Saturday August 29, 2026 – More than 45,000 fans gathered at Great Park Live in Irvine, California, for the inaugural Daisy Chain Fields, a one-day music festival created and curated by Olivia Rodrigo to celebrate women in music and the power of community, creativity and collective experience.

With C3 Presents serving as the festival’s producing partner, the event brought together an all-female lineup within a highly customized production environment. PRG supported the festival with lighting for the main stage, where scenic design by Es Devlin established a distinctive visual world and Lighting Designer Chris Lisle developed a festival lighting system designed around it. Lisle joined the project through C3 Presents and Production Manager Jonathan Nelson as the production team worked to bring the ambitious concept to life.

The spirit of Lilith Fair — the groundbreaking women-led festival founded by Sarah McLachlan in the 1990s — runs through Daisy Chain Fields, reimagined for a new generation of artists and fans. The lineup brought together some of the biggest names and most influential voices across generations of music, with Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, Doechii and Mitski leading a bill that also included Garbage, The Breeders, Bikini Kill and Santigold. Rodrigo’s closing set extended that cross-generational celebration with special appearances from Stevie Nicks, Alanis Morissette and Sarah McLachlan.

Daisy Chain Fields was founded on the belief that joy, community and creativity can inspire meaningful change. Beyond the performances, the festival creates opportunities for education, dialogue and engagement around issues affecting women and girls, including reproductive health, workplace rights and gender equality.

Its all-women lineup also stands apart in a festival landscape where women remain significantly underrepresented: according to Book More Women,  women accounted for just 22% of musicians booked across nine major U.S. multi-genre festivals in 2025. Net proceeds from Daisy Chain Fields support nonprofit organizations dedicated to advancing and advocating for women and girls.

That sense of purpose extended into the creative identity of the festival.

 “There was something different about Daisy Chain Fields from the beginning. The festival was so intentionally curated and there was already such a strong visual identity to build from,” explained Lisle. “It allowed us to create something much more customized than a typical festival design and really lean into what made this event special.”

Designing Around the Scenic

By the time Lisle joined the project, much of its visual language had already been established through Devlin’s scenic design. The stage was wrapped in pink mesh, with dozens of oversized buttons across the façade and extending above the video screens. The buttons evoke the pins and patches that cover punk vests and jackets, carrying a vibrant color palette through pop art that included flowers and peace signs, bearing messages celebrating women, equality and collective action. An arched upstage video screen, also framed by pink mesh, created another defining shape within the design.

For Lisle, those elements became the starting point for the lighting architecture.

The system began with front and back trusses, providing essential performance lighting. From there, Lisle added eight finger trusses running from upstage to downstage, following the arch established by the scenic and video design and effectively surrounding performers with light. Effects fixtures and floor lighting added visual texture, while dedicated lighting positions ensured the scenic elements remained an active part of the environment after dark.

“It’s very scenic-heavy,” Lisle explained. “It’s not the star of the show — obviously the artist is the star — but this is definitely a huge part of the look.”

The result was significantly more customized than a typical festival house rig.

Lisle regularly designs lighting systems for major festivals including Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, where a house system often needs to remain flexible enough to accommodate multiple headliners bringing substantial touring production. Daisy Chain Fields presented a different opportunity: one day, one highly developed visual identity and a stage designed specifically for the event.

“This is definitely one of the larger lighting designs we’ve put out this year in terms of what we, the festival, are providing,” Lisle said.

Building Versatile Festival Rig

While the scenic environment gave Daisy Chain Fields a consistent visual identity, the lighting system still needed to function as a performance tool for every artist taking the stage.

Lisle approached the design with experience from both sides of that equation. Having spent much of his career designing directly for touring artists, he considered what a visiting artist team would need from the festival package as he developed the rig.

Once the foundation was in place, Lisle shared the design with Rodrigo’s lighting team. Their feedback led to additional floor lighting extending into the wings and large-format effects fixtures that were incorporated into the final system.

That comprehensive festival package also helped simplify changeovers. Rather than each supporting act bringing substantial supplemental lighting, the main rig provided the tools their teams needed while artists primarily moved risers and backline on and off stage.

The People Behind the Design

Turning that design into a functioning festival system required a crew capable of managing the details behind the scenes.

For PRG Account Executive Jeff Gainer, the people on site were essential to making the production work.

“The crew was absolutely vital to the success of this event,” said Gainer. “There were a lot of moving pieces behind a design of this scale, and they handled all of it with incredible care and professionalism. Joe Donahue, our Lighting Crew Chief, was really the glue that held everything together and kept the team moving in the same direction.”

The PRG team included Project Manager Bill Merver, Lighting Crew Chief Joseph Donahue, Lighting Dimmer Technician Stephen “Jim” Mecsery, Lighting FOH Technician Marco Sanchez, Lighting Ground Control Technician Anthony Egendorfer, and Lighting Technicians Christian Anzueto, Jonathan Faile and Manuel Robles-Altamirano.

Lisle credited C3 Presents Production Manager Jonathan Nelson with leading the production through an unusually compressed timeline. C3 joined the project only a few months ahead of the festival, far later than the typical planning cycle for an event of this scale.

“Jonathan did a fantastic job making this happen on a dime,” Lisle said. “He’s brought all of this together.”

The project also carried personal significance for Lisle. Much of his career has been spent designing for female artists, including Miranda Lambert, Lee Ann Womack, LeAnn Rimes and Sara Evans. “It’s been some of my favorite times working, favorite memories of my career,” he said. “So this is a cool moment for me, too.”

That commitment to creating a more connected and inclusive live-events industry extends beyond Lisle’s design work. He is also the co-founder of ECCHO Live, an organization focused on building community, mentorship and opportunities within the live entertainment industry.

Daisy Chain Fields offered a powerful example of what greater representation can look like in live events: creating visibility onstage while opening a broader conversation about who sees themselves represented across every part of the industry. For an inaugural festival built around the idea that community and creativity can drive change, the people behind the production were an essential part of bringing that vision to life.

Credits

Lighting Designer: Chris Lisle
Scenic Designer: Es Devlin
Production Manager: Jonathan Nelson, C3 Presents
PRG Account Executive: Jeff Gainer
PRG Project Manager: Bill Merver
Lighting Crew Chief: Joseph Donahue
Lighting Dimmer Technician: Stephen “Jim” Mecsery
Lighting FOH Technician: Marco Sanchez
Lighting Ground Control Technician: Anthony Egendorfer
Lighting Technician: Christian Anzueto
Lighting Technician: Jonathan Faile
Lighting Technician: Manuel Robles-Altamirano