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December 2020

A New AdministrationThe Night the Election Was Called for Biden and Harris

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“Iwas working at Hillary Clinton’s 2016 event at theJavits Center, which didn’t go well, as we know,”says lighting designer Ben Green, of Full Flood,describing his biggest fear about working on an event that,potentially, might never have happened. “I’m not sure I hadit in me to go through that again...”And yet, for four long days, as votes were meticulously

counted across the country, Green must have had a naggingfear of history repeating itself as he sat in a hotel in

Wilmington, Delaware, waiting for the result to be called, wait-ing to be given the go, waiting to put on a show to declareJoe Biden the country’s choice to be the 46th president.That call finally came on Saturday, November 7. “I was

sitting in my hotel room, working on some drafting when Iheard screaming through the walls from the campaign staffstaying in our hotel,” he recalls. “That was a wild energy...”And then it was showtime. It was a show that had been

planned relatively quickly by a team put together by Ricky

The Night of November 7By: Rob Halliday

28 • December 2020 • Lighting&Sound America

CLOSE-UP: SPECIAL EVENT

A brilliant orchestration of technology for a historic event

Copyright Lighting&Sound America December 2020 issue live link: http://plasa.me/lsadec20

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • December 2020 • 29

Kirshner, of Kirshner Events. “The call [was] made onlyabout ten days out, which made for a quick rallying oftroops and orchestrating a design,” Green says. As hedescribes it, the brief of the show wasn’t particularly chal-lenging in scope: “The president and vice president-electwill walk out, give a speech, and invite the family out for aphoto op.” There are practical lighting challenges to that, ofcourse: “How can we key-light both of these figures out-doors with as soft a light source as possible from 100'away? How can we light all of the architecture of the WestinChase Center [the backdrop for the event] and adjacentbuildings to give scale and context to the show? How can itbe weatherproof?” But there were also the worries of light-ing an extraordinarily high-profile event, watched worldwide(“What happens if we lose the key light while we’re on theair to nine networks and around the world?”). And thenthere are the complications particular to these participantsat this moment in time: “The Secret Service is exactly that,and often you don’t know what to expect...”Green worked through the challenges one at a time, fig-

uring out lighting positions within the podium and bluevelour covered scenic walls designed by Bruce Rodgers, ofTribe, Inc., and built by PRG Scenic, overseen by AlvinDeLono, PRG’s scenic project manager. “We ended up hav-ing two [Color Kinetics] ColorBlasts nestled between theones uplighting the flags to give us some fill in the crossshots, and, luckily, Biden’s white hair, Harris’ bright outfit,and a vibrant background gave for some dimension oncamera,” Green explains. “For the key light we had six unitson the lectern and six units lighting the jeeps along theground from the same position; if we lost one of the keylights, we had the focuses built and could sneak one of the

others in. Plus, our entire rig was on a UPS generator back-up.“The part that did allow me to sleep at night was know-

ing that I got to work with some of the best production crewin the world to pull it off,” he adds: lighting directors AndrewLott, Sal Nicosia, and Ron Martin; gaffer Richie Beck, Jr.;best boys Chris Moeller and Joe Beck; with techs MattGeneczko and Josh Davenport from PRG, which providedthe gear (including Martin by Harman MAC Encore CLDs,Color Kinetics ColorBlast TRX units, ETC Lustr 2s, Chroma-Q ColorForce IIs, Claypaky Sharpys, GLP JDC1 strobes andX4 Atoms) for the outdoor stage and a backup inside stage,and Darrin Bruce, from Light Action, which provided the fix-tures (Mac Vipers, Elation Professional Protron Eclypses,Vari-Lite VL4000 BeamWashes, Claypaky Mythos) lightingthe building exteriors. Control was from Eos Ti consoles.Victory claimed, the evening segued into a spectacular

fireworks and drone show, for which Kirshner turned toanother regular collaborator, the effects company StrictlyFX. “Ricky approached me about three weeks before theactual event, looking for ideas and different, new things wecould do,” explains Strictly FX’s show designer, AdamBiscow. “We proposed a combination of fireworks anddrones, using our fleet of Verge Aero drones.”The drone element of the show was created using

Verge’s custom drone programming/previsualization soft-ware, which allows groups of drones to quickly be assignedto follow shapes and colors from imported graphics or to beset to dynamic movement patterns, the system taking careof routing the drones and ensuring they don’t collide. Atimeline allows easy synchronization to music—Coldplay’s“A Sky Full of Stars” in this case. Nils Thorjussen, of Verge,

The key to the event was the tight integration of the Strictly FX pyro with Verge Aero drones.

