With about 8 days of time to plan, prep, load-in and setup 4Wall teamed up with multiple industry​ vendors to help produce FireAid, a​ benefits concert for those affected by​ the recent wildfires in California.​ Read on to see how our industry came together to help raise over 100 million for those affected by the devastating wildfires.

Brad Hafer, Senior VP of Global Live Events and Dan McDonough Jr., Director of Live Events spoke with PLSN about their experience working on FireAid.

Hafer: We tried to put together the best team possible in about eight days from start to finish, including having as Gaffers, Jason Uchita at the Forum and Alex Flores at Intuit. Jason and Alex worked with Allen Branton's team on the design side of what they needed and I spent my time working on how we could get everything logistically together and to the venues. 4Wall was doing the lighting; Fuse was doing the video; Kish was doing the rigging; and All Access for staging. We all worked together as one, that was the only way this would work. We brought the Fuse gear to 4Wall, where we put a lot of it together so it could get in quicker. And we did a similar thing with Kish, with them sending over some of their stuff that we put on the trusses in advance. So when we rolled in, they could just click onto their shackles. It was amazing to see four, five different companies work basically as one team. That's how it all got done within eight days. And then there was Rock-it (Cargo). I call them out separately because they were the key to this whole thing. The fact that Rock-it stepped up and said they would deal with all the trucking is what made all of this possible. The only way for 4Wall to put in two complete, identical rigs in both venues that quickly was to get a lot of our East coast stock to the West coast very quickly. They really stepped up and got stuff across the country, and then they moved everything, for all the companies, from the LA shop to the two venues. Then afterwards got things back to the East coast quickly so we didn't screwup other tours. Rock-it was amazing. What was also amazing, we did the prep in thre 10 hour days. Everyone in the LA shop wanted to be involved and help, plus we brought in some (IA Local) 728 guys, as we wanted to give work to the local crews. It was an incredible experience to be a part of.

McDonough: 4Wall is a people-first company that looks to build upon the best of what can be achieved. The team mindset and support of everyone here are part of what makes these types of projects possible. This was an "all hands on deck" type of show. Also, the foresight of the creative and production team, with regards to the timeline and scale of this project, helped make it a success. It was a very straightforward, yet versatile, design with clear communication toward the overall goal. Getting to work with everyone involved to build an incredible show, for a most important cause, was very memorable.
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The full article was originally posted by PLSN and can be found here or keep reading below.

Starting January 7, 2025, a series of destructive wildfires affected Southern California for weeks. The FireAid Benefit Concert, a two venue, 5 hour event, took place on January 30 at L.A.'s Kia Forum and Intuit Dome. This epic concert, which raised over $100 million, was made possible by dozens of headliners, sponsors, and streamer services, as well as millions of viewers, donors, and fans. The creative and production team for FireAid included Production Designer Patrick Dierson of The Activity, Lighting Designer Allen Branton of Lakeside Entertainment, and Bianca Moncada of Darmah, along with their teams. Here, in their own words, is a look behind this massive production, which came together in just two weeks. A range of industry vendors also share their perspective on realizing the FireAid concert.

Patrick Dierson: Production Designer
I got called by Joel Gallen at Tenth Planet to work on FireAid. I was recommended to him because the majority of the productions that I deal with have very little time. They're very ambitious, very large, but have a very limited amount of time. It's one of the things we've specialized in over the years at The Activity. A lot of people aren't used to the speed, pace, and urgency in which we have to get it nailed down. When you're putting shows together at the last minute, it isn't like we had an extra week to kick ideas around and have a process of discovery and exploration of the design. FireAid had to be ready to prep in 72 hours. We had to come up with the concept of a design, render it out, and all agree on at least the general direction. Then get all the individual teams moving, because every department needed to get in there and to know the direction of their design processes and work; they all needed the overall production design first. So we turned that right around and cranked it all out so that we could get the crews prepping the gear, because the second you bring broadcast in, massive elements need to be accommodated. It was challenging but a great project to take on and an important purpose. 

