XLIVE: The Concert Touring Sessions

Sat, Dec 5 | 08:30 AM - 09:00 PM

W325 and W310

Session details:

LDI's second annual XLIVE: The Concert Touring Sessions - on Saturday, December 5, 2026 - takes a deep dive into the concert touring industry and festival scene from many angles. Teaming up with LDI to moderate this new iteration of XLIVE are Butch Allen of TAIT and Bob Bonniol of ACT Entertainment, with a full day of sessions featuring experts from the concert touring industry as they share their excellence and experience. From set and lighting design to management, logistics and more, this conference bridges generations, offering unparalleled insights for anyone in – or aspiring to join – the world of live entertainment production.

XLIVE: The Concert Touring Sessions is included with the Young Career Professional Program & LDI VIP Pass or available on its own as an individual LDInstitute course. The day includes lunch, a happy hour reception, and culminates with the third annual Dining With Dinosaurs, now a dinner and networking experience with legends from the concert touring industry.

Schedule*:

9:00-9:30am: Introduction / Keynote by Bob Bonniol, Chief Innovation Officer, ACT Entertainment

9:30-10:30am: Raw Cereal: A look at the incredible work done by Cort Lawrence and Anders Rahn, partners and co-founders of Raw Cereal, now part of Hovercraft Ventures. Projects include tours for Morgan Wallen, Three Doors Down, Megan Thee Stallion, BIGBANG at Coachella 2026, Spacey James, and others.

10:45am-12pm: Balancing Creativity, Budget, And Reality In Modern Entertainment: The live entertainment industry is experiencing unprecedented pressure from all directions. Audiences expect increasingly immersive and memorable experiences. Artists and clients want greater impact and differentiation. At the same time, rising labor costs, transportation expenses, supply chain challenges, venue constraints, and budget pressures are forcing production teams to do more with less.

How do creative teams continue to innovate without creating experiences that are financially unsustainable or operationally impractical? This panel explores the concept of Pragmatic Design – the practice of balancing creative ambition, fiscal responsibility, and logistical reality to create experiences that are not only inspiring, but achievable. Drawing from decades of collective experience across concerts, touring productions, corporate events, brand activations, museums, attractions, and immersive experiences, the panelists will discuss how the industry's most successful projects emerge when creativity, production, and business objectives are aligned from the outset. Rather than focusing on technology for technology's sake, the discussion will examine how constraints can become drivers of innovation, leading to stronger ideas, clearer storytelling, and more sustainable outcomes. Panelists include: Butch Allen, Bob Bonniol, John Featherstone, Chris Medvitz.

12-12:30pm: Aron Altmark: Meet Aron Altmark, founder of Visual Endeavors, not part of Hovercraft Ventures. His primary focus is creating experiences that blend the limits of art, technology, and design.

12:30-1:30pm: Lunch & Networking

1:30-3:30pm: Learn To Fly: Designing Foo Fighters’ Take Cover Tour For The World Stage

Taking a large-scale production around the world means designing for both creative impact and the realities of the road. For Foo Fighters’ Take Cover Tour, Lighting designers Dan Hadley and Paul “Arlo” Guthrie worked with PRG Project Manager Sean “Sharky” Harper and a network of production partners to develop an interconnected lighting, video and camera system built for scale, flexibility and the energy of one of rock’s most enduring live bands.

Go behind the scenes of the creative and technical development of the Take Cover Tour, from previsualization and production prep in the U.S. and UK to full-scale system testing before the production shipped overseas. The session will explore how lighting, video, camera systems and custom scenic elements came together as one touring production, including the integration of new technology and the coordination required across vendors, disciplines and continents ahead of the tour’s opening night in Oslo.

The conversation will follow the production from creative intent through engineering, prep and execution, examining how designers, vendors and technical teams work together to identify challenges before they reach the road—and build an interconnected system that can deliver consistently from one stage to the next.

3:45-5:00pm: Touring Without Borders: Working around the globe.. the ins and outs of concert touring from all aspects of the biz! Panelists include Erica D. Hayes.

5:00-9:30pm: Dining With Dinosaurs: Happy hour reception, seated dinner, panel discussion, networking, and storyteling with pionners of the concert touring industry. Presented by Geezers of Gear, and moderated by Marcel Fairbairn, the host geezer.

The "dinos" include:

- Jeff Alder: Lighting designer, author and rock & roll pioneer who has designed lights for many legendary musicians: Santana (his personal favorite), Huey Lewis and the News, Aerosmith, Cyndi Lauper, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Warren Zevon, Jimmy Buffett, and Steve Miller Band.

- Roy Bickel: Literally the godfather of rock and roll rigging, no one knows more than this man.

- Joe Branam: With more than five decades of contributions to the art and science of rigging, Joe Branam has more than earned the title: The Rigger’s Rigger.

– Allen Branton: A 40-year veteran of the entertainment lighting business with hundreds of successful and award-winning projects to his credit from concerts to TV specials.

- Scott De Vos: Longtime roadie and business owner in live events production.

– Victor Fable: A highly sought-after lighting and production designer whose work spans television, live events, installations, music, and corporate events.

– John Featherstone: A principal at Lightswitch and a visionary in the world of visual design, known for bridging the gap between high-energy spectacle and architectural elegance.

- Mark Fetto: VP Lighting at OSA International, with a history of working in the entertainment industry. - Michael Abbott: Three-time Grammy-winning audio engineer and production manager, from Olympics to presidential balls.

- Jay Robert Harmon: Celebrating 50 years with Eggshell Lighting in Hawaii, Bob is a book of knowledge combined with an expert teller of tales.

- Seth Jackson: Award-winning LD, set designer and great guy who has a resume that includes The Doobies, Barry Manilow, and Toby Keith to name a few.

- Nancy May: A seasoned administrative project manager and production executive.

- Anne Militello: An award-winning LD with roots in the theatre and her own architectural lighitng firm, she has designed concert lighting for Tom Waits, Pearl Jam, Lou Reed, Robert Plant, Leonard Cohen and more.

- Peter Morse: Award-winning lighting/production designer for concerts, video, and film, for such stars as Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, and the list goes on…

– Chris Musgrave: Founder of MAD International (Musgrave Advanced Dynamics), an executive advisory practice serving manufacturers, production companies, venues, hospitality organizations, and entrepreneurs across live entertainment, corporate events, and touring, and of Tour Pros International,

– Robert Roth: An industry veteran from the lighting angle, now VP of Live Events at 4Wall Entertainment.

– Patty Connors Thurston: An indusrty pioneer, who worked at McManus, Obies, PRG, and The Directory, a PR firm, from 2001-2025.

– Cosmo Wilson: An industry-defining concert lighting designer and director widely considered a living legend in rock-and-roll production: AC/DC, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Scorpions, Meat Loaf, Foreigner, Ronnie James Dio, David Lee Roth, and Rod Stewart

Price: $569 lunch and dinner included ($669 after 10/14)

* sessions and speakers subject to change