TPi May/June 2022 - #269

GENESIS Prog rock legends uphold their stellar live reputation with The Last Domino?

TEXAS Two hours of acoustic storytelling, stand-out production and comedy

AMY MACDONALD Scottish singer-songwriter returns for a heralded hometown performance

STORMZY: HEAVY IS THE HEAD An explosive return for the touring community

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EDITOR’S LETTER

READY… SET… MAY 2022

Issue #269 May / June 2022 Editor Stew Hume Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7702 054344 e-mail: s.hume@mondiale.co.uk Assistant Editor Jacob Waite Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7592 679612 e-mail: j.waite@mondiale.co.uk Digital Content Manager James Robertson Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7725 475819 e-mail: j.robertson@mondiale.co.uk

Did things always used to be this busy?

Rest assured, I’m not complaining, and to have our hands full with multiple projects after two years living in the COVID world is very exciting, but it’s quite the adjustment to suddenly be juggling print deadlines, tradeshows, visiting touring crew on the road and, of course, the imminent TPi Awards.

For the team at TPi, May 2022 has been our metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel for some time. For us, the COVID ordeal came right after the 2020 TPi Awards, and now, two years later, we hope that this year’s event truly signals the end of that turbulent time. We’re pleased to confirm that over 1,200 people will be making the visit to Battersea Evolution to celebrate this fine industry once again. You can check out this year’s shortlist on p8.

As in previous years, the winners from each category are chosen by the industry, meaning we often have to discount votes from fans of artists to ensure we maintain the integrity of this peer-to-peer accolade. We’re even looking at new methods for 2023 to improve our voting process and we’re always open to new ideas of how best to do this.

In amongst awards prep and tradeshow visits, we’ve still managed to pull together another bumper issue of TPi. With Production Profiles on Genesis, Texas and Amy Macdonald, it’s clear that touring has returned in a big way. Our cover story this month is a case in point, as Stormzy’s much-anticipated Heavy Is The Head tour was finally revealed.

With fans holding on to tickets for two years, his production did not disappoint. Read more on p36.

I also spent some time with Michael Case and Jack Page from d&b audiotechnik, who for the past six months have been introducing Soundscape to both artists and engineers, encouraging them to open their ears to the possibilities of immersive touring (p12).

Elsewhere in the issue, Jacob paid a visit to Swansea to witness the opening of the city’s brand-new arena with Royal Blood opening the new space in style (p32).

See you at Battersea!

Stew Hume Editor

Account Manager Fran Begaj Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7852 336728 e-mail: f.begaj@mondiale.co.uk Editorial Director Peter Iantorno Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7763 233637 e-mail: p.iantorno@mondiale.co.uk Chief Executive Justin Gawne Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7768 850767 e-mail: j.gawne@mondiale.co.uk Accounts Lynette Levi / Sarah Miller: ar@mondiale.co.uk Mondiale Group Chairman Damian Walsh Graphic Design & Production Dan Seaton: d.seaton@mondiale.co.uk Mel Capper: m.capper@mondiale.co.uk Cover Photo Stormzy Photo: Timmsy Printed By Buxton Press • www.buxpress.co.uk Annual subscriptions (including P&P): £42 (UK), £60 (Europe), £78/$125 (RoW).

Subscription enquiries to: Subscriptions, Mondiale Media Limited, Strawberry Studios, Watson Square, Stockport, SK1 3AZ, UK. Tel: +44 (0)161 476 5580 Fax: +44 (0)161 476 0456 e-mail: subscriptions@mondiale.co.uk www.tpimagazine.com www.tpiawards.com

TOTAL PRODUCTION INTERNATIONAL is a controlled circulation magazine, published 12 times a year by Mondiale Media Limited under licence. ISSN 1461-3786 Copyright © 2022 Mondiale Media Limited.

All contents of this publication are subject to worldwide copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, in any form whatsoever, is expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of the Publishers.

Every effort is taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this publication but neither Mondiale Media Ltd, nor the Editor, can be held responsible for its contents or any consequential loss or damage resulting from information published. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Publishers or Editor. The Publishers accept no responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, illustrations, advertising materials or artwork. Total Production International USPS: (ISSN 1461 3786) is published 12 times a year

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STORMZY

Over two years in the making, the inside story on one of the most anticipated productions in the UK.

TPI AWARDS 2022 08 Meet this year’s shortlist line-up.

EVENT FOCUS 10 MY UNIVERSE

Coldplay performs a mixed reality show with BTS on The Voice.

12 D&B SOUNDSCAPE

Mike Case highlights d&b’s immersive audio solutions.

18 SKY SONG

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A demonstration of ancient storytelling with modern tech.

22 FATBOY SLIM

Just Lite provides a cost-effective solution for a two-date Irish tour.

24 SXSW 2022

The BME stage crew return to Austin with a new-look venue.

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28 SLOWTHAI

Northampton’s finest brings his ‘nightmarish’ shows to Brixton.

32 ROYAL BLOOD

The first large-scale production to headline ATG’s Swansea Arena.

PRODUCTION PROFILE 50 GENESIS

The iconic band return to the stage, embracing the latest and greatest touring technology.

60 TEXAS

An evening with the Scottish rock band and their touring crew at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

66 AMY MACDONALD

Glaswegian singer-songwriter embarks on a career milestone at OVO Hydro.

IN PROFILE 72 IPS invests in power cable and distribution hire stock.

74 Observatory highlights the

importance of content creation.

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78 Siyan emerges from COVID-19 with a ‘people first’ ethos.

INTERVIEW 81 Sennheiser’s co-CEOs, Andreas and Daniel look to the future.

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82 Core Pro Audio hosts the second of its audio open days.

GEAR HEADS 83 Cameo and Luxibel by AED’s latest lighting products.

PRODUCTION FUTURES 86 Backstage Academy, PRG UK and Production Futures ON TOUR.

FEEDBACK 92 Spartan Crew, Elation, NEKO Trust

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BEHIND THE SCREENS

MY UNIVERSE IN MIXED REALITY LA-based production studio, All of it Now (AOIN), reflects on mixed reality performance, in collaboration with Coldplay Creative, BTS and Dimension Studio.

Photo: AOIN

Coldplay and BTS joined forces to perform My Universe on NBC’s The Voice in mixed reality – with the British rock band performing in-person and BTS band members performing as holograms in augmented reality (AR), using 3D virtual avatars created via volumetric capture, and rendered live using Unreal Engine 4.27.1.

LA-based production studio, All of it Now (AOIN), reflects on this landmark performance in collaboration with Coldplay Creative and Dimension Studio.

Has AOIN ever attempted such an ambitious AR performance before?

“We first worked on a live AR performance with BTS during their 2019 tour. I believe this was one of the first AR experiences to be used on a tour which spanned four continents – the US, South America, Europe and Asia. This time around, we were able to pilot with seven simultaneous volumetric captures playing back across seven different AR cameras.”

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about this style of hybrid performance?

“The biggest misconception with AR is how the in-person audience sees it. The conversation we typically have about the live audience question is generally about how prominent a role the IMAG screens play in arena and stadium-sized shows, and how the vast majority of the viewing audience end up watching the performance on the IMAG screens. This is largely due to the distance between their seats and the actual performance, along with how large IMAG screens are at these shows. This live audience factor also applies for broadcast as well, and for the live audience experience with The Voice, we worked with production on ‘coaching the audience’ to respond to the key AR moments as if they were really there on stage.”

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What technical challenges did you and the team have to overcome?

“The biggest difficulty in this project was technical – we were trying to do something that had not previously been done before – using seven volumetric capture recordings in real-time, tracking to timecode. This required adding lines of code to an existing plug-in from Microsoft, along with extensive testing, in a relatively short timeline. We were able to get the modified plugin to work, with one major caveat, which was that we needed to run about 10 seconds of timecode pre-roll, prior to the seven volcap recordings tracking properly to timecode. Once we made that discovery, and determined a viable solution, the largest technical hurdle had been crossed.

What logistical challenges did you and the team have to overcome?

The other major hurdle was more logistical, and required loading in and calibrating seven AR cameras while in the middle of on-going production of The Voice. This meant that we had limited stage time, and had to find small pockets of time in between acts in order to get the cameras and lenses tracked and calibrated for the AR performance. This was achieved with ‘down to the minute’ scheduling and planning, along with clear communication and collaboration with The Voice production teams.”

Do you foresee this technology ever being utilised in the live setting?

“We are only starting to scratch the surface of what volumetric capture and AR performances can do.

We absolutely see a future where volumetric capture and AR will be used in live performances, but taking it to the next level, where the volumetric capture itself is live, and performers can literally be in two places at once.” www.coldplay.com www.allofitnow.com www.dimensionstudio.co

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D&B SOUNDSCAPE: CHANGING AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS d&b audiotechnik’s Mike Case and Jack Page are on a mission to introduce artists and engineers to the possibilities of touring with an immersive audio system.

After collaborations with Twilight Sad and Groove Armada, TPi catches up with the team to talk all things Soundscape.

Words: Stew Hume Photos: Lanty @lantyzhang and A State of Mind

“When Leo Fender built his first guitar, it’s not as if they had Jimmy Hendrix in mind – he had no idea how musicians would use his creations,” mused Michael Case, VP Artist Relations for d&b audiotechnik. “You could say the same about Soundscape. We’re still at the beginning of its journey and have no idea how people may end up using it in the future.”

For the uninitiated, Soundscape is the immersive offering from audio solutions provider, d&b audiotechnik. Using the principles of object based mixing, the system is an alternative to the traditional left and right stereo system. It opens up a plethora of creative possibilities for both the engineer and artist to reinforce their sound, including the extension of the 360 surround dimension.

We’ve already featured several Soundscape performances in TPi, from Björk to the Nevill Holt Opera, and with the reopening of venues last year, the team behind Soundscape is keen to reintroduce artists and engineers to the concept of immersive audio and show that it is a viable option for tours.

OPEN HOUSE For a week in September 2021, d&b took over Brixton Academy for a run of demos showing off what could be achieved in the venue with Soundscape. With Brixton’s reputation of being a challenging venue from an audio standpoint, the idea was that producing a good immersive demo would showcase the power of Soundscape. “Using Brixton also became a study of how quickly we could load into a venue of that size,” stated Case.

“For many people who came to those demos, that was a pivotal point, convincing production managers of the tourability of the solutions.”

As well as inviting technical crew to the open days, it was key for d&b to have musicians in the

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WEATHERPROOF LIGHT ROBUST room. “For Soundscape to move to the next level, we need artists to buy into the concept and demonstrate what they can achieve live with their sound over a standard stereo mix,” he stated, musing that this could even change the way artists write music.

“It goes hand in hand with a general change within d&b,” he added. “We’re no longer just a sound reinforcing company, but we’re helping people create their art.”

In line with this more hands-on approach, following the week of open days, planning started on two projects that were treated as showcases for Soundscape’s offering.

The first was Twilight Sad, who performed two sold-out headline show at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom.

The second was Groove Armada, who selected four venues – Barrowlands, Manchester’s Victoria Warehouse, Bristol’s Marble Factory and London’s Brixton Academy – to create a unique immersive experience. For both these performances, d&b was on hand to help deliver the shows. Case, alongside his colleague, Jack Page from d&b Education Application Support, was there to provide support for both productions.

“We want to support artists’ creative vision,” stated Page. “With a live Soundscape production, that can start with a phone conversation, discussing what they want to achieve from a sound system, through to experimenting in a rehearsal studio and ending in a venue in front of a room of fans. We’ve experienced a change since the inception of Soundscape. It’s a creative instrument that has brought us a lot closer to the artists, encouraging a deeper collaboration within the whole production.”

With so much contact time with the audio teams of Twilight Sad and Groove Armada, Page was able to delve into the features that Soundscape has to offer.

“En-Space was a revelation to both engineers,” he commented. “The Soundscape convolution reverb engine can transport the audience to a completely different acoustic environment. Rather than having a stereo reverb coming from one end of the room, boundary plane

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reflections are emulated through the whole Soundscape system. With the ability to choose from nine famed concert halls or venues, both engineers got a lot from this feature set.”

Also aiding in these projects was FE Live, which supplied the technical infrastructure for the Twilight Sad show, and Southby Production, which looked after Groove Armada’s tour.

GROOVE ARMADA Chatting to TPi prior to Groove Armada’s Manchester date, FOH Engineer, Robb Allan talked about how this immersive project first came about. “It’s something we talked about during COVID-19 and that’s when I started speaking to Mike from d&b to explore the various options.”

Allan explained that during the immersive shows, he treated the surround sparingly and for maximum effect in that “you don’t want to give all your creative options away in the first song”. He continued: “It’s not until song six, alongside a massive laser drop, when we really start to utilise the 360° system having a single synth line spin around the room.”

For all the immersive shows, Allan operated the show from an Avid S6L, supplied by Paul Hatt of CS Audio. The Soundscape system was supplied by Southby Productions and operated by the company’s Technical Director,

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Digby Shaw, with Jack Page also overseeing the system. “Mixing an immersive show like this is a two-person job,” said Allan. “You could do it by yourself, but I don’t know why you would want to. It’s best to have a co-pilot so you can focus on the overall mix while someone else ensures all the programmed spatial elements are working correctly.”

