Inside The Programming Of Las Vegas’ Newest Immersive Show: Bob Marley Hope Road

@LimeLightWired
Jul 17
6 min read

Updated: Jul 17

When Lighting Designer Benny Kirkham first stepped into Hope Road, he knew he was facing something different. “It was the perfect storm—in the best way,” he says. “It combined everything I love: the artistry of theatrical storytelling, the challenge of programming multiple timelines, and the technical puzzle of lighting a show that never stops moving. It pushed every part of me as a designer, and that’s exactly the kind of project I live for.”

Bob Marley Hope Road Photo: Mike Kirschbaum

An immersive tribute to Bob Marley’s life and legacy, Hope Road invites audiences to move freely through a five-room experience that blends live performance, dynamic visuals, and environmental design.

Equal parts concert, Cirque-style spectacle, and spiritual journey Bob Marley Hope Road unfolds across a venue that doubles as a Marley museum by day, complete with interactive set pieces.

Programming A System Without a Safety Net

The technical setup for Hope Road is just as ambitious as the show’s creative vision. Across seven rooms, as many as five performance spaces can be active at once, each running on its own independent timecode timeline. With no lighting board operator onsite, all cues had to be precisely programmed and launched via iPads operated by stage managers monitoring each group’s movement through the space.

This nontraditional approach placed a unique demand on the lighting team: design a system robust enough to run without active operation, yet flexible enough to handle real-world variables like audience delays, missed marks, or performer resets. Lighting Programmer Rane Renshaw worked closely with Kirkham to build timelines that delivered the immersive impact the project demanded.

The grandMA3 Brain Behind the Operation

Delivering a fully automated lighting experience across a multi-room, constantly shifting show required more than just creative programming—it demanded a bulletproof infrastructure. The backbone of Hope Road’s lighting system is built on the grandMA3 platform, comprising:

2 x grandMA3 RPU units for redundant show playback
3 x grandMA3 XL Processing Units to handle the heavy pixel load
5 x grandMA3 I/O Nodes dedicated to distributing timecode across the venue
1 x grandMA3 onPC station for show monitoring and diagnostics

During the programming phase, two full-size grandMA3 consoles were used and rolled from room to room, allowing the team to plug into a network port in any room and instantly join the session. Using worlds and user profiles, the programming team was able to divide up rooms and work in parallel without interfering with each other’s sequences.

“Rane could be dialing in pixels in Jammin Tree while I was working through Cathedral with no problem,” says lighting designer Benny Kirkham. “Of course, every now and then someone would forget to world out, and you’d hear yelling across the building: ‘Stop hitting SOLO!’”

The project was supported by ACT Entertainment, whose team worked closely with the programming staff to push the boundaries of what grandMA3 could do.

A Timecode System Like No Other

Timecode is the backbone of Hope Road’s automation—but this isn’t your typical linear timeline. Because the show is designed to pulse new audience groups through every 30 minutes, a single continuous sequence wasn’t going to cut it. Instead, each of the five main performance rooms runs on its own independent timecode clock, allowing scenes to prep, play, and reset autonomously.

That meant programming five full shows—not just creatively, but structurally—each capable of starting and stopping on demand. These timelines run in parallel, triggered manually by stage managers traveling with each audience group. Using iPads connected to a Medialon show control system, they initiate the appropriate timecode stream for each room as the group enters. The grandMA3 listens for that specific clock, fires the cues, and resets for the next pulse.

“We went pretty deep into the timecode feature,” says programmer Rane Renshaw. “There were five independent clocks running simultaneously, each doing its own thing. The lighting cues had to sync with music, fog effects, and projection—without a board op in the room.”

This modular, multi-timeline design made Hope Road uniquely resilient. A delay in Trench Town wouldn’t affect Cathedral. A reset in Dancehall wouldn’t interrupt the Jammin Tree aerial act. Each room was its own show—but all of them still worked together in perfect rhythm.

