July 22, 2025 – “Bob Marley Hope Road,” a groundbreaking musical journey through settings inspired by the pioneer reggae artist, is utilizing a grandMA3 system to drive its innovative concept. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of MA Lighting products in North America.
Photo Credit: Mike Kirschbaum @mikekphotos
Located in the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, “Bob Marley Hope Road” features three attraction modes. By day, the “Bob Marley Hope Road Experience” offers an array of digital and analog spaces for visitors to explore at their own pace. They can tour the streets of Trench Town, mix a track at the Tuff Gong studio, watch rare concert footage and move to the beat in a Jamaican Dance Hall while listening to the recordings that made history. A magic wire act turns into interactive drum play with LED lighting and 7-foot-tall folkloric characters entice crowds to join a parade.
At night, the venue comes alive with a 75-minute guided show in which visitors follow the cast from scene to scene, standing in the heart of the action as singers and dancers perform just feet away. Never-before-heard remixes of Bob Marley tracks build to a powerful finale beneath a massive curved 3D LED videowall by Liminal Space that brings the audience into Marley’s world.
The grandMA3 platform was chosen to program tech rehearsals and to control everything in the three attraction modes. The nighttime show, in conjunction with a Medialon show control system, is run without a human board operator. Up to 125 people at a time move as a group or “pulse” through the interactive space during the show with new groups starting every 30 minutes. This means that the grandMA3 has to control up to five active rooms at once, each room programmed on an independent time code clock and triggered by a stage manager who moves along with every pulse and uses an Apple iPad interface.
Benny Kirkham, Principal and Designer with Overnight Production in Henderson, Nevada, acted as Lighting Designer for all the modes of “Bob Marley Hope Road.” He has a 20-year history with grandMA consoles and knew the grandMA3 “absolutely had the capabilities to pull off this show. We needed a system that could receive up to eight time code streams, which was not possible with any other platform.” The Las Vegas office of Solotech provided the grandMA3 equipment for the project.
Kirkham and Lighting Programmer Rane Renshaw began their work using two full-size grandMA3s to program the modes during rehearsals in the rooms where the interactive experience and show take place. “The consoles were on carts so Rane and I could use them, unplug them and move to a new room,” Kirkham explains.
“We took our grandMA3s from room to room working independently thanks to users and worlds,” says Renshaw, based in Las Vegas. “Instead of building a sequential cue list, it felt like we were building a machine to handle everything. There was the normal programming of lights, music, SFX and choreography, but also programming the rooms to reset, which added a layer of complexity.
“We went pretty deep into the time code feature because of the five independent clocks,” he points out. “We also did bit mapping to display images and video content across light bars during the acrobatic act and give us soft, graded light patterns sliding up the bars. We’re still using the consoles to fine tune the modes as they officially open.”
“The grandMA3 is very versatile – cueing and editing are easy. It can create extraordinary effects. There’s a reason it’s the go-to system for a large majority of the industry,” notes Kirkham.
The show mode runs off two rack-mounted RPUs, three PUs and five I/O nodes with no human board operator. “An assistant stage manager traveling with a pulse holds an iPad networked to Medialon show control to trigger the time code clock” and restart the action as each pulse passes through, Kirkham explains. “Each scene runs as an independent show. It’s an unusual setup but necessary for the way this production is conceived.”
Kirkham notes that “the support has been stellar from both MA Lighting and ACT Entertainment. Because we are pushing the envelope with the unique nature of this complex show, MA was very helpful about how to approach the multiple time code streams as well as all the other complexities.”
Renshaw says that ACT was involved “every day in conversations as we tried new things that hadn’t been done before. Their support allowed us to invent this stuff.”
“ACT always sets the gold standard for support,” Kirkham adds. “They always come through for us.”
“It was fun to be part of this project where theater, concert and club lanes converge in an engaging and creative way,” Renshaw concludes.
Read this story on other sites:
https://www.livedesignonline.com/news/grandma3-platform-supports-innovative-bob-marley-hope-road-attraction-mandalay-bay-resort
https://www.svconline.com/the-wire/grandma3-platform-supports-innovative-bob-marley-hope-road-attraction-at-mandalay-bay-resort-casino-in-las-vegas
https://digitalmedianet.com/grandma3-platform-supports-innovative-bob-marley-hope-road-attraction-at-mandalay-bay-resort-casino-in-las-vegas/
http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/news/story.asp?ID=-ZHM3A9