All inputs were received from stage and then nearly all channels on the .console were sent as direct outs to the DS100, except for a few groups such as kick drum, snare and a vocal group. “We used a Direct Out Prodigy to do a MADI to DANTE conversion,” explained Page.

“All inputs to the DS100 were utilised as Sound Objects and placed in the sound field. Tracking of the object positions was saved in d&b EnSnap software, which was then triggered via timecode for any changes between songs.

Robb also utilised several auxiliary channels that were sending signals to moving objects.”

The parameters of these moving objects were controlled via the Pre-Position plug-in in Ableton Live and stored on a song-by-song basis. The sends to these objects were stored in snapshots in the S6L. Allan shared in Case’s vision that using such a system presents new possibilities for live audio. “The entire band has commented that they have heard elements of tracks that

they have never noticed before,” he revealed.

“As each aspect of the mix can be in its own physical space, you can have more dynamism and separation than when the whole mix is compressed into a bus.”

Chris Jones from Southby Productions gave his two cents on the tour. Having already toured with Soundscape with Björk back in 2018, Jones has championed the plausibility of touring such a system. That said, he outlined the challenges of touring such a rig in smaller venues such as the Barrowlands and Brixton.

“The lack of space and different rigging point availability from venue to venue when compared to an arena tour is one of the bigger challenges,” he explained. “For this run, with proper detailed pre-planning, site visits, CADs and a great team, we were able to tour a system that could flex from venue to venue and provide the full 360° Soundscape experience across any balcony levels.”

For the Groove Armada tour, Southby provided an audio team dedicated to the 360° speaker system consisting of 35 KSL8, 15 KSL12, eight SL-Sub, four V7P, four V10P and 32 Y10P. Jones stated that one of the most important factors in ensuring the success of this tour was to allow Allan a full week with Southby’s bespoke Soundscape control rack in a 360°

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Soundscape studio space. “We could work with Robb and his multi tracks to program all the exciting 360° content. Allowing time to experiment and pre-program is critical to making the most of Soundscape for a band such as Groove, who have so much cool audio content coming from the stage.”

Following the tour, all involved from Groove Armada were delighted with the audio result, including Production Manager, Jamie Young.

“We’ve now proved that logistically it’s totally manageable in a touring environment and from the very first demo the band had both Andy and Tom were blown away with what could be achieved, it certainly makes for a unique audio experience that’s for sure.”

Andy Cato of Groove Armada discussed his thoughts on the immersive system. “Hearing the tracks in the d&b Soundscape studio was groundbreaking. You spend your whole life listening to stereo sounds and then this whole other dimension arrives. The way we naturally experience sound is like this, and so while stereo’s served us well it just feels totally illogical now - if we’ve got the technology – to not experience music the same way we experience life.”

TWILIGHT SAD “What the Twilight Sad and FOH Engineer, Michael Brennan managed to achieve during their Soundscape shows was pretty cool,” reported Case, highlighting the positive feedback he’d received following the band’s Barrowlands performance.

“The comments from that show were that it was almost too intense. In my opinion, if we’re emotionally charging people, we’re on the right track.”

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“We wanted to achieve a fully encompassing and immersive AV happening, that cuddled and scared people in equal measure,” stated Brennan who worked on a number of quadraphonic/surround shows in the Barrowlands. “Considering how terrible the last two years had been, we wanted to put an alternative gig experience on the table.”

For those shows, FOH Engineer, Michael Brennan wanted to use a standard left and right system with the addition of a 360° Soundscape system. Every channel on stage was connected to a Yamaha CL5 at FOH via a Rio rack.

“Michael used a combination of direct outs that fed the DS100 inputs and became ‘sound objects’, as well as the left and right buss and a mono sub buss using the DS100 as a Dante matrix,” stated Page. “He also had 16 playback channels which had been pre-mixed using a small eight-channel Soundscape system in his studio – any movement and object placement for these particular playback channels was then rendered to become an eight-channel ‘bed’ that was placed as an object within the Soundscape 360° system.”

The levels for these bed channels were on the console, so Brennan was also able to play with the dynamics of this throughout the show, and any movement was embedded within this. “There were also two auxiliary busses set up for special movement effects,” added Page. “These objects were controlled via the Pre-Position Soundscape plugin available in Ableton Live, and the parameters such as speed and direction were adjusted using a hardware controller.” Brennan also made extensive use of En-Space, Soundscape’s convolution reverb engine – particularly

the Cathedral modelled on San Vitale Cathedral, Ravenna. In doing so, he was able to take James Graham’s vocal and play with how expansive he could make him sound, before taking it back down to the reality of The Barrowland’s natural acoustic. “The collaboration with d&b was great,” concluded Brennan. They were very supportive and worked hard with us to make this show happen as well as enabling me to go to the band management with real confidence when advancing the show.”

THE FUTURE The future of immersive audio with boundless possibilities certainly seems to be a tantalising prospect. “With all that said, however, the goal of Soundscape is not to kill stereo,” asserted Case. “The aim is to provide artists with an alternative way of delivering a show.”

Allan added: “Don’t get me wrong, I still love mixing in stereo, but I’m a really big fan of working in Soundscape. It’s like comparing fish and chips to a 12-course tasting menu – both are great, but you don’t necessarily want either all the time.”

“It’s great to have audio back at the forefront of conversation once again,” closed Case.

“With the buzz and excitement that is being generated with immersive possibilities, it’s easy to imagine audio integrating more deeply with the visual elements of a live show to create a new level of audience experience.“ www.dbsoundscape.com www.thetwilightsad.com www.groovearmada.com www.southby-productions.co.uk www.csaudio.co.uk www.fe.livecom

EVENT FOCUS

SKY SONG 3D drone art curators, Celestial team up with Adelaide’s largest event production company, Novatech Creative Event Technology, and veteran producers, Gluttony to ‘bring the stars to life’ and share ancient Aboriginal stories using cutting-edge technology at Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Words: Jacob Waite Photos: Celestial

Offering bespoke 360° creative design and production, Frome-based Celestial is slowly garnering a reputation in the live events sector for its spectacular drone show capabilities. Ever since the team’s first show at Edinburgh’s Hogmany in 2021, the specialist team of drone art curators has helped deliver creative solutions for the likes of Greenpeace, Amnesty, and Eden Project – as well as a residency of shows in Melbourne.

Celestial’s latest collaboration, Sky Song, which takes place at Adelaide Fringe Festival, sees a unique combination of integrated, cutting-edge technology, creatives and technicians join forces to share the stories from Indigenous artists on topics such as connection to country, ancestry, the passing on of knowledge, land rights, the devastation of the stolen generations and reconciliation.

Narrated by singer, songwriter and campaigner, Archie Roach, Sky Song unfolds over five chapters. Steered by the Adelaide Fringe and veteran producers, Gluttony, Sky Song quickly attracted some of the greatest First Nation talent working today.

“We were approached by Heather Croall, the Director of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, to co-

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design a show in collaboration with a number of Aboriginal artists, poets, storytellers and musicians to create an emotionally powerful event,” said John Hopkins, one of founders at Celestial, retracing the roots of the project.

Famed for his work in live touring circles, John ‘JP’ Partridge was brought in by Celestial to handle production design for the unique project. “Very rarely do you get an opportunity to do a project like this,” he said.

“Plenty of concert tours get pushed across my desk but to embark on a project with such cutting-edge technology, which shares a unique message with a hard working crew involved was special.”

In fact, it was a chance meeting with Celestial which landed JP the gig. “Celestial were setting up their business next door to where I work,” he reported. “When I first heard about this project, I was super excited. It breaks new ground, using drones as the ‘actors’ in an immersive performance.”

Launched on 11 March at Leconfield and Richard Hamilton Wines in McLaren Vale, just outside of Adelaide, the 26 minute-long show featured over 1,000 s q m of projection onto one of the largest holographic fabric screens

ever to be used in the southern hemisphere.

“Typically, our drones fly for around eight minutes consecutively, so we have three different swarms of 360 drones that launch at staggered intervals to extend the overall flight time. Underneath the drones were huge holographic screens, designed by JP, which projected virtual drones shows, married up with an integrated soundtrack and lighting,” Hopkins explained, referencing the 75m wide by 15m high Showtex Cielorama projection gauze.

To fill the safety zone between the audience and the screen, and provide lighting from the ground and sky, JP designed a grid of 800 LEDs which were embedded in the ground to create a large lighting canvas.

“It provides this ability to send lighting from the ground to the screens and to the sky, which is an exciting prospect – lights are typically situated on a truss, whereas with this project, you have the prospect of firing light metres into the sky,” JP explained.

The designer harnessed Syncronorm Depence² to previsualise the entire show with two weeks of pre-programming in 3D. “The screens are so large and vast it is not feasible to build them for rehearsals, so they were built

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in Australia, so we had to rely a lot on the 3D previsualisation in the UK,” JP explained, noting the logistical barriers posed by the nature of the project. “Designing a show that has not only ever been done before, but in a hybrid fashion, with half the team in the UK and half in Australia was a challenge and a big learning curve. When you visualise something so much to see it come alive before your eyes is incredible.”

Celestial’s airfield in Somerset and the team from The Institute for Drone Technology provided a backdrop for the creative team to rehearse the drone show beforehand. “While new moving lights or technologies don’t particularly stir emotion among audiences, when they are met with drones it is such a rare experience – witnessing unknown technologies, which is fascinating on a creative level,” the designer enthused. “The pixel pitch of the projection drone is exactly the same as a star in the sky, so you look at this huge cosmos of light and it’s really impressive.”

In addition to the holographic fabric screens, Novatech supplied over 100 lighting fixtures including Claypaky Sharpy Plus moving heads and Stormy 1320cc LED Strobe fixtures as well as six Barco UDX 4K-32 laser projectors.

Lighting control was achieved by MA Lighting grandMA3 consoles. While overall show and video control was handled by Novatech’s bespoke OneSystem Constellation racks.

‘RECONNECTING WITH THE STARS’ “We are truly humbled to be involved in what is likely to be a world first. Collaborating with Celestial, Adelaide Fringe and Gluttony to tell First Nations stories through creative technology like never before,” Novatech Managing Director and Sky Song Project

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Lead, Leko Novakovic stated. “Sky Song is such a great piece of moving storytelling.” To soundtrack the experience, Novatech deployed a custom sleek and discrete system designed with L-Acoustics SYVA at the core. In addition, a Riedel Communications Artist mainframe system, with Smartpanels and wireless Bolero beltpacks for all AV and drone operation communications.

First Nations singer songwriter, Nancy Bates of Deadly Management was the soundtrack content supervisor, she worked with Cactus Cactus Studio weaving together the different stories, poems and songlines.

Novatech worked consistently on the project for around eight months. “It was great to see months of hard work come to fruition,” Novatech Project Manager, Michael Roberts said, reflecting on the “unique” nature of the project. “The audience stood up and applauded each show. Adelaide Fringe Festival has done an amazing job in bringing this whole team together to share indigenous stories with super high-tech, which really works.”

Sky Song Soundtrack Supervisor, Nancy Bates said the more audiences take time to listen to First Nations stories, the richer we all become, specifically “rich in our humanity, rich in a way that gives to the world, and not in a way that takes from her,” she remarked.

The main technical challenges involved the viability and stability of the screen in the outdoor elements, so Adelaide-based Nexstage were tapped to install a large, steel 70m+ truss tower infrastructure to support the video projection.

Equally, aviation laws do not correspond with how quickly this new artistic medium is evolving. “There are lots of regulatory hoops we have to jump through as a company,”

Hopkins detailed. “Often, aviation laws are not up to speed with drone swarm technology,” so we regularly get push back. In most cases, regulators are unaware of what we plan to achieve with hundreds of flown drones, so it’s a case of explaining the health and safety measures in-place and demonstrating our creative capabilities.”

According to Novakovic and Roberts, Sky Song was the epitome of harnessing modern storytelling conventions to share ancient stories. “A lot of indigenous artwork centres around dot painting, which is not too dissimilar to the pixel dots created by lighting fixtures and drones,” Novakovic pointed out, adding that he believes that Sky Song has changed the narrative of live shows with drones going forward. “I can see this style of integrated show becoming a thing of the future,” added Roberts.

Hopkins believes that the artistic medium of drones, akin to “bringing the stars to life”, has a profound emotional impact on audiences.

“There’s something magic about making an audience look up at the stars and away from their phone screens,” he theorised.

“There’s almost something spiritually beautiful about reconnecting with the stars, which is why this show is so special – it’s a show which embodies indigenous wisdom – it’s been beautiful telling ancient stories using modern technology.”

Celestial maintains there’s also an important message to share with this project. “Telling ancient stories in an easily digestible manner is a powerful tool in next-generation storytelling,” Hopkins concluded. www.adelaidefringe.com.au www.gluttony.net.au www.celestial.show www.ncet.co

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FATBOY SLIM: IRISH TOUR For Fatboy Slim’s two dates in Ireland, production opted to create a design with a turnkey supply solution coming from sister companies, Just Lite and Magic Kite. TPi catches up with the DJ’s production team, as well as Just Lite and Magic Kite Owner, Paul Smith to discover more.