In terms of the production design, we started by looking at our lowest common denominator, which would be the tightest space. We knew that the Forum was going to be more challenging of the two venues from a design standpoint. We had all the assets from the Forum with which to work, which was great. It'd be a lot easier to expand the design than it would be to contract it and shoehorn things in. So it made sense to design the Forum first, knowing Intuit was taller and larger. The next immediate challenge was, do we go with two very different designs for each of the venues to differentiate, or keep the designs the same, which would certainly simplify things, having one goal to hit in each of the two venues. The full team met at the venues for a walk through and it became very clear that Inuit, just by the nature of the design of the building, there'd be no mistaking that you were in that venue, and vice versa with the Forum. The Intuit has their video halo system, as well as the PixMob lighting system built into the seats. One of the things that not that many people know about, is that the Forum has a full ceiling of twinkling star lights built in. It's one of those things that look phenomenal on camera, so when I pointed it out, it was embraced quickly. The venues each had different vibes to them so the buildings themselves could be the differentiator.

Design Collaboration
Working with Allen Branton and Bianca Moncada was fantastic because they're just some of the best in the industry. There's so much trust there already and you don't need to second guess any of their decisions. A big responsibility for me was making sure nothing I was doing got in their way. You want to set those teams up for as much success as possible, especially considering the time frame. I knew that Allen and his team were waiting on me, so we had to move the production design quickly. As a lighting designer myself, I'm sensitive to the amount of time and effort it takes. To use Allen's own words, 'some people think this stuff just pours out of a bottle', I know it certainly doesn't. 

The production design itself had some specific lighting direction to it, in that we had chosen to use the [ROE] Vanish blow through product for the upper section of the design. We wanted lighting to blow through and be able to have moments where we could play with the technology and give it some stark contrast, then we didn't have to run video all the time. We could take things away and let lighting have its moments. We could also create moments of intimacy. In such a large room, with a large production, we wanted to be able to pull things down tight and have these sort of vignette moments for the show that we could then explode again to be visually large. To do that, you'd be hard pressed to nd someone better than Allen Branton, and his team; they were a great choice to do this job. We all had hoped to not have to use a turntable, but within 24 hours of getting the call, the roster of talent had increased by double! By the second day, I just didn't see how we were going to pull it off without a turntable. Any turntable show is the bane of every designer's existence because of it's lack of depth. To create the visual depth we needed, we leaned into the blow through LED video with the lighting further back upstage. For the video, that's a challenge that Darmah is really phenomenal with, doing textural three-dimensional content. A lot of the looks that they created, certainly the homebase looks where we landed between performances, had a lot of architectural elements to it. It really brought so much depth to the overall view. We thought that would be somewhat challenging, but working with Bianca and the Darmah team, it wasn't, it looked great.

Team Effort
In terms of the vendors, SGPS, All Access, 4Wall, Fuse, Rock-it Cargo-every one of them came together on this obviously quickly. There was zero competition or ego involved. Everybody was at out ready to help providing everything from lighting to trucking and everything in between. It really came down to the nitty gritty of deliveries and who could deliver what and when. Complete abandon to any of the constraints that we normally deal with in terms of gear. It was very much, 'alright, what do you have in stock the most, and what's available? How fast can we get it prepped?' That made the process a lot faster. It was all hands on deck, and nobody cared what department they were in. Everybody dove in; it was pretty fantastic. 

I could not have done this without Zack Guthmiller, who was my Co-Production Designer on FireAid. Zack often gets credited as an Art Director, which he is on FireAid, but he's very much my co-designer. He's my main Project Manager for The Activity and a well-accomplished production designer in his own right. He brings a skillset that is very much a balance for me as a designer. I think with any design, one of the key things is to have a very clear understanding as to your own limitations and be open to accepting the advice of your peers. Working with Zack was absolutely crucial for how we pulled this design off. He was critical in making the process smoother than I could have every made it. Also, critical to the success of this project was David Hunkins, who used to be a Project Manager with The Activity before he left to go to 4Wall [Director of Live Events]. I needed somebody that I trusted-and was available, and 4Wall was extremely generous in lending David back to The Activity to work with us on site. David became our main Art Director Lead in the Forum, because I had Zack in the Intuit Dome. I was able to bounce back and forth between the two venues to give more of an overall direction. It was bittersweet to work on FireAid. 

I have purposefully not chased work in the broadcast realm for a very long time. It's one of those things that you miss after a while, and I think maybe I should do more of it. It was a bit of a homecoming to get to work with producer Gary Lanvy and a lot of folks in broadcast where I started the infancy of my career; it was really fantastic. It was a great experience, but just being asked to do it, specifically because it required a skillset that I've tried to hone for The Activity, it was an honor. Especially to be a part of such a great team, all of us focused on helping to give back a bit to all those affected by the wild fires.