Photos: Ross Dettmann/Strictly FX

30 • December 2020 • Lighting&Sound America

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formerly one of the team behind the WholeHog consolesthat reshaped lighting control, describes this all as being likethe “VL1 era of lighting”—and while it feels a little moreadvanced than that in terms of the control technology, itdoes feel very similar in terms of the way those who knowthe technology have to provide the interface between theunique possibilities the drones offer and the aspirations ofthose who want to take advantage of those possibilities.Here, the Strictly FX and Verge teams collaborated to deliverthat, with a sequence of images including the Biden cam-

paign logo, the American flag, a 46 circled by stars,Biden/Harris text, and more. “Because of the efficiency ofthe Verge design studio, the team was able to producehighly accurate renders for the client in a short amount oftime,” Biscow notes. Those renderings of the drones, merged into renderings

of the fireworks created by Strictly FX using ShowSim andother software tools, were sent to the campaign forapproval—but also to nudge the campaign to give a push tothe Secret Service to allow the show at all. Virtual dots Le

ft photo: Ross Dettman/Strictly FX;

Right renderings: Courtesy of Verge Aero

Biscow says that little breaks were programmed into the fireworks display, allowing the audience to fully take in each new look madeby the drones.

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • December 2020 • 31

This page: Renderings of the drone displays.

dancing on a screen is one thing; a swarm of 200 realdrones flying through the air is quite another, particularlyhere: As soon as Biden was declared president-elect, the air-space around him came under the control of the SecretService and was tightly restricted, as it is around the presi-dent. “The paperwork for this doesn’t really exist—it’s neverbeen done before,” explains Biscow. “It involved a lot ofphone calls, a lot of explaining about the product, numerousinspections of the drones organized by our team. It was nosmall feat to pull this together.” “I think the keys ultimately were our ability to choose

where our system operates in the spectrum, our redundancy,and our super-secure communications so we can’t behacked, which allowed us to meet every security requestand scenario that was posed to us,” Thorjussen adds. Evenwhen cleared by the Secret Service, Biscow says, “We stillneeded the clearance to fly in this temporary flight restrictionand because we were close to an airport in Class D air-space, we needed an additional certificate of authorization;those are usually reserved for law enforcement and a fewother government operations. ‘Light show’ certainly didn’tfall into any of their categories. That said, I don’t think I haveever met an unwilling person at the FAA. Several long expla-nations and transferred phone calls later, we were able toexplain our position. A few hours of paperwork later, we hadauthorization to fly.”In the US, however, drone swarms aren’t allowed to fly

over people. Fortunately, the site for the presentation includ-ed both the Daniel S. Frawley Stadium and a car parkbehind it, which provided a suitably distanced launch site forboth drones and fireworks, the two crammed close togetherat times just 20 yards apart. With the campaign aiming tokeep this grand finale a secret, there were no rehearsals.And, of course, there were those days of uncertainty: “It wasan amazing team effort by everyone, six days of madnessjust waiting for something to happen while at the same timedealing with COVID testing and all the other new challengesthis year has brought,” Biscow notes. The team who livedthrough it alongside him included drone lead/design andFAA compliance liaison Justin Seedle, drone crew chief CiroScotto D’Antuono, chief pilot Tony Samaritano, drone engi-neers Chris Franzwa and Anthony Merlino, pyro crewchief/design Chris Santore, and pyrotechnicians JamesBallantyne, Jose Santamaria, and Rob Paduganao. “Our ten-person East Coast special effects team didn’t know if wewere even going to be doing the event until we got the greenlight from a member of the Biden camp on Saturday night,”adds Strictly FX’s Ted Maccabee. But when it did happen, what a show: Though drone

shows are no longer new, it’s likely this one will be a mile-stone for the genre because it exposed what the technologycan do to a massive audience, many of whom may not haveseen it before. But the key to it was the tight integrationbetween drones and pyro, a cunningly constructed series of

32 • December 2020 • Lighting&Sound America

reveals, led by Strictly FX’s dramatic, exuberant fireworks. Ifyou didn’t know, the first drone cue—red, white, and bluestars dissolving out of a big percussive salvo—could havebeen cleverly constructed pyrotechnics, except how didthey hang in the sky for just a little bit too long? The nextmoment—the Biden campaign logo—made it clear this wassomething else entirely, appearing from nowhere and float-ing in space. The candidate, now the president-elect, point-ed in astonished surprise. A pause in the pyro let the mes-sage stand out clearly—“I really wanted the logos and thedifferent designs to stay around, so we programmed littlebreaks in the fireworks program to see that, and the bright-ness of the LEDs on Verge’s drones let them cut through,”Biscow says. “It worked better that I had even imagined.”Then more fireworks erupted behind it, swallowing it up;was that it? And then, dots, drawing the outline of America.

Then the words “president-elect.” And on, and on—lights,drones, music, and pyros bringing exuberant life to whatcould, with a smaller crowd, masked, distanced, some intheir cars, have been a far quieter event than the equivalentevenings after other elections.President Biden faces many challenges from now until

January, and then during his four years in office—helpingthe country recover from the coronavirus, helping heal whatthe election has confirmed as deep national divisions. Butthe joy on his face, on the face of his vice president, and onall those around them suggested that at least for just thatmoment, just the time the drones and the sparkles of fire-works and the glow of light surrounded them on the stage,they could relax, and celebrate before the serious workbegan.

The event was the culmination of several tense days of waiting for the election results; the production team was on hold until the sudden announcement that it was showtime.

CLOSE-UP: SPECIAL EVENT

Photo: Courtesy of PRG