Words: Stew Hume Photos: Just Lite and Magic Kite

Despite the live events industry’s joy at the return of live shows, it certainly seems that there are a few more hoops to jump through than there were before 2020. From tighter budgets to ramifications brought on by Brexit, many are looking for an alternative solution to the usual touring model. Take, for example, the production team behind Fatboy Slim. The DJ’s 360° show [see TPi #236] was resurrected as live tours returned to the UK. After this run, the campaign had two more dates in Ireland.

Production Manager, Jake Vernum picked up the story. “The two shows in Ireland were standalone performances, and to bring over our full in-the-round performance didn’t stackup financially,” he began.

“We needed a system that we could hit the ground running with, without a production day.”

After a rejig of the show design turning it from

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360° to 180°, Vernum called upon Just Lite to provide lighting and video with Magic Kite supplying a full L-Acoustics K1 system.

Paul Smith, who runs both companies, spoke to TPi about the benefits of being able to cater to incoming productions. “Since Brexit, it’s become much harder to move equipment from the UK to Ireland,” he said.

“We’ve seen a number of trucking companies from our industry move over to Ireland to ensure a more seamless delivery between the UK and the rest of Europe, but what we provided for Jake and the rest by the Fatboy Slim production was a viable solution to put on these shows.”

He went on to explain that for over 30 years, both companies – Just Lite and Magic Kite – have specialised in one off productions for touring acts. It’s also worth noting that Magic

Kite is one of only four companies stocking L-Acoustics K1 between UK and Ireland this enables acts to cover large shows without the expense of trucking. “We keep a similar stock of equipment to many of the companies in the UK with the ability to put on a full stadium show, which I’m keen for more people to be aware of.”

On the question of stock, Smith explained that despite two years of uncertainty, both companies have continued to invest in new technology – mainly due to Smith branching out into the film and broadcast markets.

“We invested a great deal in numerous CHAUVET Professional products due to their versatility,” he explained, noting the IP rating of many of the fixtures, meaning they can be used for multiple applications.

The Color STRIKE M was one such fixture that was utilised of the Fatboy Slim production.

“It’s a fixture that could happily light a building or sit on a rig at a dance event,” commented Smith. “The STRIKE M as a strobe was an equivalent to what we had been using on the previous run,” enthused Vernum, with the Fatboy Slim camp using a number of the fixtures during the two shows.

“It was important that we tried to replicate our UK system as much as possible with the equipment available in Ireland.”

Although the rig was not a like-for-like replication of the previous UK run, long-serving LD to the DJ, Stephen Abbiss explained how this different model of rolling into a tour was no different from a festival set.

“You program to the best of your ability and recreate the effects that are viable at the time,” he said. “As a production, we’re known for rocking up to shows with four people and five Peli cases. If we advance well enough and we know what we’re getting on the other end, we can always make it work.”

The FBS Team still brought some production elements over to Ireland from the

UK. Longstanding, Video Director Bob Jaroc specified a Video Control Package from 4Wall Entertainment whilst Abbis Specified an SFX and Laser package from ER Productions. A staging system was also selected by Vernum from all access staging and productions. This all came over on one truck supplied by KB Event. “What we took over from the UK perfectly complimented the solution that Just Lite provided and made these shows completely viable,” stated Vernum.

Vernum believes more bands will take advantage of this model when travelling to other regions. “If company’s like Just Lite keep investing in kit, there is no reason why more people wouldn’t explore this option,” he confirmed.

Smith closed by sharing his excitement for the future as well as the news that he had recently invested in the brand new CHAUVET Professional COLORado PXL Bar, which were already in demand from his clients. Abbiss even expressed that he would have loved to get his hands on one and measure it up against the likes of GLP impression X4 bars.

With tighter budgets and a greater emphasis on sustainability within the touring community, perhaps we’re likely to be seeing more of these types of regional solutions in the future. www.fatboyslim.net www.justlite.com

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BRITISH MUSIC EMBASSY PRESENTS SXSW 2022 The British Music Embassy (BME) sets sail on its 15th year at South by Southwest (SXSW), providing a stage for emerging British artistry and technical production talent to shine post-lockdown.

Words: Jacob Waite Photos: TyneSight Photographic Services

Having curated a COVID-19 secure production for 35 breakthrough acts to showcase their talent with UK-only production and equipment at Production Park as part of SXSW Online 2021 [see #TPi 260], the latest edition of SXSW saw a return to in-person audiences and increased production values with over 70 sets by some of Britain’s most exciting acts taking to the BME stage over eight days at the new backdrop of 700-capacity venue, Cedar Street Courtyard in Austin, Texas.

Effectively the first ‘British invasion’ of SXSW since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, TPi sat down with Production Manager, Ant Forbes, Stage Manager, Sam Wilkinson and Lighting Designer, Bradley Nicholson – screen-toscreen – to retrace the roots of the project.

“We were effectively working from a blueprint which was conceived in 2019,” Production Manager, Ant Forbes began.

“After the 2019 event in Austin, we made the collective decision to upgrade the venue and upscale purely because of capacity issues.”

After a scouting mission in Austin, Texas, SXSW organisers and stakeholders decided on Cedar Street Courtyard. Further steps were taken by Production Park to upgrade and improve the venue to bring it up to a standard worthy of showcasing the next wave of up and coming British talent both on-stage and behind the scenes, with an all-new Martin by Harman lighting rig installed and operated by Backstage Academy Live Events Production student, Bradley Nicholson.

“This was a golden opportunity for us to bring along a Backstage Academy student like Bradley to throw into the deep end and

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put his academic and theoretical skills to the test and troubleshoot any challenges in a dynamic, fast paced working environment,” Forbes said.

“Seeing him evolve during the week and overcome obstacles and dance away while busking away on the lighting for over 70 sets was a pleasure.”

The 4m by 4m deck deep stage featured a 2m drum riser. Two 3m sticks of truss were situated in each corner of the stage with a suspended beam of truss located at the back of the stage, above an in-house video wall.

Above the stage was a standard box truss with house lights. A range of Martin by Harman fixtures provided ‘eye candy’ looks and bathed the audience and stage in light, in addition to LED tape located on the walls of the venue.

“I first built the venue in Vectorworks and imported it into WYSIWYG, so I had a good idea of what it would look like, minus the house fixtures, instead, I chose similar lights to simulate the experience – this helped with the sizing of the venue and experiment,” Nicholson recalled.

Once on site, Nicholson busked all 70+ performances using an Avolites Tiger Touch II console, which he dubbed as a ‘perfect’ fit for the job. “I needed enough fader space to busk over 70 sets. Having read the tech specifications for each

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artist, the lighting design was left quite open for me to interpret, which was half of the fun. Trying to make each artist’s set interesting and fun was a challenge that I relished,” he said.

“My favourite crew was Maisie Peters, who turned up with colour scheme notes for each song, which was nice to tap into between the experimentation of other sets.”

Creating eye candy effects, sweeping movements across the stage with tungsten flashes, and tapping into the colour temperature on Martin RUSH CTs as a substitute for blinder effects were handy tools in Nicholson’s arsenal.

“It was cool to see how my lighting design affected the audience. It’s funny how a strobe can get an audience going, it was interesting to witness that in real-time. There also were times I missed the beat, having not heard many of the songs before, but I was able to dust myself off and go again.”

Stage Manager, Sam Wilkinson’s main role was getting bands on and off stage, running up and down several steps a minute, and being the ‘go-to’ liaison between the production team, SXSW and the entire backstage operation.

“Cedar Street provided an infinitely better experience – from the basic on and off stage workflow, right through to the VIP areas for bands to network off stage and not having to fight for toilet access,” he commented.

Most artists on the 70-strong line-up were originally scheduled to play the BME stage in 2020, however, with a pandemic and conflicting

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commitments playing havoc to scheduling, the latest iteration saw a bill of talent with two extra years of lead time to improve their stock.

Established acts such as Self Esteem, Working Mens Club, Nova Twins, Wet Leg and Yard Act, among many others, shared the stage with up and coming talent such as Sinead O’Brien, Los Bitchos, Poppy Ajudha, Penelope Iles, and WH Lung.

“The professionalism of the line-up this year with big name artists made it much easier for us to advance, as they’re a well-oiled machine who are used to playing bigger stages and have more experience and rock up with more flight cases than our entire production,” Forbes added. “Fundamentally, it was great to put on a production with no COVID-19 restrictions.”

Wilkinson highlighted that for many of the acts involved, BME provides their first foray into performing on US soil.

“One of the great things about BME is holding artist’s hands through their first US show, and what will be the start of many more to come. You witness them develop from a shy group or individual to stage veteran over the course of a few sets,” he added.

“We all mutually agreed among the crew and organisers that the calibre was so high this year that it is almost impossible to pick our favourite sets. We were dealing with much more accomplished artists than we have before.”

The British Music Embassy is supported

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Trade, DIY, Kilimanjaro Live, MMF Accelerator, PPL, Production Park, PRS For Music, PRS Foundation and powered by Marshall, Allen & Heath, Ashdown Meters, Martin by Harman, Shure, Ivison Guitars, Lowden Guitars, Production Park and Renkus-Heinz.

“I can’t thank our supporters enough for stepping up and helping out to make this the best year yet,” Forbes remarked.

“We’ve wanted to incorporate a student element in this production for a long time but the size of the past venue restricted adding another person into the mix. Now we’ve been afforded the opportunity to bring in a lighting designer from Backstage Academy, and it couldn’t have gone better,” he enthused, sharing his plans to replicate this experiment on an annual basis.

“We’ve spoken with the Backstage Academy team to ensure this production is far more student-led in the future. By its very nature, the BME stage showcases the next generation of young exciting British talent in the US, and that should go far beyond the stage, and the workforce should be reflective of in my opinion.

Providing any student the opportunity to come and learn in such a dynamic environment where they can shadow professionals is crucial to their career progression,” he concluded.

“Watch this space for next year!” www.sxsw.com www.thebritishmusicembassy.com www.productionpark.co.uk www.backstage-academy.co.uk

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SLOWTHAI: HELL IS HOME @ O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON Northampton’s favourite son returns to the stage – or moreover, a makeshift rooftop – backed by production values built on the dynamic and industrious nature of creative crew.

Words: Jacob Waite Photos: George Muncey and Lewis James

Following the release of his widely-acclaimed second studio album, TYRON – and hot on the heels of THE SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO TOUR in support of small venues post-lockdown – slowthai and his production crew commenced a countrywide campaign in March, wrapping up with two back-to-back, sold-out headline shows at O2 Academy Brixton, whereby ‘creative integrity was at the forefront’ of production values, as TPi discovers.

Tasked with telling the story of TYRON on stage was Stage Designer / Creative Director, Lewis James, who collaborated with slowthai and his Manager, Lewis Rest, to curate stage and production design, show scripting, and video direction.

The resulting design saw the artist perform the majority of the show perched atop a figurative roof and chimney of a house, which doubled to create a ‘soft box’, while a stream of video content, measured lighting, and pyrotechnics – including fire cannons and hazers – created an atmospheric, sensory assault befitting a ‘nightmare’ narrative, constructed by its architects.

“The show’s narrative is meant to portray a sense of a nightmare, feelings of being trapped

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and anxiety but also moments of bliss — the classic pitched roof house and chimney was a metaphor for a make-shift home that has been built inside of his mind, a symbolic shadow where all his thoughts and feelings live. The stark boxed frame that contains the stage gives the space a feeling of containment yet also a space of protection, a framework that would allow us to tell the feelings of the album,” James said, explaining the creative concept of the show.

Lighting Director, Michael Straun collaborated with James to enhance the visual experience, storytelling and narrative of the show. The duo employed a filmic, almost photographic style of lighting to complement the stage design. The majority of the lighting was based around the scenic structure of an illuminated soft box.

Referring to James as the ‘artist’ of the camp in addition to slowthai, Straun triggered flickering of lights around the soft box to create a naturalistic look based on the creative director’s drawings.

GLP JDC Lines came into full effect during some of the high-tempo tracks such as Drug Dealer, where the lighting units enhanced the energy of slowthai and the crowd. There

was no front truss installed by Colour Sound Experiment, at the behest of the design brief.

Instead, rows of GLP JDC Lines surrounded the top and bottom of the stage outside soft box framing encompassing slowthai, providing a “beautiful and extremely bright light” that played with the audience when the artist was no longer standing atop the figurative house.

“As a creative decision, we decided not to conventionally key light the artist,” Straun explained. “Instead, we focused on a silhouette look, using the soft box as a soft light. However, we did track slowthai’s movement on stage with a few Robe RoboSpot followspots on the balcony, as well as punches of colour and gobos to add texture to the front lighting.”

Spectra Flood Q40s were placed around fabric to backlight the interior of the box, with an upstage row of GLP impression X4 Bar 20s sat beneath the house, allowing Straun to uplight a Blackout-supplied gauze placed in front of the video wall. MA Lighting grandMA3s consoles, operating in MA2 mode, helped control the show.

For synchronisation, the show operated to timecode via a ShowKontrol system, which converted timecode from CDJs to the lighting director, as well as triggering video.

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A digital model using Syncronorm Depence² was used to visualise most of the show before the crew arrived on site.

