PLSN • August 2020 • Production Profile

On June 9, Top Rank Boxing returned to ESPN with live matches broadcast from the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas. With pro boxers in their normal ring, the touring lighting rig, LED displays and rock ‘n’ roll style entrances, the raw energy was all in place. The only thing missing was the live audience. But with ratings climbing upwards as the twice-weekly broadcast continues, the home viewers don’t seem to mind. The new setup is enticing to their eyes.

The biggest issue to overcome for this series of fights, scheduled to last through July 21 at the time this article was written, is safety for all and prevention of spreading the virus. This has led to the setup of a “Bubble” within the MGM Grand — a safe zone for fighters and employees working on the show alone. PLSN sat down with production manager Ken Rumgay, lighting designer Michael Nevitt and Media programmer Sam Brown to discuss how they achieved this and were able to keep the show running safely, replacing the audience with additional scenic elements.

“A ‘bubble production’ is the latest media catchphrase,” explains Michael Nevitt, who has been looking after the lighting for Top Rank Inc. for many years. “It pertains to isolating a certain area and quarantining everyone involved in a show, within a physical setting, an imaginary bubble, safe from any outsiders that could possibly bring the Covid virus on site.” Sounds pretty simple — until you have to execute it.

“We’re normally in an arena setting when we hold these televised events,” explains Ken Rumgay. “But with that open of a space and so many ways workers can get in and out, it wasn’t an optimum setting. Plus, without a live audience, all the seating room wasn’t necessary. Our best option was to just bring the whole production into the convention area. While we normally load in and can do a show in the same day, this took a little bit more configuring to get our touring lighting system to fit.” Crossfade Design serves as the lighting vendor for Top Rank boxing.

The entire load-in took four days to get show-ready. The first two days were strictly for rigging, lighting and the rest of the scenic elements to get together — the bulk that required stagehands. “We all wore masks and stayed away from each other, Rumgay adds. “I’m not a fan of working in that mask all day at all, but it is necessary, and we all know it. The following two days we started up the bubble process. Only in-house, necessary techs and fighters were allowed in our space.”

Nevitt expands on the setup (see Fig. 1 on page 18 for a Vectorworks rendering). “We all arrived and have separate rooms on the 12th floor of the MGM, with nobody else but us occupying that floor,” Nevitt notes. “We have a service elevator we use that takes us down to a back door. A quick trek across some pavement, and we enter a side door to the conference area/venue. Once we had loaded in, we went into the lockdown procedure. Everyone involved got tested on site, then we were sent to our rooms to stay quarantined for seven hours until the results came back. Once we were declared safe from the virus, we could go anywhere within our bubble, but we’re not allowed to wander anywhere outside of it. If there was an emergency that requires someone go off site, they would have to go through the entire testing routine again to be accepted back into the bubble.” This bubble is set to last eight weeks.

The quarantined crew have dubbed this event, “The Summer Series,” and they are all locked in, unable to see their families for two months. Three meals a day are served in the bubble. There is no room service nor access to a restaurant. This sounds brutal indeed, but everyone is making the best of it and just happy that they are part of the one percent of the live entertainment biz employed this week. They shoot live every Tuesday and Thursday evenings, while Mondays and Wednesdays are reserved for weigh-ins and media coverage.

As far as the actual production, certain things had to adjust for safety and some for sheer logistics, as they had to replace all the patrons normally seen in the background camera shots, with something. “We designed a set to replace the background audience,” says Nevitt. “We have the normal ring and lighting rig we always carry, but we added some vertical towers of light for eye candy to get caught on camera. We replaced the audience with video screen elements — not to try and ‘fake and audience,’ [but] to create more of studio-style setting.”

While in the “bubble,” only allowing the two boxers and a referee are allowed inside the ropes, Nevitt continues. A doctor is allowed in the ring, should it be deemed necessary to treat a boxer, but that’s it. Separate areas are set up with platforms that are isolated from each other. For instance, the ring announcer has a platform for himself, flanked by two ring girls. The judges sit at tables away from others.

Sam Brown from Crossfade Design was brought in to handle the media programming. He has a dedicated Mbox to control the content on each unit, all of which runs from a grandMA3 console running grandMA2 software. “We have a total of 10 different displays I feed media to. They are all the same 3mm product that Screenworks provided.

“In the rear shot behind the ring, we placed two walls, approximately 25 by 30 feet (height by width), where the cameras would normally pick up the fans behind and to the side of the ring,” Brown adds. “We had a range of content we put up there, from logos and fighter names to their personal interests. They also displayed shots from the social media feeds. Lots of other boxers are tuning in and posting live during the fight, so we play their posts for the cameras to pick up at opportune times. They also played slow-motion highlights from the matches and show past fights in between live matches.

“We had two separate entrances on either side of the room for fighter entrances,” Brown continues. “Each area consists of two LED displays separated by an entrance area, with yet another wall behind them. We have two more video surfaces that were used as headers. They featured Top Rank and ESPN logos, round numbers, and so on.”

“The bubble idea came from Brad Jacobs, the COO for Top Rank, along with the Nevada State Commission,” explains Ken Rumgay who, as production manager for Top Rank Inc. for 10 years, oversees all the pricing, labor, scheduling ring times and call times for everyone involved. “There are some holes in the system, as food and other services, such as the cleaners, need to come in every day.

“This venue presented us with challenges we normally don’t have,” Rumgay adds. “They had a rigging accident not too long ago, and everyone here is being cautious, as they should.” The entire lighting rig fit — but only after they lopped three feet of truss of each end of certain trusses due to available space. “Convention centers are different beasts to rig,” Rumgay continues. “We have a maximum of 1,000 pounds per point, plus many of the usable points are already in position, so we adapted. Sure, we had to use some spreader beams to hit points, but it was all possible, just a longer day. In the end, the light rig was centered to the same ring we use on tour, and that part was good. But in lieu of an audience, our creative team decided to hang a couple of LED walls for background fill when the fighters were boxing. The available hanging points in the room dictated where we can hang these. As light as they have gotten in comparison over the years, they are still heavy. So while we are in a very studio-like atmosphere, we still rock and roll the production. We want to give the audience a real show, not a studio version.”

Things have certainly changed due to the Covid scare. All boxing gloves, for example, are now disposable. There are 10 makeshift dressing rooms that need to be completely sanitized after each use. The ring gets cleaned between matches. The ring area also gets treated with 12 Nemesis UV-C Hydra XXXVI lights hung from the truss, every night before a fight, for eight-hour time periods.

Nemesis, a company that has been manufacturing UV-C lights for various arenas and sports teams, was brought in by Top Rank for the final cleanse of any suspected germs that may have escaped conventional cleaning methods. They have one dedicated technician — Caleb Rumgay — who operates this gear and works on a shift that totally isolates him to work at times when nobody else is present in the facility. Besides the lamps hung over the ring, he operates two portable Nemesis UV-C LED towers that project rays 360° in any room. This includes the training area and dressing rooms.

The tech has a schedule of times in which the timing devices work, and he moves them around to different areas. Nemesis also brought in one of their specialized carts made for stashing athletic equipment such as gloves and boxing footwear. Eventually, the carts were put to use to sterilize the masks, gloves and cameras used by their operators every night.

In conclusion, Mike Nevitt adds, “I have been very fortunate to have been involved with Top Rank for 10 years. With these shows, they are really looking after their boxing fans as well as their crew. They showed a lot of concern for our well-being. We have a total of 13 shows booked, and the future is uncertain. We all got one-way flights, and we’re all glad to be here for as long as we can.”