Bright lights, big business

XL Video's local lab/playground is helping redefine the concert experience [From our print edition featured in Monday's City Paper]

Email | Print By Geert De Lombaerde

Ken Gay

One of his hands is already in The Claw. With the other, Ken Gay is out to grab a hold of Nashville’s concert scene.

Gay is the general manager of the XL Video Nashville, the local outpost of a global player in the lighting of bright and glitzy events that range from sport’s biggest stages to auto shows and some of the world’s most extravagant concert tours. Heading into 2010, he says the migration of artists to Music City and the success of several locally grown musicians have set the table for him to build a big local business.

“Nashville is the new L.A.,” he said. “It has returned to its Music City status, and not just because of country... The Nashville touring market has definitely grown and for us to bring our creative technology solutions was a no-brainer.”

The most talked-about recent project XL has contributed to is the U2 360 Tour, which has drawn rave reviews on multiple continents for its use of a massive three-pronged stage — nicknamed “The Claw” — that towers more than 150 feet over the band. The design has had such an impact that its architect recently said he’d like to see the three stages U2 built for its tour turned into permanent performance venues on different continents.

A 22-year veteran of the touring equipment business who founded and ran video support company Dovecomm for more than a decade, Gay officially hooked up with XL Video — a division of Belgium-based XL Holding — late last year after spending several years in its orbit. In May of this year, he opened the XL LED Lab in Cummins Station as a playground for artists and their teams to begin planning their tours.

The space, which sits just down the hall from the Avenue Bank branch at the northern end of Cummins Station’s ground floor, looks a lot like the Bar Car nightclub that leased a chunk of Cummins Station earlier this decade. Sections of various video screens adorn the walls and other products — think spheres and strips that look like futuristic Christmas tree lights — are wrapped around columns or floating from rafters, each piece pulsating with color.

When artists come to check out the options for their next tour — entering via a conveniently low-key back door, of course — Gay says things often get down to the business of fun pretty quickly.

“When they get there, we let them wander around by themselves for a bit,” Gay said. “But it doesn’t take long for them to come ask us for a pen and a notepad. Their creative juices really get going in this place.”

A big factor in the growth of XL’s business — and of the scope and literal brilliance of shows like U2’s — is the drastic drop in the cost of LED technology. Six years ago, Gay said, a panel of about 100 lights spaced 10 millimeters apart would have set you back about $18,000. Today, it costs $2,500. That has allowed XL and others to develop a greater range of offerings.

But most artists won’t pay for the manufacturing unless, as with U2’s new-standard-setting 360 tour, it requires non-standard assembly. Instead, XL charges rent for its work and the team members who always accompany its equipment on the road. A transparent square meter of the company’s F30 product costs $120 per week, which Gay says is about half the price of other products on the market.

In addition to U2, Gay’s team has of late worked with Coldplay, Jay-Z and Kings of Leon, among others. Helping it translate artists’ visions into real-life stage magic is a proprietary software system that lets an XL technician arrange and visualize a show on a specially outfitted computer.

“You can do everything except run the show from the laptop,” Gay said. “You can change the content while you’re on the road, plug in a USB device to save the new information and run the show with one click” once you get to the venue.

XL’s Nashville LED Lab is the second outpost to showcase the company’s flashy wares. The first opened in New York in early 2008 but, based in a warehouse many artists can’t be persuaded to visit, it’s not having the same direct impact as Gay’s Music City site.

“The Soho lab is a very expensive experiment,” he said. “It’s almost like an art gallery. Nashville is touring market and we wanted to have touring elements to our space here.”

Gay is overseeing the opening of other XL labs in Los Angeles — which will be housed at the Pacific Design Center and will focus on the film industry — as well as in South Florida. Helping power that growth push is a long and tight relationship with fellow Belgian company Barco NV, a manufacturer of lighting systems that is on track to ring up $850 million in sales this year. The companies have partnered to develop and manufacture high-profile events and tours for more than a decade.

XL’s product range is set to grow significantly in 2010. Having tested a new lineup of equipment on the road this past year, XL officially rolled out its PIXLED brand this past week at an industry trade show in Orlando. The line now features 18 products and will grow by another 20 units in the coming year.

LED technology also has promising applications beyond the music business. Film makers — including those wrapping up Tron Legacy, the 2010 follow-up to the 1982 sci-fi groundbreaker — are increasingly using LED screens to produce richly colored and textured backgrounds they used to have to add during an expensive post-production process.

“Artists are becoming increasingly aware of the potential,” Gay said.

And if it takes a little visual persuasion, there’s a space in Cummins Station for that.