While the video and film for the show was shot in Northampton at a pre-shoot a few weeks before the opening tour date. “I think producing such an ambitious show in almost two days was a really tough challenge,” James said, praising the hard work and determination of the crew involved in fulfilling the brief.

“The entire production team did an excellent job at streamlining the process, while making sure creative integrity was at the forefront of discussion.”

UNCANNY, a London based design studio run by George Muncey and Elliot Elder, were brought onboard to provide video design and content in collaboration

with the creative team. “We had a day to capture everything we needed, which was a challenge, but George Muncey and Elliot Elder from UNCANNY, were able to film everything with relative ease and then design the videos into scenes for the show,” he recalled.

According to James, video, as is becoming the focal point of modern stage designs, was key to the aesthetic of the show. “The video was designed to echo thoughts inside slowthai’s mind as if it were an outside voice that peered through a giant letterbox to the audience,” James stated. “We wanted the show to feel filmic and tell a story, something which creates a space beyond the screen and use a bit of a ‘fourth wall’ – almost every visual on screen has a meaning, even if it isn’t apparent on first glance.”

Throughout the show slowthai, energetic and piercing in his delivery, peers through to the audience inside the frame.

“There’s a few moments where we suddenly see his portrait appear through the gauze smashing his head on the house or trying to break out of the screen, these scenes brought the entire concept

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together,” James said, enthusiastically highlighting some of his favourite moments of the production.

“Another great moment was when Deb Never joined the stage, slowthai sat nonchalantly on top of the chimney and Deb below the house with a mass of fog akin to clouds,” James pointed out. “A single cloud is then displayed on screen directly above the house and brings a sense of calmness and a different side to the stage.”

From FOH, Straun had the best vantage point to see a young, raucous crowd appreciate the artistic endeavours of slowthai and the stage design constructed by his touring crew, juxtaposed by swirling circles of mosh pits.

“What’s nice about this show is that it’s concept heavy, and alternative to what you expect from an artist like slowthai – a lot of shows in his wheelhouse don’t necessarily lean on this style of production but it really works,” he noted.

In addition to the perfection of show design, the safety of audiences at the almost 5,000-capacity venue was of paramount importance. “We want to make sure that we keep the crowd as safe as possible, especially when we’re coming back to quite a lot of staff turnover in some of these venues,” Production Manager, Josh Barnes said, having spent the

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best part of the COVID-19 pandemic working with the Tour Production Group (TPG) and examining industry working practices.

“There are small improvements every production team can make to be mindful of how we treat the venues, touring crew and the planet,” he continued. “I believe having a good open door policy and checking-in with the crew makes a big difference to the success of a show.”

With the crew striving to be more sustainable, they relied on All Access Staging’s ability to hinge their decks to create the rooftop set piece. Using standard 8ft by 4ft Versa Deck panels, a custom hinge was fitted to allow the team to create any angle on stage.

“There aren’t many artists that could put up with performing at a 17° angle,” James remarked. “I think any less of an angle and the apex wouldn’t have felt sharp enough for what we wanted to achieve.”

The Hell Is Home Tour team featured Artist Manager, Lewis Rest; Production Manager, Josh Barnes; Creative Director, Lewis James; Production Coordinator, Phoebe Millard; Tour Manager, Andy Picton; Stage Manager, Ian McCarthy; FOH Engineer, Gerry Parchment; Monitor Engineer, Doug Maddison; ShowKontrol Technician, Ryan Barnsley; Colour Sound Experiment Lighting Account Handler,

Alex Ryan; Video Account Handler, Paul Gilzene and Crew Boss, Jon Ricketts; Blackout Director, Kevin Monks; All Access Staging Carpenter, Kay Ramnikkumar; SSE Audio Systems Engineer, Tom Woolsey.

“It was great to get back out there and load a show into O2 Brixton Academy again, especially with such a passionate artist and audience in tow – I’m really glad that the artist enjoyed and embraced the unique stage design and used it to his full advantage,” Barnes concluded. “All of our suppliers – Colour Sound Experiment, Blackout, All Access Staging, Dynamite FX and SSE Audio – were accommodating and flexible to make sure that we could meet the needs of this design.”

For James, watching the show take flight was more meaningful knowing that much of the audience hadn’t heard this music live before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I feel like we are now just about getting to some sense of ‘normality’,” James concluded. www.slowthai.com www.lewisjames.com www.michaelstraun.com www.uncanny.services www.coloursound.com www.blackout.co.uk www.allaccessuk.com www.dynamitefx.com

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ROYAL BLOOD OPENS THE DOORS TO SWANSEA ARENA Following the release of Typhoons, Royal Blood and their long-standing touring team kick off their latest touring campaign at Ambassador Theatre Group’s brand-new, gold-clad Swansea Arena.

Words: Jacob Waite Photos: Joe Carter

Swansea Arena, operated by Ambassador Theatre Group, hosted its first live music act and large-scale production on 19 March 2022 when Royal Blood and their tight-knit touring crew descended on the new 3,500-capacity, multipurpose arena – in support of the band’s third studio album, Typhoons.

Gilded with a wraparound LED screen made up of approximately 97,500 LED lights, Swansea Arena is primed to host upwards of 160 performances across music, comedy, esports, sport and conferences – bringing an additional 230,000 visitors a year to the city, and generating hundreds of full-time direct and indirect jobs in Swansea.

Keith Powles, Head of Technical at Swansea Arena – who has spent most of his working life as an engineer outside of the city – picked up the story: “This is a huge coup for Swansea,” he began, beaming with pride. “The fact that there is now infrastructure and the opportunity to work in the live events sector on my doorstep is incredible. Swansea has never really been on the touring circuit – if an act comes to the Southwest, they typically visit either Bristol or Cardiff – so, seeing artists like Royal Blood coming into the city gives the next generation something to aspire to.”

Production Designer, Sam O’Riordan, like most of the crew involved in Royal Blood’s live shows, has been with the band for the long haul. “When I started working with them, we were putting a floor package together to take out with a FOH engineer around the pub circuit, so it’s been nice to see the growth of the band and production – from pub audiences right through to festivals, and a hometown show at London’s O2 arena,” he reminisced, speaking to TPi as the dust settled on a cyclonic first show.

“This design was exciting because they’ve got an entire catalogue of music now, which

spans pop-rock to disco, whereas in the early days, I only had a handful of songs to create looks for,” he added. “Their output over the past eight years has been nothing short of impressive, and it’s great to see the production design evolve at a similar rate.”

O’Riordan explained the ‘organic’ design process of the band’s live output, which follows the release of each album. “When they wrap up an album, we casually begin discussing ideas for the next live campaign. Often ideas can take an avenue of their own, or fall by the wayside, so it’s nice to have that organic creative process,” he detailed.

“The idea for this campaign was born out of the album title, Typhoons. The band wanted to play among a typhoon, so the easiest way to create this from my perspective was by encompassing the band in vertical light – thus came the idea of a flown, circular truss of Robe MegaPointes for them to play within.”

Some 89 MegaPointes were selected by O’Riordan to create a ‘typhoon of light’ in the centre of the rig, mid-air. A handful of Robe BMFL WashBeams and a RoboSpot camera system were dotted around the circumference of a secondary, outer circular truss, along with Molefay Light Two units, as well as a front truss to help spot the energetic band.

A curved LED back wall was joined by over 200 individual Martin by Harman VDO Sceptron 20 1000 linear LED strips located left and right of the screen.

“The nice thing about this campaign is because the band’s newer material is pop-rock and somewhat disco influenced, particularly on their latest record, it has allowed me to branch out from a usual spectrum of monochrome and add colour,” O’Riordan said, referencing colourful tracks such as like Limbo and Typhoons. “Little Monster and Figure It Out are

always good songs and definitely among my favourite looks in the show,” he added.

The floor package saw left and right lines of SGM Q-7s purposed for side light; Robert Juliat Dalias 862s units located at the foot of stage riser to uplight the band while performing, and two semicircles of GLP JDC1s – 26 situated on the outer bridge as backlight and 24 on the riser, used as frontlight.

The introduction of an extra keys player on stage, particularly useful for the discoinfluenced tracks on Typhoons, meant that musical experimentation was at the forefront of performance, with nothing performed to track.

“Everything has to be triggered live, which adds an extra level of creativity to the show design,” he stated. “The show isn’t constrained by the synchronisation of production.”

Case in point, video screens projected a gritty, monochrome live camera feed that was triggered and broadcast at points throughout the show, emphasising the live nature of the broadcast, with no edited or pre-recorded content synchronised with each track. “It’s refreshing to be involved in a production at this level with this ethos,” O’Riordan remarked.

O’Riordan collaborated with Video Director, Dylan Etherington and the VSS team to unify the visual departments, colourising the camera feeds, crushing the blacks and contrasts to match the screens with song designs.

“Although the feed was live, we didn’t want it to look like we just put a video screen at the back; we wanted to unify the colour of the songs and palettes and camera feeds by colourising and filtering the feeds tied into our cueing, so we would have black and white versus, a chorus that was crimson red – all of which were triggered by a disguise media server, manipulating the camera feed,” O’Riordan explained.

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EVENT FOCUS

Each song was cue stacked on Lighting Operator, Freddie Meunier’s MA Lighting grandMA3, and each part of the arrangement had a specific look programmed to accommodate the setlist – allowing Meunier to emphasise certain hits, without compromising the structure of the lighting design, despite a sporadic extension of outro or chorus.

“The band don’t often stick to a set song piece; there’s an arrangement, but they’ll repeat or extend an outro – nothing is orchestrated or rehearsed,” O’Riordan underlined. “Everything is live.” With no production rehearsals ahead of the opening show, O’Riordan used WYSIWYG and Vectorworks to pre-visualise the show.

“We spent all night taking our programming from previs to real life. Thankfully, despite the nerves, the show went well.”

Undoubtedly, the biggest technical challenge of this campaign was the fact that nobody had seen the rig until the first build day at Swansea Arena.

“To think that was only a few hours before the first show is mind-blowing, but I was over the moon with the support from our vendors, TSL Lighting and VSS,” O’Riordan said, praising the hard work of the entire crew. “I’ve never seen a stage so clean. Their cable routing, planning, picks, specifically, how they cabled the Sceptrons and runs, was immaculate and accurate to the plots provided. I couldn’t have asked for a better collection of vendors or team members – everyone was at the top of their

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game. The fact they were loading into a venue for a show the following day was outstanding.”

The Royal Blood – Typhoons visual touring team featured Production Manager, George Doherty; Tour Manager, Steve Chapman; Production Designer, Sam O’Riordan; Lighting Operator, Freddie Meunier; Lighting Crew Chief, Tom Hill; Video Crew Chief, Steve Clarisse; Stage Manager, Darren Clark; TSL Managing Director, Sam Tamplin and Account Handler, James Davies; VSS Managing Director, Adrian Offord and Account Handler, Pat Dore; Video Director, Dylan Etherington; Media Server Programmer, Josh Wood.

O’Riordan described his and Doherty’s ‘amazing’ personal and professional journey with the band and crew, which culminated at London’s O2 arena.

“The O2 was a special moment for us,” he said. “Although we’ve played to that scale of crowd before, to perform in front of a home crowd was special – especially with TSL Lighting along for the ride, who [Production Manager] George Doherty and I began our careers with 15 years ago.” However, following the O2 date, Royal Blood rescheduled their remaining UK shows, plus their gigs in Dublin and Paris, after Mike Kerr contracted COVID-19.

“Within a week, the dates were rescheduled and the band were back on the road demonstrating the speed in which artists and production personnel can adapt to the landscape of live shows post-lockdown,” O’Riordan pointed out.

Production Manager, George Doherty shared his thoughts on the production. “I have to thank our vendors who not only put together a fantastic show with no production rehearsals, but got the show back out on the road with only a week’s notice for the reschedules. It was also a pleasure to be involved in the first full scale production in Swansea Arena. The entire team was fantastic and we look forward to returning in the future.”

Royal Blood was the opening live music show in a 2022 season during which Swansea Arena audiences can expect to see Bill Bailey, Rob Beckett, and Katherine Ryan, as well as debut Swansea shows from Alice Cooper and The Cult, Fontaines D.C. and the Kaiser Chiefs, among others.

Reflecting on the landmark experience, Powles said: “It is weird to say how such a large event can be a test for the Arena, but that’s what it was. There was a lot of planning and forethought involved. As much as it was the biggest show that we’ve put on to date, at the same time, it was as much of a test for us moving forward and we’ve already adapted into future shows. The entire Swansea Arena team was phenomenal and we’re excited for what the future holds.” www.swansea-arena.co.uk www.royalbloodband.com www.affectivedesign.co.uk www.tsllighting.com www.videoscreenservices.com

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

STORMZY: HEAVY IS THE HEAD TOUR As the much-anticipated Heavy Is The Head tour is finally revealed some two-and-a-half years later than planned, TPi pays a visit to the 02 arena to see what the biggest name in Grime can bring on the second of three nights in his hometown venue.

Words: Stew Hume Photos: Timmsy

PRODUCTION PROFILE

When all touring plans came to an abrupt halt in 2020, most productions took one of two decisions: either carry on working, going into rehearsal spaces before inevitably mothballing productions until live events were permitted, or hold off until there was no shadow of a doubt that these shows would happen. The latter option meant a tight turnaround, but if there is any touring family that is up to the challenge, it’s the dedicated Stormzy Crew.