Allen Branton: Lighting Designer
The amazing thing about the FireAid benefit was just how quickly they wanted to turn it around. The first inkling I had about it was a text from [Executive Producer/Director] Joel Gallen on Jan. 13th. Understand that on shows like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we work on those for six months or so. With FireAid, we had like 10 days! Joel's take on FireAid was that it was a concert first and a television production second. I immediately sent texts out to various people, Liberty [Bock of Lakeside Entertainment], Brad [Hafer of 4Wall] as well as my team of Lighting Directors-Kevin Lawson, Felix Peralta, and George Gountas asking about their availability. None of us were technically available due to other commitments but we quickly got our availability and schedules sorted so we could all do FireAid. 

Then we get word that it's now two venues, but I only have one crew. So, I reached out to others I've worked with on the West Coast, and we got creative in creating two teams. We ended up with two great teams. Alex Flores, who's usually our Gaffer and prep man did one venue, and Jason Uchita was Gaffer for the other venue. George Gountas, normally my Floor LD, went in the second truck, with me in the first truck. I knew I could trust him to carry the ball and he certainly did. We decided to keep it all in our family, so to speak, since they all had experience with the production team and that was important working so quickly. Some of the team had worked with me in the past, so I brought them back for FireAid. Darren Langer, who has been a Floor LD and now is a designer in his own right came on board. Then Tom Beck, who goes back even farther with me, and is retired, came on to be Floor LD for the other venue. Also joining us was Chris Fernandez as a Lighting Director. Then we brought in Mark Butts who has worked with us over the years. 

With the teams for the two venues in place, it was time to speak with Liberty and Brad about what gear I could have. 4Wall stepped up and said they would support us and both venues. We quickly spun up one of my lighting task lists to get us started. 4Wall started quickly figuring out how to get gear in to LA, as it was a busy production time and the shops in LA and Vegas were already pretty tapped. We had about a week to organize and ship everything in, then a couple of days to rig and load-in. Patrick Dierson was working on the production design as quickly as we were working on the lighting design. We didn't really have a set yet, more of a general plan of a stage, a turntable, and some screens. Patrick sent a couple of versions around. We all hate turntables because they rob you of depth but given the demands of this thing, nobody argued. Turntables were needed to get the artists on/off quickly and efficiently, especially with the number artists performing on this. 

We ended up making our home bases of the sets for each venue, one base was red and one base was blue. They were literally the same plot in each but color separated them. Also, the followspot positions were different between the two venues because of the nature of the buildings themselves. Doing the design we still didn't know who was going to be playing in which venue. That's what drove making the two systems the same; we essentially made a TV version of a rep plot because we know there will be certain things we always have to do. Then when we got to see each group on stage for between 30 and 45 minutes, basically a sound check. We got to see some rehearsals Tuesday night, the majority on Wednesday, and then Green Day was the last right before they opened doors, since they'd be the rst to be seen on the broadcast. 

We used to do stuff that was this crazy all the time, about 20 years ago. But it has become more sophisticated and polished in every way. I think the industry, in general, has lost some of the ability to do this kind of guerrilla television with acts that are that big. But on this it worked well and looked good. We never wanted the lighting to make any sort of statement. We wanted people to be able to see what was going on, and have a bit of a vibe around it, but it was mostly completely improvised. We knew what song they were going to play, but there was no time to get any real tracks or study them. The trickiest part with something that's unrehearsed is to make it feel seamless. I think that's when it starts to get funky and falls apart every now and then, trying to do too much in that situation. I think that distracts an audience more than any subtle aesthetic. The first order of business with us is just do no harm. The two venues also helped with that. The shows at the venues were staggered, so the first hour was only the Forum, then in the middle portion we flipped back and forth between the venues, then the last hour was only the Intuit Dome. I don't think that we could have done it in one venue. It certainly would've been messy and would've fallen apart with that kind of pressure on just one stage. Bianca [Moncada of Darmah] also quickly put two teams together to deal with the video screens and the content. Darmah are wonderful to work with especially on something like this and we know each other well. We've worked together on a number of shows now, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies. We blend the lighting and video together and make it all seamless. Darmah had to be a little more generic since they didn't have time, or the information, to build custom video content around someone's music. Darmah knows well how to create content for broadcast, understanding that the primary information needs to be strong at the bottom of the screen, since that's behind the faces in closeups. Darmah did a wonderful job. They also got some content from Treatment in London. The main thing was it was all pretty seamless. I think the people at home got what they were expecting without the production impacting it much, good or bad. For how this all came together in just over 10 days or so, it was amazing. Everyone stepped up and did a great job working together for a good cause.

