Lighting was the element that brought unity to one of the most ambitious country music productions of 2026. For the Live Between The Hedges tour, Justin Kitchenman and Luz Studio relied on CHAUVET Professional to bring together two artists, two bands, and one seamless visual experience.
With every date sold out, the show brought Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean together on the same stage. Far beyond simply sharing the bill, the production successfully transformed two independent artistic identities into a fully integrated visual experience.
Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean each have their own distinctive musical style—one of the reasons both have reached the top of the country music charts. In addition, each artist performed with his own backing band. Despite blending different musical influences, Live Between The Hedges flowed seamlessly thanks to a unified lighting and video design that tied every element together into a captivating production.
Justin Kitchenman of Align Design Group, LLC, was responsible for the production and lighting design, while Matthieu Larivée of Luz Studio handled production design and video content creation. Together, they combined their creative talents to deliver a perfectly balanced production, supported by associate lighting designer and programmer André Petrus, Andy Knighton, and production managers Chris Adamson, E.C. Neal Jr., and Blake Szymansk.
A key contribution to the production came from a system of 84 CHAUVET Professional fixtures supplied by 3G Productions LLC. The rig included 48 Color STRIKE M motorized strobes, positioned on the vertical towers and throughout the trusses spanning the impressive 47.5-metre-wide stage, along with 36 COLORado PXL Bar 16 motorized battens.
The PXL fixtures served multiple purposes. They were installed along the thrust and primarily used to illuminate the artists' faces, eliminating the shadows cast by their hats. Both Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean perform wearing hats—Jason, in particular, wears a cowboy hat throughout the entire show—so we needed a fixture capable of compensating for that effect without sacrificing visual impact. At the same time, we wanted a multi-cell fixture that offered great versatility for creating dynamic effects, explains Kitchenman.
To reflect each artist's personality, the creative team structured the show into two clearly differentiated segments, each with its own visual language. "This worked in our favor because we didn't have to create thirty different treatments", says Kitchenman. "We were able to simplify the approach while introducing creative variations within each segment to suit every song".
Kitchenman also explained how he, Larivée, and their respective teams achieved the right balance between lighting and the production's extensive video elements. "From the very beginning, we agreed that the large-format video surfaces would be the focal point of the production", he says. "We wanted to create the impression of one continuous surface across the entire stage".
Framing those video surfaces with lighting was the most natural way to integrate the two elements. We mirrored the stage's vertical towers with lighting fixtures, creating a frame around the video screens. This configuration also allowed us to maximize the full width of the stage for visual content, delivering the scale expected from a stadium production.
Lighting, together with the strategic use of elevated platforms, also helped define the stage space so that each band retained its own visual identity. The different stage levels—each enhanced with dedicated lighting—provided clearly defined visual reference points for every section of the performance.
"One of the most unique aspects of this production is that we have two separate bands performing throughout the night", explains Kitchenman. "One band plays a three- or four-song segment, then the bands switch positions for the next set. This back-and-forth continues throughout the show. The biggest challenge was accommodating every musician while maintaining symmetry for both artists and making the transitions as smooth as possible. Our solution was a multi-level design that gives every member of both bands a dedicated home position on stage".
The use of linear fixtures to outline the risers, LED screens, and other scenic elements added a strong sense of depth to the design. To reinforce this framing effect, the team installed fixtures on the flown trusses and along the downstage edge, completing the visual composition.
"Although the frame isn't completely continuous and there are slight differences in height and depth, the eye naturally fills in those transitions", says Kitchenman. "That's how we achieved exactly the effect we were looking for".
The result was a cohesive visual production that successfully brought together the identities of Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean on a single stage without compromising the individuality of either artist. The combination of lighting, video, and stage design created a large-scale production perfectly suited to the stadium environment.