As TPi sat in the office of Tour Manager and Tour Music Live Founder, Trevor Williams, he recalled how he and the core team pulled together a full arena show in just a couple of months, before moving into Production Park for rehearsals. With the initial show concept being agreed in late January and opening night on 13 March, this would have been a daunting timeline even with the touring community at full strength, but factor in supply issues and the risk of COVID-19, and the achievement of the #Merky team becomes even more impressive.

“The simple fact is that if we had put this show together in lockdown, I would have risked wasting a lot of money,” stated Williams plainly.

“My core responsibility is the budget, so we made the decision to hold off making any serious plans.” Williams was keen to emphasise the strong relationship the team had built up over the years with suppliers, who were all in a holding pattern until the designs came through

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in early 2022. For this run, the team called upon several long-time collaborators including Neg Earth, SSE Audio, Video Design, Eat Your Heart Out, Mission Control, Pyrojunkies (now part of ER Productions), Phoenix Bussing, and Stagetruck. Also on board this time round was TAIT, which supplied staging and automation.

This was the second consecutive arena show that Williams and the wider Tour Music Live family oversaw after Dave’s headline arena tour. The likes of designers, Amber Rimell and Bronski of TAWBOX, along with Production Office staff such as Production Coordinator, Izzy Lo Iacono had jumped straight from that headline tour to rehearsals for Stormzy – no mean feat, especially after such a long time away due to the pandemic.

BUILDING BLOCKS In the formative stages of this production, Williams brought together TAWBOX’s Rimell and Bronski, Lighting Designer, Tim Routledge as well as newcomer, Ric Lipson from STUFISH Entertainment Architects. “We hit up Ric directly and straight away he was on board,” outlined Williams.

What followed was a flurry of activity as the new creative team began to mock up the initial ideas that would eventually become the reinvention of the Heavy Is the Head tour.

Speaking backstage at the O2, Rimell and Bronski outlined those initial conversations.

“Stormzy explained to us that he wanted to be an artist that could still be touring in 20 years and that he wanted a show that would start him on this path,” stated Rimell. The creative duo explained that within the stage design, they wanted to make it clear that despite Stormzy’s success over the past few years, he was very much still a man of the people. “It’s why at the top of the show we have Stormzy on this elevated lift, which then descends to the audience and he can then perform on the thrust that goes right into the crowd,” explained Rimell. “There was also a theme of balance that we explored throughout the show,” added Bronksi. “It’s something that we discussed with Ric in our early conversations, and you see hints of it throughout the show from the symmetry of the thrust to the automated scales Stormzy performs on.”

Lipson explained how he approached this broad theme of balance on the set design. “The theme was echoed into the show in a few ways with the idea that all parts of the design would somehow be in two parts to balance each other – either physically or conceptually,” he stated.

“From the main LED screen that splits in two at the top of the show to the automated crown set piece that was in two parts then during the show splits apart to form an ‘S’.”

Everyone in the design conversation concurred that due to Stormzy’s energy on stage, it was important to give him room to

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

move around, creating what Bronski referred to as a “playground”. Lipson added: “We also wanted to make sure we could establish Stormzy in different proximities to the audience to play with moments where he was more regal balanced against times when he was close to the audience at the end of the long thrust stage as a man of the people.”

Lipson highlighted another of his goals with the design: “It was important to use light, smoke, and pyrotechnics in a way that blurred the boundary between the audience and the stage.” The stage was deliberately created as three islands – with the band on the upstage island, a main stage, and finally the thrust.

“They are linked only by thin bridges,” stated Lipson. “The gaps around the stages are filled like moats with lighting and smoke. This makes the balance of the performance shift between the high-level staging and the more intimate thrust stage immersed in the audience.”

Lipson gave his thoughts on his first time collaborating with the Stormzy creative team.

“We at STUFISH had wanted to collaborate with TAWBOX for a while and we’re big fans of Stormzy. The fact that we managed to pull off such an amazing spectacle in such a

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short timeline was a real highlight. After the pandemic, it was great to come together to make a show again and it be such a special one to all involved.”

PRODUCTION CHALLENGES With design concepts signed off, then came the challenge of both fabricating the set and working out the logistics of getting the show on the road. In his production office surrounded by a wall of computer monitors, Production Manager, Joel Stanley walked TPi through the months leading up to the first show.

“When I saw the original concepts, I thought the show looked amazing – it was big and bold,” began the PM. “That said, I knew straight away that to pull this show off, we were going to need a pre-rig in each venue. Not only that, but we needed a lot of back and forth with TAIT to rework some of the designs due to stock issues of various materials.”

STUFISH worked with TAIT and Blackfriars Staging for the sculptural elements to see what was available at such a late stage to achieve the various scenic and kinetic moments of the show. “We worked hard to maintain the key concepts, but had to rework some as the reality

of supply chain and equipment availability was such a factor,” Lipson said. “We worked consistently, making tweaks to the design to allow fabrication to be possible, or health and safety to sign off.”

Despite these initial teething issues, TAIT delivered this imposing set, along with the other technical suppliers to load-in to the production’s first day of rehearsals at Production Park.

“I had all my core crew pencilled in, but just like supply issues, crew availability has been a challenge on this run,” explained Stanley.

Not only that, but many crew had to withdraw from rehearsals and even the tour after testing positive for COVID-19. “I tested positive during rehearsals,” stated Stanley, who then had to work remotely while the final touches were being made to the show. “We are losing roughly a crew member a day while out on the road. My priority as a PM is to keep my crew and artist safe, so our policy is anyone who tests positive is replaced.”

He went on to explain that the situation became more complicated as different suppliers also have different policies. “It is something to keep in mind when crewing a

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

show to have options, so if you lose someone the show can go on. The issue is that even with my contacts, so many people have left the industry in the past two years. Despite these challenges, we’ve got this show to a place where we can keep going whatever happens. We’re not overstaffed, but we can deal with multiple dropouts and we have crew to fill their shoes.”

SETTING THE STAGE Giving TAIT’s perspective on the show was Ben Brooks. Providing both the stage set along with the entire automation package, the TAIT team certainly had a lot to contend with in a short time frame. “Due to the state of the world and supply issues, we led the designers down a route of achieving the looks they were looking for while making use of our reconfigurable inventory,” stated Brooks. “It was a fantastic collaboration and everyone from the designers to the other vendors was incredibly flexible.”

Brooks went on to explain that when it comes to creating shows of this scale, the team at TAIT is still learning how to work in this new world. “There are so many items that prior to 2020 you’d be able to get on next-day delivery, which people now don’t have in stock. We are still able to get hold of materials, but you have

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to search much harder than you used to.” There were also numerous automotive elements that TAIT supplied – from the giant scales, which had Stormzy and his DJ perform on during Wiley Flow, to the lift that allowed the artist to descend to the stage at the top of the show.

“We used our Kinesys Apex system for all the automotive elements,” explained Brooks, giving special mention to Automation Operator, Alex Burrows, who oversaw all the movements.

LIGHTING CONCEPTS Holding down the light show on the road was James Scott. The Lighting Director from Suluko once again joined forces with Lighting Designer, Tim Routledge to create and deliver the highenergy visual spectacular for this tour.

“This tour started with a stripped-back underplay European run in early 2020; after lockdown, the rest of the tour was postponed and we are finally back on the road with this brand new design,” reminisced Scott. In fact, looking down at Scott’s MA Lighting grandMA2 lock screen image showed the long road of this show design, with the years 2020 and 2021 crossed out on the console.

Routledge was not on site at the O2 when TPi paid a visit as he was overseeing the

Concert for Ukraine, but we got to catch up after the show. He started by describing the tight deadline for this production. “While shows with longer deadlines give me the ability to focus on something and workshop ideas, the adrenaline and pace of a last-minute show focuses the mind and maintains momentum,” he stated.

“Solving issues as they arise as we drew and created the show over Zoom between TAWBOX, STUFISH and myself was fun. I have a shorthand when talking to TAWBOX, and Ric works at such a pace and enthusiasm that it didn’t stop us from creating in the timeframe. The only issues are what is feasible to be built in time.”

Having worked with Stormzy for several years, Routledge was keen to build on the style he and his lighting team had been cultivating in previous projects. “It’s all about finding the hard moments and counterbalancing them with the subtler more theatrical ones,” he explained.

“Stormzy is continuing to evolve as an artist and so is how I approach his show. The opening of the show is a two-minute visual and audio assault with just lights and sound – no video.

We were presenting Stormzy on a lift behind a transparent screen and we didn’t want the 15,000 camera lights in the audience to reveal him early being clipped in. The full-on assault

of lights was totally visceral and stopped anyone seeing past the wall of lights and smoke burning their retinas.”

One other trick up the visual department’s sleeve was the abundance of strobes on the rig. “We’ve got 130 in total and they’re all necessary,” joked Scott. The strobe doing the main heavy lifting is the SGM Q-8, which is “blinding and rich with colour”, according to Scott. “If you need a non-moving strobe fixture, they’re a great option.”

There were also SGM G-7 Beams fitted on the automated crown, which acted as a halo above centre stage and descended during the song Crown. In the rear of the stage were 80 Martin by Harman MAC Auras behind the ROE Visual Vanish LED Wall, with bold beam looks coming from vertical lines of the Vari-Lite VL6000s. Cross-light was provided by Robe BMFL Blades.

“We also have TMB Solaris Flares underneath the stage for some ‘smokey underlit’ looks,” continued Scott. “For key light, we are using Ayrton Dominos with Robe Forte working in conjunction with the RoboSpot.”

The eight RoboSpot controllers travel within a touring cart that is kept within the TAIT

rolling stage to save arena floor space. As with set construction, supply issues were also a consideration when creating the design for this show, as Routledge explained. “I embraced the restriction and we used some fixtures that I hadn’t used to create a different look.”

The LD described the new SGM Q-8 strobe as “stunning”. He added: “It’s bright and the opportunities for the various pixel effects and the white chip are phenomenal. They are small enough to mount inside the crown edge to edge as well as portrait mode inside the two moats to flood the stage with volumetric light through smoke on the floor.”

He also explained his choice of the SGM G-7 BeaSt and Vari-Lite VL6000. “I wanted to have a chunky beam look for this show,” he noted.

“They look similar, but the SGM has some more tricks and was a strong fat beam I wanted for the crown.”

The one fixture that was non-negotiable was the choice of followspot on the Robospot system. “I wanted to do more colour effects and needed maximum punch, so the new Robe Forte – which, to me, is best in class – is simply the strongest standard throw remote follow spot out there.” In amongst the standard

moving heads on the rig, the visual team also utilised numerous rechargeable fixtures.

“We’ve got the new Astera PixleBrick, which is amazingly bright for its small size,” stated Scott, who pointed out the small fixtures, which were placed around the automated scales in the roof. “We only have to charge them every four shows and they ride within the set piece between stops.”

On the “magic carpet” gag at the top of the show when Stormzy descends to the stage, the lighting team used the Astera AX2 PixelBar. “Like the PixleBrick, they only need to be charged at the end of the week. We just have to remember to turn them off before they go in the truck,” he laughed.

“For me, the highlight of the show was when we come out of the beautiful and interstitial video for Don’t Forget To Breathe, which is harshly interrupted by the scales flying in and Wiley Flo taking over,” stated Routledge, “It’s hard, dirty and totally in your face with these objects appearing from nowhere and flying down at speed above the audience – they look terrifying when you look up.”

Routledge was keen to avoid interrupting the look with followspots – “so, both DJ Tiny

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

and Stormzy were lit with pixel bricks integrated into the scales and a menacing top light so the audience were not blinded by spots crossing through the flying section and they got a full 360° look at this stunning start to Act 3.”

VIDEO WORLD Moving our attention backstage to video world, TPi grabbed some time with Video Director, Mark Davies and disguise Programmer and Operator, Luke Collins. With kit coming courtesy of Video Design, the overall LED video package included a large surface that split in the middle made up of ROE Visual Vanish V8 along with an automated video bar – referred to as “the slab” by the video team – that tracked up and down, which was also made of V8. There was also an LED floor featuring ROE Visual Black Marble BM4.

“Backstage, we have a pair of disguise 4X4 Pro Media Servers along with a dedicated Notch Machine, which is used for a specific song where live content is inserted into the rear screen content,” stated Collins. “The rest of the content on the screen is pre-rendered visuals.”

Content for the left and right IMAG screens that flanked the main stage was untreated, with Director Davies making use of the seven cameras, including three manned Sony HXRMC2500 and four CamBall 3 XM Remote PTZ

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operated by two techs backstage. Davies was one of the many crew who had also been working on Dave’s tour. Although two of the biggest names in the genre, Davies talked about his different approach to the two artists.

“Stormzy has so much energy,” he enthused.

“He spends the whole gig running around. That energy rubs off on everyone in the crew.”

He admitted that the constant movement could lead to some tricky directing. “We have our work cut out keeping up with him. The joy of this show is the amazing visuals we have on the rear screen, which I’m able to make use of in my IMAG cut with the content creating a halo effect around Stormzy.”

