The week before last, I had the pleasure of working on iHeart Radio Music Festival 2016 in Las Vegas. Over two consecutive nights, huge names in music gathered for epic concerts from 7:30p until after midnight; Friday and Saturday featured entirely different line-ups, and the best of both evenings will air over two nights on The CW this Thursday and Friday (October 6 & 7 from 8-10p). Set your DVRs now!
As we’ve established, I’m more of a Tonys Gal than a Top 40s Maven, but that did not stop me from enjoying the sets at this festival — some of today’s hot musical acts (Sia, TwentyOne Pilots, Ariana Grande), hit performers from my youth (Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys), ‘80s throwbacks (Tears for Fears, Billy Idol), some of the legendary greats (U2, Sting), longtime favorites (Drake, Usher, Pitbull, OneRepublic), some country (Sam Hunt, Florida Georgia Line), and a few I’d never heard of (Cage the Elephant, Zedd). I went into this work experience with no expectations and came out with fun memories.
We stayed at New York New York casino in Vegas. (A definite step up from Atlantic City last month.)
View from my room:
A few more shots around New York New York casino:
I LOVE this statue called Bliss Dance by Marco Cochrane. At night it glows different colors. And there were heavy winds one of the days we were in Vegas; I don’t know how this statue didn’t topple over considering it’s only secured to the ground in that one narrow spot. Really cool piece of art.
It’s magnetic to photograph; each angle is eye-catching. Here are a few more shots at night:
While Vegas is known for its culinary establishments and fancy restaurants led by top chefs, we ate most of our meals at catering inside the venue. After the first day we were so busy with rehearsals that there wasn’t time to go elsewhere. We did get Mexican food at the casino on the first night (I ordered grilled veggie fajitas that were super delicious) and the next day we ate lunch at Shake Shack (not pictured). But kudos to our catering company, who provided three delicious buffet-style meals each day on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (one of my meals is pictured below-right).
But I have a major gripe about the cost of coffee in Vegas. Before getting on the plane at JFK, I ordered a caramel latte with almond milk (and a pumpkin donut) at Dunkin Donuts for around $6 total. Sadly, there are no Dunkin locations on The Strip in Vegas — you have to drive to reach the closest one. So I was limited to Starbucks at the casino… where my venti soy pumpkin spice latte set me back a whopping $8.60. Thankfully, once catering got up and running, I got regular coffee there for free. Starbucks, you are on notice.
Our venue was just around the corner from New York New York casino — the impressive T Mobile Arena:
Over Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, all of the artists / bands came in for sound check and to run their sets. That was neat — we got to sit in for private concerts as these performers played to an empty arena. No photos, but those memories will stay with me.
During the actual concerts, I hustled and back forth down the hallway connecting our production office with the backstage area and the truck / control room. I was the script coordinator for this show, so I supported Tori our script supervisor by printing revised pages and running them to her at teleprompter. That’s Steven, one of our writers, on the left below, and our teleprompter op:
Tori demonstrates her scripty skills:
Ryan Seacrest hosted the show both nights. Here he is at pre-read, going over his next batch of lines with teleprompter to make sure everything looks good. If any of the words need tweaking, Tori and Steven are there to facilitate changes, and the prompter op can make adjustments on the spot.
Throughout the night, presenters for each musical act stopped by to practice their lines. This included John Stamos, Taylor Lautner, Idina Menzel, Lea Michele, Sean Penn, and more.
Producers’ table backstage:
And here’s backstage from the other side:
Let’s move on to the actual concerts! These made the long days worth it — to be around the excitement and energy of the main show. I didn’t even know many of the musical acts, and it was still exciting. I missed the first few performances on Friday night because I was running around backstage, but some of them included Billy Idol (Miley Cyrus joined him for a song), Sam Hunt, and OneRepublic. Once things calmed down, I snuck into the house for Sia’s performance.
Each artist performed around five to eight songs, generally a mix of their hits and newer material. During her set, Sia’s dancers performed impressive routines while she belted from behind her wig upstage.
Each act had a screens component — digital content displayed on the enormous panels behind the performers and around the arena. Mosts artists came prepped with the same material they probably use on tour, and in the case of Sia, her on-stage dancers performed in sync with a pre-recorded video that provided the audience with a close-up view of the dance. For other acts, like U2, images on the screens complimented the subtext of their songs, creating a deeper visual / auditory experience. I find the use of screens in these types of shows so interesting; it’s a whole line of work I didn’t realize existed.
Sean Penn introduced the final act on Friday night — U2!
By this time, it was around 11:30p and the show had been going on for over four hours. Some of the seats cleared out and we found a place to sit / stand near the front. This was a pretty stellar set and I took a lot of photos. Here we go…
Throughout the night, there were various effects like pyrotechnics and confetti bursting out of canons. During U2’s set, fake bills floated down from above with Trump’s face on them (“make America hate again”). This complimented the political nature of their songs, like the content on the screens behind them — i.e. seeing Martin Luther King Jr.’s face while Bono sings about peace.
Context: Tori is booing Trump and Sabrina is just generally happy all the time!
Me and Sabrina with Bono over our shoulders (also, note my earplugs, because I am an old lady on the inside):
Throughout the show, cameramen run up and down the aisles capturing shots of the band and audience reactions.
At one point, they caught Sabrina having fun. Adam (her husband and our boss on this show) snapped this next photo in the control room and captioned it, “When the boss catches you sneaking out to enjoy the U2 concert…” Busted.
The next night Sabrina worked with a producer to wrangle talent backstage for behind-the-scenes interviews. She is so important that she gets TWO walkies!
iHeart Radio? iHeart Sabrina!
Quick snap after sound check for Florida George Line the next day. (They’re another band I didn’t think I knew, only to hear one of their hit songs and go, “Oh yeah, know that one.”)
Britney Spears opened on Saturday night with an eight-song set.
See all those glowing lights in the audience? Both nights everyone was given a wristband that glowed various colors at specific moments (must have been controlled via Bluetooth?). It made for a neat visual throughout the shows.
Britney performing with G-Eazy:
One of those confetti moments I mentioned earlier:
AND THEN THE BACKSTREET BOYS PERFORMED!
Aside from U2, this is the group I was most excited to see because they were so popular in my middle school and high school years. They played “Everybody’s Back” with Florida Georgia Line, then returned to play “I Want it That Way,” “As Long As You Love Me,” and “Larger Than Life.” Between their set and Britney’s, it was a bonafide flashback to 1999.
I ran into my college friend Brittany during this set — she works for Entertainment Weekly and regularly attends lots of cool events. Fun to bump into her and geek out over BSB together!
Mekhi Phifer and Justin Baldoni present the next artist…
Ariana Grande performs:
Our host, Ryan Seacrest:
Tears for Fears:
John Stamos and Taylor Lautner introduce Saturday night’s second-to-last guest…
Sting!
Usher closed out the night, including a performance of “Yeah” with Lil Jon and Ludacris. Usher gets bonus points for flying across country after performing in NYC earlier that afternoon.
Team Script!
Throughout the concerts I spontaneously recorded parts on my pocket camera (let’s face it, everyone had their cell phone out recording). It’s a random collection since I didn’t set out to record video and only got a few of the artists. Enjoy!
Hope you enjoyed that teaser! Tune in to The CW this Thursday and Friday (October 6 & 7 from 8-10p) to see all the best moments from iHeart Radio 2016!
