Blake Shelton, Kelsea Ballerini, More: How They Craft Their Epic Live Shows

Blake Shelton, Kelsea Ballerini, Luke Combs, Dan + Shay, Leon Bridges and many other powerhouse artists embark on dozens of festival and tour dates throughout the year, and spend countless hours fine-tuning the production elements to be ready to take the stage at local venues anywhere in the world.

Starwood Rehearsals, a 10,000-square-foot turnkey space that opened in June 2022, offers a blank canvas for creative artists and their teams to bring their brightest ideas to life before kicking off their headlining tours. The massive venue is located outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

Serving as a nod to a historic local venue, the Starwood was launched by Production Resource Group, the global company behind some of the most anticipated entertainment events (the Olympics and the Super Bowl — including Rihanna’s epic halftime show earlier this year — among others). With two dozen facilities worldwide, the event-production behemoth worked with genre-spanning artists including Beyoncé, Drake, Coldplay and others. Many of the artists leaving the Nashville location for tours are country artists, PRG General Manager John Schirmer said, and the space, centrally-located in the U.S., “makes us a great hub for concert tours.” Schirmer met with iHeartRadio to tour the PRG facility and the innovative rehearsal space. The Starwood is located within a 155,000-square-foot PRG facility that houses tons of production equipment.

“Because Starwood is attached to PRG Nashville’s Super Depot, we have the gear you need on-site and the technicians to help advise you on anything your production may need for tour,” Randy Hutson, SVP of PRG's Music Group, noted in a statement to iHeartRadio. “We’re also temperature-controlled, making for a comfortable home base for the entire team prior to touring. We understand the need for privacy and have set our studio up in a way that ensures a secure and discreet experience. …Our music group is focused on artist development and ushering in the next generation of industry professionals and touring acts. Starwood allows newer production teams access to PRG’s entire suite of services, expertise and equipment.”

Schirmer spoke about the Starwood’s thoughtful design, offering vast space and an intentional blank slate for artists “to create an environment for people that is open to their imagination,” he said. Artists like Ballerini and Shelton (who used the rehearsal venue to create a virtual concert experience during the pandemic) can bring their shows from a visual conception to a true performance with full run-through rehearsals, working out any snags or technical difficulties before reaching their live audiences.

“There’s a lot of programming and a lot of time code that goes into putting these shows together, so that as an artist sings a particular verse, or moves to a particular area, or transitions into a new song, all of the technical elements are following suit,” Schirmer explained. “And so, all of that stuff has to be rehearsed to a great degree so that you can find a successful, and this particular space allows for that to be easily obtained by the artists when they come into the building with their production teams.”

Artists and their teams will book the rehearsal space for hours on end and re-create a familiar concert environment as closely as possible. Schirmer said “the uniqueness of the space is that it allows you to have the ability to close yourself into an environment for a while, unbothered by the outside world, and able to focus your artistic vision onto what you're trying to reproduce technically.” The space gives artists and their teams an opportunity to work on the musical, visual and artistic components to their shows, from LED screens to lighting and beyond. Schirmer noted massive LED spheres used in Coldplay’s tour, and the opportunity he had to work on some of those components for those uniquely-designed shows. “A facility like Starwood gives the production teams an opportunity to explore and experiment with the complete configuration of their show, and have full confidence when they move into their first venue that they know how it all goes together. They know how it's all going to function, and they can probably move forward from that point without any complication.”

“I think having been on both sides of it as a music-loving fan who goes to shows, and somebody who's worked in this industry for 30 years now, I think the big surprise — and it has always been when I bring my family out to shows, and they stay after the show ends to see what happens — the big surprise is just how much work goes into, and how much work and activity goes into putting these shows in every day,” Schirmer said, when asked what most fans might be surprised to learn about tour prep. “It's possible that the average concertgoer doesn't understand that we come (to the venue) first thing that morning. We set up that show and it's ready by the time they come in, and then we do the show and it ends and we tear it down, we put it in trucks and we go do the same thing the next day. I think sometimes that gets overlooked. So, it's definitely a big surprise when they understand that something like Rihanna may have 200 employees on that tour and there's 53 trucks and there's 7, 10, 12 buses, and there's all these people that go along with it. I think that's a big surprise for everybody when and if they get a chance to see that, how much work actually goes into it.

“And from the technology side to the moving stages, the moving light rigs and all that stuff, in the moment, it seems very cool to the average concertgoer, but there's no thought put into how much effort is put into keeping everybody safe and making sure that there's not going to be any accidents or issues,” he continued. “The thought that goes into the actual visual design of all that. I think that could potentially be the surprise. I think a lot of times we get looked at as it's just a technical component, but there's so much creativity and artistry that goes into this stuff that I think that's a big surprise.”

Schirmer also emphasized that the Starwood Rehearsals space is designed to be private, so as not to allow for distractions when the artists and their teams are working, and to not give away any of the unique elements of the show.

“You want it to be a surprise (for the fans) when they walk through the door. The magic and the wonder of it all has to come rushing over to you,” Schirmer said. “And if you have an idea of what it all looks like before it happens, then it changes that for you. That's one of the complications with modern days and social media and such, is once that first show happens, everybody knows what it looks like. …So, that's really important for us to protect that for the artists that come through here. And that's one of the things that we work really hard to earn that trust with the artists so that they know that they're safe here.”

Starwood: Paying Tribute To Local History While Looking Ahead To The Future

Located outside of a major city so rich in music history, the cutting-edge rehearsal space pays homage to a since-closed iconic outdoor music venue. The Starwood Amphitheater was a renowned venue located just a few miles from the newly-opened rehearsal building. Preceding Downtown Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater and Franklin’s FirstBank Amphitheater, the Starwood Amphitheater hosted tons of legendary artists in the two decades it served local concertgoers, between 1986 and 2006.

“It's a big part of the heritage, culture and community of Nashville,” Schirmer said of the former venue. “You got to kind of think about how you move into the future. But when it left, it left a big hole in the area. …So, we really wanted to pay homage to the fact that this community grew around this particular venue, and we think that means something to the culture of Nashville and being central to the United States and such.

“Venues are the place where your vision and your industry come to life. And we felt the same way about this space,” he said. “That's our goal. Our goal is to allow you the opportunity to come into a place and allow all of your creative juices to flow and be free just as when you perform for people. And we felt that the two of those really kind of coincided with each other, and it was a fitting choice for a name.”