For two of the three O2 arena shows, the nine-strong video team expanded to 17 to record the show for archiving purposes, with Video Design providing an additional arsenal of cameras including two jibs, a long lens and a wide-angle lens.

SFX Providing Stormzy’s visual department with a range of special effects once again was Pyrojunkies, which now falls under the ER Productions umbrella. SFX Crew Chief, Liam Mace walked TPi through the various effects.

“Dan Mott and the team from Pyrojunkies worked directly with the creatives in the lead up

Tour Manager and Tour Music Live Founder, Trevor Williams; Production Manager, Joel Stanley; SFX Crew Chief, Liam Mace; Monitor Engineer, Raphael Williams; Audio Crew Chief, Rich Kemp and FOH Engineer, Luigi Buccarello.

PRODUCTION PROFILE

to the rehearsals and then I was brought in just prior to moving into LS-Live to be their man on the ground,” explained Mace. He and the rest of the team – made up of Myles Wynne Pedder and Asher Heigham – had a sizeable rig of over 150 pyrotechnics effects from 21 wireless positions located across the downstage edge and five positions down the thrust. There was also a 40ft pyrotechnic waterfall from the ‘slab’ automated truss. Flooding the thrust and moat with smoke, the team used 12 Look Solutions Viper Deluxes and six MagicFX Stadium Shot Cannons firing confetti to close the show.

“As much as Stormzy moves about the stage, he’s incredibly aware of what is going on around him and we spent a great deal of time during rehearsals making sure we got all the specific gag moments nailed,” stated Mace.

With safety being the utmost priority, the SFX team was all spotting throughout the show, with Mace’s hand on a dead man’s switch, so if he removed his hands, nothing would fire. “Even if he’s slightly too close, the effect won’t happen.”

Perhaps one of the most unexpected byproducts of COVID-19 is that multiple venues now implement more stringent airflow protocols into venues, which has a devastating effect on haze and smoke machines. “It’s been a real battle in certain venues,” admitted Mace.

“Here at the O2, there is a fair amount of wind coming across the stage, and we’ve often had

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to reconfigure the position of our machines so we can still achieve the desired look.” The smoke machines were positioned in the moat in the upstage area as well as in the grate at the end of the thrust. “As much as it can be a battle, safety and COVID-19 protocols are always the priority,” he asserted.

AUDIO CLARITY Next stop for TPi was the audio team – specifically Monitor Engineer, Raphael Williams; FOH Engineer, Luigi Buccarello; and Audio Crew Chief, Rich Kemp. With a full L-Acoustics system provided by SSE Audio, the team talked through some of the highlights of the system.

“We were working on the template we had from the Reading and Leeds shows from last year,” began Williams. “We’ve had a few band changes and preferences can change but, on the whole, it was working from that framework.”

For the tour, Williams upgraded from a DiGiCo SD5 to an SD7 Quantum. “It’s a bigger beast, which I was keen to have for this one for the power and speed.” The one unchanged part of Williams’ setup was his UAD-2 PlugIns. “Having my UAD setup at the tail end of everyone’s mix allows me to give that extra sprinkle, which is very comforting.”

Many of the main pieces of kit the audio team had used over the years were back for this tour, although some models of microphones

have now changed names, with certain lines being discontinued. For microphones, the Sennheiser Digital 6000 Series with the new 435 Head was used for everyone from Stormzy to the backing singers. As for IEMs, Williams’ brand of choice was Ultimate Ears, specifically the UE11s. “One of the things that we’ve learned through the years is the amount of equipment he goes through on stage,” explained the monitor engineer. “He’s very impactful on equipment and he sweats a lot on stage, so it’s now standard practice to change the microphone during the show. Also, we no longer have anything attached to his body, with wireless packs hovering off him.”

Moving the conversation to FOH, Buccarello talked about his mix. “For this run, I’m on an Avid S6L with a Waves rack. Although I’m using mostly onboard effects, I have a few go-to effects such as the CLA 76 and the C6,” said the FOH Engineer. “I had created the show file from scratch, five days prior to our Reading and Leeds performances last year,” he explained, adding that he then started working on the file when he was given the green light for the tour.

Although the L-Acoustics system was already in place prior to Buccarello joining the camp, it would have been his choice. “It’s incredibly reliable and I love it,” he enthused.

Audio Crew Chief, Rich Kemp described the L-Acoustics PA, which comprised a main hang

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

of 14 K1s and four K2s per side, with side hangs of four K1s and 12 K2s. For certain venues, including London and Manchester, a rear hang of KARA was deployed. For subs, there were eight flown K1SBs per side with 12 KS28 per side on the ground. “We have a large thrust that goes out into the audience in front of the PA, so we set up the PA so that it avoids as much of the thrust as possible, specified with the K2s,” he noted. “On the whole, though, I’m finding more and more that these large PA systems are becoming less susceptible to feedback issues as long as your gain structures are correct.”

Williams gave his two cents on having one of the main performance areas out in front of the PA. “We were finding that there was bleed from the PA down the microphones, which would affect Stormzy’s tempo and timing. We ended up turning down the mic in his IEMs so he heard less of himself and he was able to maintain tempo better.”

To close, Williams talked about the two most important faders on his desk during the show – Stormzy’s vocal mic and the ambient audience mics. Speaking about the latter, Williams said: “I have six ambient mics arranged in pairs and the top, middle and bottom on the thrust. The ones closer to the stage get the whispers, the middle gets the detail, and the top end gets the whole room. All this means that Stormzy doesn’t need

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to take out his IEMs to feel part of the room and engage with the crowd. I ride that mix during the show depending on what’s going on.”

PLAYBACK DUTIES Holding down playback responsibilities was Max Truphet. “I’m looking after all the backing tracks and timecode for the visual team,” he stated. Joining the first European leg of the tour in 2020, the Playback Tech was kept busy with the camp during a number of streamed performances throughout lockdown as well as the artist’s headline performances at Reading and Leeds.

“The first thing I do on a show like this is work on the stems, which in this case come from our Musical Director, Kojo Samuel,” he revealed. “I see playback as the bridge between the band and Stormzy as well as the FOH and visual side. On a show of this size, I’m keeping an eye on timecode and constantly updating any references if there are any changes.

The Playback Technician opted for Ableton, which was run on two MacBooks with a fully redundant system to ensure the show carried on. “Kojo did a great job giving me all the individual stems in their simplest form, which in turn makes it easier for both Raphael and Luigi to treat the playback more as a band they can mix rather than a simple stereo backtrack.”

#MERKY Two-and-a-half years is a long time in the world of music, but the crowd reaction to Stormzy’s latest tour shows that the artist is still riding the wave from his Glastonbury 2019 performance.

Even after such a long time, ticket holders were still as keen to see what he had to offer. “Every night on this tour, I walk out about an hour after doors and the buzz of the audience is incredible,” concluded Williams.

That ‘buzz’ was palpable in London and if the reviews are anything to go by, it was the same case up and down the county. A true flagship production showcase, which proves that even after this lengthy hiatus, the UK live events industry can very much still awe and amaze. www.stormzy.com www.tourmusiclive.com www.productionvalue.co www.tawbox.com www.stufish.com www.timroutledge.co.uk www.suluko.com www.taittowers.com www.negearth.co.uk www.video-design.co.uk www.sseaudiogroup.com/Group www.pyrojunkies.com www.phoenix-bussing.co.uk www.stagetruck.com

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

GENESIS: THE LAST DOMINO? Reuniting on stage for the first time since 2007, Genesis’s latest tour is a no-holds-barred live spectacular that simultaneously pays homage to the past while embracing the latest and greatest in touring technology.

Words: Stew Hume Photos: Manfred Vogel

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Having first been discussed in 2019, The Last Domino? tour has been a long time coming.

With rehearsals halted due to the pandemic, hard work behind the scenes during lockdown meant that the show was one of the first out of the gate when live performances were allowed to restart. Sadly, COVID-19 reared its ugly head once again and put the breaks on the last few dates of the UK tour, but with unfinished business in the UK, the trio of Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks reunited on stage for Genesis fans again in 2022 for a three-day residency at the O2 Arena. TPi had been following this story for a while, having first met the team behind the production at Manchester’s AO Arena last year, and got to learn how this certified heritage band once again broke boundaries in live production.

LAND OF CONFUSION When the production first hit the road in 2021, and with this being one of the first arena shows to tour the UK since March 2020, the Genesis camp could have been excused for keeping things simple when it came to scale. However, true to form, the reformed trio were keen to live up to their tradition of awe-inspiring productions. For the few that are unaware, the band have helped the development of the touring industry, being early investors in Vari-Lite – in fact, it was the band’s long-time Manager, Tony Smith, who coined the name.

And, yes, as you can imagine, a few of the company’s fixtures made their way onto the lighting rig. But more on that later...

TPi’s first stop was to speak to Production Manager, Howard Hopkins. Like many within the camp, Hopkins has several decades of service

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under the Genesis mast and has worked his way through the ranks. “I was never planning to get into this business,” he reminisced. “I was volunteering at an event in Austin, Texas and I met a gentleman called Morris Lyda – the band’s PM at the time. He liked the work I was doing at the event then next thing I knew, I was being taken out on tour with the band. That was in 1986.” Hopkins, like many others on the crew, has bounced between providing services for Genesis as well as Phil Collins’ solo tours.

The origins of The Last Domino? can be traced back to Collins’ last time out on the road.

“Our last outing with Phil spanned from 2017 to 2019 when we started doing some open-air gigs in Europe – Mike + The Mechanics joined us.” During these shows, Collins did a few Genesis songs with Mike Rutherford joining him on stage. “I think that is where the seed was formed,” mused the PM. The Last Domino? finally hit the road in September 2021, pushed back a year from its originally planned date. “COVID-19 shut everything down, but later in 2020 we still opted to go into production rehearsals,” he stated.

“The justification was that we didn’t want to wait to do rehearsals until this year as there would be a huge demand on studios. This way we could get everything prepared and be ready to hit the ground running when shows returned.”

The production brought in The Event Safety Shop (TESS) to create working protocols for the six-day rehearsal period, which involved regular PCR tests as well as remaining in a bubble for the duration. The production then brought these protocols out on the road. “We were also testing all local crew and security and, in a few cases, had to turn people away,”

stated the PM. Sadly, despite all these efforts, the tour was ultimately cut short, with one of the band contracting the virus – an illustration that despite all the due diligence, no method is 100% effective.

Away from the COVID conversation, TPi asked Hopkins what suppliers had been brought in for this grand reunion. “A lot of the companies we’ve got out with us were also on Phil’s last few outings as well as the last Genesis tour in 2007.” These included Neg Earth, providing lighting and rigging.

“Stronghold Productions then supplied our riggers – namely Head Rigger, Stephen Armstrong, with Mike Fowler and Tom Armstrong,” Hopkins confirmed.

Britannia Row Productions was brought on for audio, Matrix for Video, TRUCKINGBY Brian Yeardley, and CS UK. Also on the tour was WICREATIONS, which not only provided an impressive automation setup but also acted as the tour’s staging provider.

The band set their sights on the US after their UK campaign, with Freight Minds overseeing the mass transit of production across the Atlantic.

Hopkins praised the hard work of the others in his wider production team including: Tour Manager, Steve ‘Pud’ Jones; Tour Accountant, Uwe Schmid; Tour Security, Andy Simpson and Luke Warner; and Production Assistants, Michelle Pekrol and Liz Woolnough.

TURN IT ON AGAIN “When it comes to Genesis, as much as it’s about the music, their tours have always been about the enormity of their shows,” stated Hopkins. This wish for the big show has

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often meant utilising the latest and greatest technology and The Last Domino? was no exception. As the show moved through its various movements, the stage morphed in front of the audience’s eyes, with automated lighting trusses to a fully automated LED video wall. The production also attached moving lights to the rear of the 12 moving LED columns that made up the back wall to create more unique looks.

The duo responsible for this grand design was Patrick Woodroffe and Roland Greil of Woodroffe Bassett Design. Having sat down with the band and Manager Tony Smith, Woodroffe, the group’s long-time Creative Director, created the concept that incorporated all the ideas from the Genesis trio.

Operating the show on the road, Greil walked TPi through the highlights of the rig. “We started working on this back in 2019 with the goal of having it hit the road in Autumn of 2020, which obviously never happened,” outlined the LD. “But throughout 2020, we kept on working on the design and brought all the pieces together during a production rehearsal in LH2.”

Prior to the rehearsals, Greil and long-time Lighting Programmer, Marc Brunkhardt had a week in Neg Earth’s wysiwyg suite to finalise all the designs.

With all the COVID disruptions, Greil described what it was like to not have the traditional timetable of design, rehearsal, and tour. “We were lucky in that we had four production days before our first show in Birmingham. It was interesting to have such long gaps between our rehearsals and the tour beginning, but we took recordings and

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continued to make notes on what we could improve on in the interim.”

The LD went on to note some of the design goals. “The thing you have to remember is the legacy of Genesis,” he stated. “They were always one to redefine boundaries and push our industry, in particular investing in technology. As this is a landmark reunion, we wanted to push things again and do something that separates this from other shows.”