Bianca Moncada: Video Designer
To do this show, we took the same approach as lighting and decided to duplicate the team with the same roles into two front of house control positions. We have a large number of people within Darmah, so I was able to duplicate the team with no problems. I think the hardest roles to deal with were Allen's role and my role as designers to duplicate. I had my assistant and my Screens Producer on the other side. I worked most closely with Rick Austin, the Co-Executive Producer in regards to content. When it came to the show, Allen, Joel, Rick, and I stayed at the Forum, and since the Forum ended first, we then moved over to the Intuit Dome for the last hour. That was great, because we were all there together as a whole team at the end. 

For FireAid, with so many performances- and two venues-the producers asked us at Darmah to provide different designs that looked alike but were not exactly the same. In speaking with Allen and the team we thought that it would be best for video and lighting to keep the same cohesive design within both venues. This was partly due to the short turn around time and we wanted it all to feel that it was part of the same show. It was a very simple design, as it needed to be in the time, but we went ahead and pushed it a little bit extra with digital architecture to give it more depth and to have space for the presenters to live in. For the general show, we approached it as red and blue for the different venues. The Kia Forum had a red identity, since the interior is painted red, and has an old school vibe. Then for the Intuit Dome being so new, with a technology vibe and a blue logo, we went with blue. We carried this color separation with the show looks. That way we knew when we were coming back from one stage to another; they're telling the same story, but have the difference in color. We wanted to be smart on how we were going to handle the video and lighting without it being too generic. Our formula is to work very closely with the executive producers, and to find content that is related to this show. We had looks that had to do with LA and some custom things to highlight what the show was about. We had the ROE Vanish transparent panels for the upper part of the screen, so lighting could blow through to help with blending lighting and video together. We tried not to make the content so custom, so that it would blend easily. We avoided pictures on the center screen, because it was all Vanish product. We had a lot of actual pictures throughout the show, where we didn't want light to blow through, so those were solid ROE BP2.8 V2 2mm LED panels. We used a live document that's constantly updated and shared with the lighting team. It was online and live updated with the screen scheme, color scheme, so lighting could change if they want or need to. 

There were 25 total musical performances we needed to do content for, so we decided to hand eight of them off to Treatment. They kindly offered to pitch in and join us for FireAid and that teamwork made this all more viable. Darmah handled the other performances, as well as the homebases and house looks. I think it was a nice combination to have content coming from another team; it helped us have a different vibe. We gave the content overall as much detail as possible in the time we had. 

Darmah provided our own Disguise servers, since we design and direct the content, but we also program it and play it back. We treat the media servers like a design tool. The way our designers deliver content is very particular, and we use the servers as editing software at times. We like to be able to tweak layers on the spot. It's a Darmah formula. We took about two to three days to prep and pre-load the content onto them at our warehouse. We do play around with the programming before we get to the load-in, especially with these types of shows. We've been Disguise timeline users, since the beginning. We use Disguise software as a design tool more than just as a playback tool. Fuse Technical Group, headed by Marty Wickman, and his team provided the video screens. It's always great to work with Fuse; they're always ready with anything that we need. We at Darmah are a mix of both the creative- in that we create the actual content- and the technical side-we operate and play it back. It's great to have the backup of Fuse on the technical side; it made this whole process run so smoothly. 

We also had to solve the challenge of feeding the other venue's feedback to the audience in the non-performing venue. So, if they were performing in the Intuit Dome, we fed that feed back to the screens in the Forum, so the people could see the performance and the party. The show didn't stop even though we were live in the other venue. So, we didn't have commercial breaks like on traditional broadcasts. We usually use those breaks to tweak the lighting or the video, but we were live from beginning to end on this show for hours. We at Darmah were honored to even be considered for this project and be part of the team. We knew it was a big responsibility and we are very humbled and grateful to have been included in such a great cause.