In August, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra unveiled plans for one the most ambitious tours in the group’s 25-year history — 106 concerts across 64 major markets from two touring teams crisscrossing North America with truckloads of production gear including video walls, lifts carrying musicians over crowds, and tons of lighting gear. Each piece of equipment was designed for rapid loading and unloading from tightly packed semitrucks, sometimes multiple times per day, and to perform flawlessly during the show. The fast pace means that some shows must be created without a pre-rig — typically set up in advance by a smaller crew to install essential rigging like motors and trusses — meaning the entire show must be assembled and struck within a single day.
That’s a daunting task which requires “us to bring on the smartest guys we know in touring — SGPS ShowRig,” says TSO tour director Elliot Saltzman, who has worked with the Las Vegas-based company since 2006. “They became part of the team, not just a vendor.”
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That team-oriented approach has helped SGPS ShowRig carve out a space in one of the industry’s most competitive sectors — concert production design, fabrication and automation. Founded in 1974 by Eric Pearce as Showlights, the company grew into SGPS — short for Show Group Production Services — by creating complex show pieces for major artists, like Kanye West’s floating stages from his Saint Pablo tour to MGK’s show-stopping helicopter built for his 2022 arena tour.
From its 250,000-square-foot headquarters in Las Vegas, plus five other facilities worldwide, SGPS supplies the skeletal systems of live entertainment: the trusses, lifts, and automation rigs that make tours, residencies, festivals, and corporate shows move.
Demand for concert production is busier than ever, SGPS ShowRig President Ned Collett says, and the complexity of the requests is constantly evolving. Clients increasingly want automation that can safely move artists and set pieces in new ways. “Lifts are still the most popular,” he explains. “Drum risers, artist lifts, stages that rotate or elevate—but video walls that open and close, or stages that turn between bands, are also very popular. The challenge is giving designers the creative motion they want while making it reliable and tourable.”
Reliability isn’t just a talking point — it’s Pearce’s founding mantra: every piece of equipment is built “like an English brick shithouse” to endure the rigors of the road, engineered for compact packing, repeated load-ins and load-outs, and flawless, millimeter-precise performance. The company’s own technicians often travel with tours to make sure each piece works when needed.
Creative director John McGuire of Traskhouse, who has designed shows for West, Blink-182 and Travis Scott, relies on SGPS for large-scale manufacturing. His LA studio prototypes his designs, then SGPS executes the steel and aluminum builds. “They’re phenomenal at metal work, truss structure, and automation,” McGuire says. For Scott’s 2023 Coachella set, SGPS fabricated the circular stage and lifts that became the centerpiece of the production.
McGuire recalls SGPS manufacturing the internal structure for 40-foot Kid Cudi statues that appeared in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris. “They gave me the backbone I could then turn into creative sculpture,” he says.
For Saltzman and TSO, the challenge is repetition at scale. The orchestra mounts more than 100 shows each holiday season, sometimes two a day, with effects like a giant Tesla coil or synchronized snow globe that must work identically in every city. “Our audiences expect consistency, whether at Madison Square Garden or a matinee in Green Bay,” Saltzman says. “SGPS ensures the globe goes up and down when it’s supposed to, every time.”
Those expectations have shaped SGPS’s approach. The company routinely hosts multi-day planning meetings in Las Vegas with lighting, sound, pyro, and video vendors. Engineers examine how many times each piece of equipment must be touched by crew hands, designing systems to minimize labor. “We counted how many hands touch a truss or a light fixture,” Saltzman says. “If you can reduce it from 10 to five, you’ve saved time and money”.
Automation remains the company’s growth engine. Executives note that hydraulic systems are largely gone, replaced by servo motors that allow precise, oil-free control. Designers are leaning on lifts and turntables to create dramatic reveals and fast changeovers. “There’s a trend back to mechanical movement — walls that fly apart, stages that rotate — because it adds surprise and energy for the audience,” Collett says.
Another driver is economics. With trucking and fuel costs rising, artists and promoters want gear that is lighter, modular, and fits into fewer trucks. SGPS engineers increasingly work with designers to re-specify materials and re-engineer staging to fit tight budgets. “At the end of the day, we’re all working for the artist,” Collett explained during a tour of the Vegas facility. “If we can help them stay on the road with seven trucks instead of nine, that’s real money saved.”
Despite its size—SGPS is widely seen as one of the largest rigging and automation firms in the business—the company frequently partners with rivals like PRG and Solotech. “We’re the skeletal system,” Collett says. “Our competitors are also our clients.” That ecosystem means SGPS’s lifts or turntables might be the unseen foundation of productions branded under other companies’ banners.
As the industry heads into another busy touring year, SGPS is positioning itself to handle bigger demands. The company’s inventory of 20-plus touring lifts is nearly fully booked each summer, executives said, and the pipeline of permanent installations continues to expand. Current touring clients include Bad Bunny, Post Malone, Jelly Roll, Luke Bryan, and Las Vegas residencies like Barry Manilow’s.
Saltzman, who has staged shows for decades, frames it simply: “In our business, you can’t have a bad day. We have to do eight, sometimes ten shows a week, every week. SGPS helps us make that possible.”