Both Greil and Woodroffe were aiming to create something modern that was versatile enough to produce many types of look. “Their back catalogue goes back to the early ’70s, so it was important to be able to have looks that matched some of these tracks,” stated Greil.

“We wanted to take the audience through a journey of different scenes and atmospheres, which meant it was all about transformation and metamorphosis, thinking of it more like theatre than a traditional live show.”

The LD went through some of the highlights of the lighting rig that made their vision come to life. “The fixture that we’ve put the most faith in is the Claypaky Scenius Unico, with 148 on the rig. We also have numerous Robe BMFLs and, of course, plenty of Vari-Lite VL65000 and VL6000 Beams. The VL65000s are providing us with some big wash looks from the floor, whereas the VL6000s are up in the rig providing some back followspots.”

Greil discussed some of the R&D that went into producing one of the more ‘out there’ design features – specifically fitting moving head fixtures to the back of the automated video wall. “We needed a fixture that was bright,

lightweight and could work well in this different configuration,” he explained. The fixture both he and Woodroffe landed on was the Ayrton Karif LT. In total, the team mounted 70 of the fixtures to the rear of the video screen panels.

Elsewhere on the rig, the visual team deployed a large number of GLP impression X4 Bar 20s for some more traditional looks, as well as substituting standard Molefays with TMB Solaris Flare Q+s for the all-important audience lighting. So important was this element of the design that the visual department included two audience trusses that were rigged in the middle of the venue. “This means we can integrate the entire audience into the overall look of the show and make the experience more immersive for the crowd,” stated Greil.

Another highlight for the LD was the Hungaro Flash T-Light Pro 85k – a strobe fixture he’d made use of during his last design with German metal icons, Rammstein. “I love these fixtures, and for a certain big strobe effect, there is no substitute.”

For a followspot system, Greil and Woodroffe opted to use a Follow-Me system, which was calibrated to 220 fixtures in the rig. However, due to the sheer amount of automation within the show, the designers had to work closely with the Follow-Me team to ensure that no matter where lights were in the physical space, they would still follow their marks. “In collaboration with WICREATIONS, which is providing the automation for this show, we are integrated via the PSN Stage Network, so wherever the pods move, the light beams will stay exactly where you want them.” This was

a big undertaking, although Greil reported how he was confident they would be able to make it work – in part thanks to the support from Gary Yates and his team from Follow-Me. At FOH there was a sea of MA Lighting grandMA2s that were all used by the visual department. Greil operated the show from a full size with another as a backup, with Lighting Tech, Tom Bailey using a grandMA2 Light to work on the show and jump on any issue that may occur, leaving Greil to keep his focus on the performance. Also on a grandMA2 desk was Ellie Clement, who was handling the media servers for the screens.

Completing the lighting team for the tour was Lighting Crew Chief Luke Radin, alongside Barry Branford, Neil Johnson, Matt Flood, Jim Mills, Danny Wiseman, Andy Thompson and Bianca Mastroianni.

THE CINEMA SHOW Continuing the video conversation, Clement walked through her workflow that funnelled into the impressive video setup. Having been part of the Not Dead Yet tour in 2019, she was brought

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and high resolution,” enthused Clement, emphasising the importance of lightness.

Pre-rendered content was created by Sam Pattinson and Gilles Maunsell from Treatment Studios. Throughout the show, the video team blended the content with live footage.

Responsible for cutting the show live was Darren Montague, Video Director. Having worked on Phil Collins’ The First Final Farewell tour as a pit camera operator, Montague soon cemented himself within the video department and the wider production, holding the titles of Video Crew Chief for Collins’ Not Dead Yet tour in 2017, before finally taking the Director role for this tour. “It’s a production that is highly respected within the industry and one I’m very proud to be a part of,” he enthused. “My brief for the IMAG from Patrick Woodroffe was to make it quite a classical screen cut,” continued the Director. “Classical in a way that the IMAG should represent what’s happening on stage.

In simple terms, if Tony Banks is playing a keyboard solo, we need to see it on the screen.”

With eight different cameras to choose from, there was no shortage of looks for

into this production in early 2020, just before the pandemic. With the extended hiatus from live events, the video setup saw significant rejigs to accommodate the expanding camera package, which included: a BlackMagic URSA Broadcast camera on a Canon DIGISUPER 90 Long Lens at FOH; three BlackMagic URSA Broadcast cameras, each on Blackcam Robotics track and dolly systems; two Camera Corps Q-Balls, also on a Blackcam Robotics track and dolly system; and a final two static BlackMagic Minicams mounted on the drum kit.

“We also moved from disguise GX2s to VX4s,” furthered Clement. “I have three VX4s that operate through a Lightware matrix into NovaStar 4K processors. I also have two MA Lighting grandMA2s to accommodate the way the lighting team wanted to run the show fluidly between lighting and video cues.”

Clement worked alongside the lighting team at FOH. “I usually operate from FOH; that is where I feel most comfortable and it’s easier to communicate with other departments.”

Unilumen X3 was used for the rear automated screen. “The screen is lightweight

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

Montague to create. In total, he had five camera operators looking after a range of Blackcam Robotics tower lift cameras.

“At FOH on the long lens, we have a very talented newcomer and all-rounder, Mike Flood.

The standard long lens at FOH is great for him as he’s a musician in his own right, meaning he was very quick to learn the sequences and parts of each song,” commented the Director.

In the pit there was Rod Williams and Gordon Davies, both on remotely operated tower lift cameras, both tracking, with Ant Barrett remotely operating the two Camera Corps Q-Balls both on separate Blackcam Robotics tracks stage left and stage right.

Gareth Manicom was manning a Blackmagic URSA Broadcast camera on the upstage track and dolly tower lift. “It wouldn’t be fair to mention the camera department without mentioning Ray Gwilliams who is the disguise Systems Designer and Technical Director,” stated Montague. “Ray brings so much touring experience and expertise, problem solving and racking the live cameras during the show.

Technically, he is the glue that bonds the department together and we’re lucky to have him.” Also aiding the team in the build of the LED screen were Technicians, Freddy Debaillie, Patrick Vansteelant and Daan Govaerts.

The Director went on to give his opinion on the Blackcam Robotic System used during the tour. “It’s a camera system which certainly engages both sides of the operator’s brain as it allows the camera to move on multiple axis and creates visually beautiful shots,” he commented. “It’s also a system which uses less space in the pit, allowing the barrier to be slightly closer to the stage and also, without an operator physically tracking with the camera, allows for a better viewing experience for

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the prime front-row seats and for the band.”

Another interesting aspect to the remote system was that for the show a bit of software had been written to allow both camera dollies on the pit track to ‘see’ each other, allowing the operators more time to concentrate on building the video cut rather than having to think about collisions – essentially creating a safe bubble around each camera.

FOLLOW YOU FOLLOW ME Another of the FOH crew playing a vital role in the look of the show was Xander Ballet of WICREATIONS. Prior to the show, TPi spoke to Ballet behind the large automated video screen to discuss all the moving parts up in the sky.

There were 23 moving objects in total, including 12 video screen sections, five lighting pods and six FX trusses – all of which was made possible with 56 automation hoists, with the entire stage having been pre-programmed and operated within WIMOTION software and controlled via its own control desk.

“I operate the show from FOH right next to Roland,” explained Ballet. As timecode was non-existent in the Genesis camp, Roland cued the moves, which were then operated manually

by Ballet.

The automation specialist spoke candidly about the intimidating nature of this show, especially as the production was coming into this one after such a long time away from the road. “We had a really good rehearsal period at the end of last year and then the long load-in we had in Birmingham made it begin to feel natural again,” he reflected.

This show also marked a sea change for WICREATIONS, which also provided the rolling stage for the show, rather than just automation.

The stage was 18m wide by 11m deep and

was flanked by two offstage band platforms as well as an upstage light shelf. The entire stage, complete with handrails and staircases, could then be packed away in 12 bespoke set carts with the goal of creating flexibility along with a quick and easy stage setup.

The entire project was a noteworthy one for WICREATIONS as it marked the first time the team could utilise the WIMOTION CLOUD COLLABORATION. In advance of coming onsite and during lockdown, the WI team collaborated in the WICLOUD with various expertise profiles, among them the video content designers and programmers, Ellie Clement and Ray Gwilliams.

While looking skyward to the roof, it only seemed right to speak to Head Rigger, Stephen Armstrong about dealing with this large production. “The major issue from a rigging point of view was the flown weight of the upstage scenic elements including the video and lighting wall,” he began. With a wall that weighs 25.5 tonnes and a mother grid that housed five automated lighting pods weighing 23 tonnes, this was far from a light production.

With all its elements, total flown show weight was 83 tonnes, hung from 134 rigging points – 48 of which were two-tonne SWL chain hoists.

“Most large arenas in the UK, Europe and North America have a roof load limit of 50 tonnes. With the addition of other flown elements, such as audio hangs, the show weight was over some building limits and so engineers were consulted and approved rigging plans that were put into place.”

For certain venues, there was no other option but to reduce the size of the mother grid and in some cases take out the automation elements of the rear wall.

Aiding Armstrong out on the road were fellow riggers, Mike Fowler and Tom McKay

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Armstrong. “All three of us worked on the Phil Collins’ shows previously so to keep ‘Team Rigging’ together was great.”

The production team; lighting crew; automation technicians; the audio team, the video department and the carpentry department.

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MUSICAL BOX Prior to the house lights coming down, the audiophiles in the audience could not miss the sheer number of black boxes hanging in the ceiling. “Yes, we get a few of those comments,” chuckled Audio System Designer, Ben Phillips, who outlined from the beginning of our conversation that although there were numerous boxes in the air, it had nothing to do with SPL – “It’s all about coverage.”

Phillips has worked several times with the Genesis camp, including back in 2017 with Phil Collins’ solo tour. “We’d been working on the design for this one for the best part of a year before we moved into LH2 last year.”

Although the plans had been in place for a long time, Phillips explained how they were very conscious of the current situation in the industry and understood how they would need to be flexible with the inventory. “We wanted to make it easier for everyone in what has been an incredibly difficult time.”

The PA in question – as is the preference of FOH Engineer, Michel Colin – was an L-Acoustics K1 system provided by Britannia Row Productions. The main and side hangs comprised 10 K1s and three K2s with a rear hang of 12 K2s. There was also a flown central hang of two A15s and nine KS28s. Fills comprised eight A15s, four A10s and four X8s.

On the floor, 24 KS28 subs were deployed.

There was also a notable delay setup, with both an inner and outer system boasting eight K1s and three KARAs, and an audience truss delay

of two A10s per side. “Production has always been very generous in terms of not limiting what we can have on the audio front,” enthused Phillips, adding that the audio quality has always been held in high regard in the Genesis production. “We want to ensure that each member of the audience has the best possible sonic experience.”

The designer pointed to the central hang as a case in point for this goal. “It’s a seated audience, but if you were just to have front fills, as soon as people stand up, the sound would only make it to the first few rows, so it was vital that we had that central hang for those in the middle of the floor.”

Despite aiming for the most coverage, Phillips explained that due to the size of the show, he had to be very conscious of weight over the stage. “There is a lot of video, lighting and automation, so for that reason, we needed to keep our weight as low as possible.”

One weight-saving solution was to fly the LA12X amplifiers and LS10 for each array.

“Traditional amp racks were quite heavy, but these days they are really light and by flying the amplifiers, it saved us weight rather than having long lengths of heavy speaker cables that are full of copper.”

Overseeing the mix on his trusted Avid S6L, Colin spoke about what it has been like helming the sound for the milestone tour. “I’ve worked with Phil Collins for nearly 20 years and even mixed for Genesis last time they were together in 2007,” he said. “This history meant they had confidence in my way of working and made it very smooth during the build up to this show.”

He went on to highlight some of the things he had to consider when mixing such a heritage

act. “You have to preserve the original songs.

In modern mixes, you find there is a lot more low end than the original vinyl, so you want to toe the line. That said, the core of the band is keyboard, guitar and drums, so in that sense it’s simple to get your head around.”

The Engineer gave his two cents on his control setup. “The S6L is a great console and very clear for me to use,” he explained. “I don’t have to work too hard to find various elements of the mix.” He also made use of numerous Waves plug-ins to enhance the mix.

“One of my go-tos has been the F6 FloatingBand Dynamic EQ.” he stated, emphasising his use of the S6L’s onboard EQ. “There’s no timecode on this show, so it’s all very much live,” he added. “Although it’s a very digital setup, it all has a very analogue feel.”

On the other end of the audio chain and manning the band’s on-stage mixes was Alain Schneebeli. The Monitor Engineer was also

using an Avid S6L and, like Colin, had amassed over two decades working with this wider production. “The setup on stage is similar to the last Genesis tour apart from being one fewer drum kit, two backing singers as well as an acoustic set in the middle of the show.”

The entire band was all on Shure PSM1000 with an additional d&b audiotechnik V-SUB for the drums. As for microphones, eight Shure Radio Axient Radio systems were deployed – four with sE Electronics and the others with DPA capsules.

To close, Schneebeli gave his final thoughts on the latest run. “It has not been too challenging, especially as I’m surrounded by a great team and everyone on stage is great.” Phillips agreed: “I’m eternally grateful to everyone involved. We were not all match fit after such a long time away, but Genesis has always been a band to make an impactful production and I think we held up that tradition.”