Designing For Controlled Chaos

Every room posed its own creative and logistical challenges:

Dancehall: The show opens in a casual bar setting, with performers hidden in plain sight. Dance circles erupt organically as the music builds, so lighting had to reveal the cast without giving away the transition into performance until a dramatic crash cues the full shift.

Jammin Tree: A zero-gravity aerial sequence required lighting that highlighted performers while masking their suspension cables, striking a delicate balance between illumination and illusion. By day, guests can trigger lighting effects in the tree roots by hitting drums, turning the space into an interactive exhibit.

Trench Town: A number split into three distinct choreographed segments with audience interaction in every corner of the room. To keep up, a versatile lighting toolkit was needed - something nimble enough to light a soloist one moment and a spontaneous conga line the next. Then, acrobatic performances unfold on the walls blending seamlessly with interactive projection.

Cathedral: Actors perform inside and around projection material, calling for careful calibration between projection brightness and lighting to preserve both clarity and impact. Various fog effects were layered into these sequences, each requiring its own precise programming to maintain visibility and atmosphere. A standout moment: a wall of low fog cascading down the set

One Light: A standout design element: a 3D liminal LED screen used during pivotal moments. Lighting had to illuminate actors directly in front of the screen without washing it out — no small task in a show that thrives on subtlety and surprise.

Fixture Highlights

With over 750 theatrical fixtures and over 3,000 custom RGB LED's, Hope Road's gear list reads more like a tour rider than a fixed install. From theatrical front light to high-impact effects, Hope Road’s lighting rig is a blend of precision and atmosphere.

Claypaky Arolla Profile MPs and HP B-EYE K25/Teatro fixtures serve as the primary workhorses, providing everything from bold beams to soft wash looks throughout the show. Vari*Lite VL800 PARs with chrome cases become set pieces themselves, tucked into several rooms for compact, reliable coverage, while Martin MAC Ones offer both precise key lighting and creative pixel-based effects. Full gear list down below.

Pixels Everywhere

Pixel mapping plays a major role in defining the visual language of Hope Road. Several thousands of addressable pixels are distributed throughout the venue—not just as decoration, but as reactive, rhythmic, and story-driven design elements.

The Cathedral room is perhaps the clearest example, where the entire set is outlined in LED, pulsing and flowing in sync with the narrative. In Jammin Tree, pixels are embedded directly into the illuminated roots. Trench Town features Astera tubes lining the streetscape, enhancing movement and space with animated color.

And in Dancehall, over 400 Astera NYX bulbs are used to blend performance and environment, creating a dancefloor that breathes with the beat.

Bob Marley Hope Road: A Living Museum

By day, Hope Road transforms into an interactive Bob Marley museum—an immersive walkthrough that invites guests to explore every inch of the space at their own pace. All rooms remain fully active, with lighting, sound, and scenic elements running in a more ambient, responsive mode. It’s not just a static exhibit—each environment breathes, reacts, and shifts around the visitor.

Touch a drum in the Jammin Tree, and the roots come alive with light. Wander into the cathedral, and projection and fog effects ebb and flow with ambient color. Even in the absence of performers, the space holds presence. Whether mixing tracks at Tuff Gong Studio or strolling through the streets of Trench Town, guests experience a venue that was designed to be lived in—not just looked at.

Opening this fall, the experience pays tribute to Marley’s message not through display cases, but through interactivity, rhythm, and energy that never fully stops—even between shows.

Hope Road: Where Concert, Club, and Theater Collide

From theme park systems to nightclub pacing to immersive theater intimacy, Hope Road borrows from everywhere—then assembles it into something completely new. It’s a show with no board op, five concurrent timelines, and a cast of performers, pixels, and programming all dancing in sync. Hope Road isn’t just a show—it’s an ecosystem of timelines, lights, music, and movement. It’s a glimpse at where live experiences might be headed next.