quite a bit on the ground, as well as using it as a silhouette behind the band. Key lighting was difficult, so finding ways to get side profile shots, key lighting from straight above, or with footlights. We had the MAC XIPs to give a nice blend on the ground too, so we're able to hit the band really well. They're not a very mobile band, but with the set changes, that presented some difficulties, but Austin and I generated macros to help us set those positions quickly at intermission."

Sperry operates the show fully manually, relying on cue stacks, as well as his experience with Mt. Joy to expect the unexpected. "It's cue-stack based," comments Sperry. "Then sometimes the band will throw in some cover in the middle of a song and then go back to the original song. So, there are moments when I jump to a different page, add flavor, then pull back out of that gracefully back into the song-structured cue stack."

Supporting the Vibe

For Sperry, there's one word that keeps coming up when discussing Mt. Joy and their performing style—vibe. "That's something that I come back to when lighting Mt. Joy," he says. "There's that slight head bob of the audience; the groove; and the dance that they get involved with. My job as lighting director is to reinforce that with the crowd; I'm trying to blend in the atmosphere with what's happening, but be very colorful, too. When asked what they do, the band says, 'we're not a jam band, but we're a band that jams.' Let's create a fun environment. Mt. Joy has always had a fun vibe; they give us the freedom to be creative and artistic. There's five members on stage, but I feel every tech, every person involved in this run is part of this experience. I like that collaboration and togetherness as a family."

Sperry appreciated the support of 3G Productions. "We like to keep this as a family and a lighthearted, but professional, atmosphere," he explains, "and 3G was able to provide us with all the equipment we needed. Everything landed on time, in such a short window. It was my first time working with 3G. I'm very impressed with their equipment and how well they prepped everything for us."