THE LAST DOMINO? For a tour that seemed to have all boxes ticked as far as COVID-19 protocols, it’s such a shame that the last few dates in the UK were cut short in 2021. Thankfully the band returned to finish what they had stated, showing off this stunning production for a multi-day residency at the 02 Arena after a jaunt across the Atlantic. The Last Domino? certainly kept the band’s reputation of stellar production alive. www.genesis-music.com www.woodroffebassett.com www.negearth.com www.annavalley.co.uk www.britanniarow.com www.treatmentstudio.com www.wicreations.com www.brianyeardley.com www.csuk.coach www.the-eventsafetyshop.co.uk www.freightminds.com

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AN EVENING WITH TEXAS AT LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL Armed with three decades of material, Texas and their crew return to the touring circuit with a two-hour set boasting acoustic storytelling, stand-out production and comedic audience interaction.

Words: Jacob Waite Photos: Lorraine Connor & TPi

To celebrate the release of the band’s 10th studio album, Hi, and three decades since the release of their debut album, Southside, Texas and a rejuvenated touring crew traversed the length and breadth of UK, Ireland and Europe. TPi joined the camp eight dates deep into the mammoth campaign at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall to unearth the crew’s stories, reveal the touring tech involved, and gauge a unique insight into life on road.

“Having a consistent three-month tour is a blessing after such a difficult few years,” Production Manager, Dan Woolfie began.

Having earned his stripes touring the world with Blossoms, Woolfie was parachuted in to oversee Texas’ latest campaign.

On arrival, he met with Tour Managers, Derek Birrell and Mickey McElhone; FOH Engineer, Alex McNutt; and Guitar Technician, ‘Kato’, to assemble a team featuring Monitor Engineer, Mike Prosser; Playback and MIDI Technician, Joe Crouch; Lighting Designer, Edd Croft of Mangata Collective; Adlib Lighting Technician, Tom Kaye; freelancer, Harry Merrison; and Adlib System Technician, Max Taylor.

Woolfie’s suppliers of choice included Texas regulars in Adlib, Stagetruck, Beat The Street, and Bittersweet Catering. “All of our suppliers are fantastic and have worked with the band on

several other campaigns. Getting the lighting and sound equipment from Adlib has been particularly helpful,” he stated. “We share a long history of working together and their support and technicians are great.”

The production – dubbed by Woolfie as something akin to “an evening with Texas” – saw the band support themselves with a show split in two parts. The first saw the band play the entirety of Southside with a stripped-back stage design interspersed with tales from the band. Following a brief intermission, the second half of the set was ramped up with three decades of deep cuts, hits and new material backed by increased production values.

The crew loaded into each venue at 9am, with lighting first, followed by staging, audio and backline. “There is no segregation between departments on this tour,” reported PM Woolfie, who doubled as a drum technician for Cat Myers. “Everyone pitches in to get the gig rolling and there’s a really good vibe on site. The entire crew is multiskilled, adaptable and can fill in if required.”

Operating with “common sense and caution” when it comes to mitigating the dangers of the COVID-19 pandemic, the crew were tested daily. According to the PM, the only real challenge was the economy of space at certain

venues, particularly during the theatre dates.

“Thankfully, we’ve managed to make everything fit on oddly angled stages with the sightlines remaining unobstructed,” Woolfie remarked.

Edd Croft of Mangata Collective handled the lighting design, based on an original concept

by Matthew Button. “This has been a different kind of challenge for me, taking a pre-existing design and shuffling it about a little, but the team has been welcoming and receptive to new ideas – particularly the addition of a new floor package,” he commented.

The rig boasted a backline of GLP impression X4 Bars, Ayrton Diablo and SGM P6 lighting fixtures situated on the floor and in the air, along with Martin by Harman MAC Aura units chosen for sidelight. A drape was erected halfway upstage during the first, acoustic section with the fresnels peaking over the top in addition to side light.

The dynamic backlighting fixtures were hidden until the second part of the set. For control, Croft harnessed an MA Lighting grandMA3 compact, as well as his personal grandMA2 command and fader wing operating on grandMA2 software.

“The band wanted the first section of the show to look more like a practice room, so I chose static, tungsten lighting, while the

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second section features dynamic backlight, bold reds to match the Hi album cover, with much more saturated and rockier looks,” he said, highlighting his use of GLP impression X4 Bars to create a “solid red wall of light”, which was particularly impactful.

Croft used wysiwyg to draw the lighting plot before importing his renderings into Syncronorm Depence² to previsualise the show. “Depence² is great software – the renders are fantastic,” he remarked.

“This show is cue stacked, as opposed to timecode, given the timeframe we have, so the speed in which wysiwyg can import into Depence² as well as the high quality of rendering has been ideal.”

‘WE’VE BEEN WAITING TO GET BACK ON THE ROAD’ Alex McNutt inherited FOH engineer duties from Adlib Account Handler, Jay Petch. “I’ve been with the band since 2018, on and off; this tour was originally meant to be in 2020, but COVID-19 struck, so we’ve been waiting to get back on the road. Working with Jay Petch has panned out really well – he knows the band personally and what’s required of the gig, so he’s already 10 steps in front of us,” he stated.

Amid the lockdown, McNutt was involved in an online and broadcast-driven press

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campaign to promote the release of Hi. “It’s good to be back on the road,” he expressed.

“The vibe is upbeat and everyone gets along, which has been aided by the fact that we’ve all been stuck inside for so long.”

Before this tour started, the production did some pre-production where McNutt changed consoles from another platform to an Allen & Heath dLive S7000, on the recommendation of Lewis Capaldi’s FOH Engineer, Andy Bush.

“I’ve mixed on the surface a few times as a visiting engineer at festivals or at PLASA, and I’ve been really impressed with it,” McNutt said, waxing lyrical about the console and dLive Director V1.21 software.

“The band covers a lot of musical ground on this tour and I’m still mixing on one scene, punching spot effects and riding the faders in an analogue way, which is how I prefer to mix, in an engaging and reactive manner – hitting the same cues night after night,” he detailed.

“Nothing on this tour requires multiple parameter changes anymore given the sonic nature of the console. It feels a lot closer to a studio approach to mixing.”

In terms of physical outboard gear, McNutt relied on a distressor for Sharleen Spiteri’s lead vocals and a Yamaha SPX 990 digital multi effects processor for a gated snare effect.

The PA of choice was a combination of CODA

AiRAY, ViRAY and HOPS. “We’ve been in a lot of less-than-optimum spaces with this sound system and it’s been really good at overcoming the challenges of the venues. Max Taylor, our system tech for this tour, has been fantastic in keeping a high level of consistency on the PA side of things,” McNutt said.

“We’ve had to tie into house systems on occasion and this sound system has always managed to overcome any acoustic drawbacks. Often when you get into these spaces and hit them hard it sounds dreadful, so we try and keep it at a reasonable volume and be mindful of SPL, especially at a two-hourlong seated gig – which is good because when you do these little pushes here and there, it has a real impact as opposed to how many hundred dB in your face for the entire time.”

Monitor Engineer, Mike Prosser underlined the band’s long-standing relationship with their lighting and audio provider.

“Adlib has taken such good care of us on this gig. Adlib Managing Director, Andy Dockerty and Account Handler, Jay Petch have both toured with the band for years. They’ve put a wonderful package together for us, everything is really well thought-out, and we’ve had great support from them.

“There is certainly a genuine sense of ownership with this gig because Adlib have

PRODUCTION PROFILE

been a big part of the band’s live journey for such a long time,” Prosser explained.

“Texas are a major part of the development of the Adlib story and I appreciate their loyalty to us tremendously,” Adlib Managing Director, Andy Dockerty said. “As a company, we endeavour to ensure we look after them as best we can. Sharleen has an incredible vocal and the band was always a pleasure to mix,” he added, modestly attributing his success as an engineer to the fact the band were so gifted, he “hardly had to do anything” with the mix.

“I must confess, I have found it difficult to go to Texas shows since I ‘hung up my ears’ as it was never quite the same as when I did it. Now they have talented engineers who can mix properly, while I was getting away with it for over 20 years,” Dockerty revealed, jokingly. “It makes me realise how much I miss the whole excitement of gigging and touring.

Alex is doing a fantastic job mixing the show and has created an exciting and powerful mix.”

Adlib Account Handler, Jay Petch added: “Andy [Dockerty] gave me my first chance at working with the band as an audio stage tech early in my career, for which I am still grateful today. The relationship that Andy and Adlib has with Texas meant that there was a trust there to be able to take a young tech and essentially let him learn on the job – sometimes the hard way – and through this amazing opportunity I ended up in a privileged position to take up positions mixing the band at FOH and monitors for some amazing tours and shows. These days as an account handler at Adlib, my close connection and experiences with the camp makes it that bit easier to support the incredible show that the band and the fantastic crew have put together.”

The Texas crew in all their glory.

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‘FROM A SHARPIE DRAWING ON THE BACK OF A PIZZA BOX…’ Back in monitor world, Prosser walked TPi through his setup – a DiGiCo SD12 for control, along with an SD-Rack and an eight-way Sennheiser 2000 series IEM rack – The wireless microphone(s) used by Sharleen is a two-way Shure Axient Digital system handheld system with Beta 58A heads (main and backup). “I’ve worked on a lot of different consoles but when I’m mixing monitors, however, being able to put my workflow tools together in a macro is fantastic. The DiGiCo SD12 is seamless and makes it easier for me to focus on the stage,” he said.

Prosser dubbed Playback and MIDI Technician, Joe Crouch as the “swiss army knife” of the camp, having slotted into monitor engineer duties while he took a brief leave of absence. “Having improved the Ableton setup, simplified the processes for pianist, Eddie Campbell on stage, and made positive changes – he’s also a safe pair of hands, a fantastic audio engineer to leave the show with when cover is needed, and he’s a familiar face with the band.”

Crouch was originally enlisted to focus on the scope of Ableton in line with Eddie Campbell, who triggers the start of each song. “Playback is a process which has been developing significantly over the past few years. There are only little bits of track which fill out the song – Eddie’s organ is connected to a sampler on the computer as well as a click for the drummer, so my main role is to ensure that all works, and then afterwards, it’s supervising

that workflow,” Crouch disclosed. “The ideal situation in playback is the fact you don’t need to touch anything mid-gig, but you have to be ready to if needed.”

On stage, Prosser highlighted the sonic battle with venues featuring acoustics built for unmixed, unamplified orchestras to play and the sound to carry and fill the space. “These are beautiful acoustic qualities for orchestral performances but the complete opposite to what you require of a loud rock show with massive PA hangs, loud drums and musicians on stage when you want to keep it under control – so there’s a challenge posed in those spaces, particularly in keeping a clean IEM mix for the band with all the spill you get coming back,” Prosser pointed out.

He praised the recent arrival of an Adlibsupplied Rupert Neve Designs 5045 Primary Source Enhancer, which he put to the test on Sharleen’s main vocal channel, acting as, in his words, a ‘posh gate’.

“It does a good job of pulling her vocal into focus and clamping down on the ambient noise around it to clean the whole mix up massively, which has made a big difference particularly

in theatres,” he observed. Like most of the crew, Prosser has spent the past few weeks in stitches, characterising Sharleen as a “wonderful and hilarious character with razor sharp Glaswegian wit”. He continued: “I sit in on her mix for a lot of the show with ambient mics while she’s interacting with the crowd so the back and forth with the crowd is very funny to listen to – it’s something different every day, which is a pleasure to be a part of.”

Evaluating the opening semicircle of band members on stools, acoustic guitars, a drape in the midpoint of the stage to recreate the feel of a rehearsal room, with Sharleen sharing stories of the creation of the album and where the band were at that point in their lives, Prosser revealed: “This was a loose concept that Woolfie and I devised by scribbling on a pizza box in a hotel bar following rehearsals, so it’s been great to see it come to life – from a sharpie drawing on the back of a pizza box over a pint of Guinness in Glasgow to putting it together in front of a live audience for the first time in Dundee.”

Following the transition from cosy, intimate storytelling to breakdown between intervals,

the drape is quickly tucked away, production values increase and the band drill straight into a mixture of greatest hits and newer material, backed by impactful and delicately poised sound and lighting design.

“It has been a pleasure to see all the hard work and long days pay off,” Prosser concluded, looking back on the run. “The team and the support from our suppliers has been solid; we’ve all had a rough couple of years, so to be on our first collective, big and sustained touring campaign and hit the ground running with a great bunch of people at the top of their game is really nice and reaffirming.

“I’m sure that many of us, like I, have had a bit of a wobble over the lockdown period and assessed our career options, but when you come into an environment like this – it reminds you why you love your job.” www.texas.uk.com www.danwoolfie.com www.adlib.co.uk www.beatthestreet.net www.stagetruck.com www.bittersweetcatering.co.uk www.mangatacollective.co

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

AMY MACDONALD: HUMAN DEMANDS As the Scottish singer-songwriter makes a triumphant return to a sold-out OVO Hydro, TPi catches up with the crew who were with her throughout the journey.

Words: Stew Hume Photos: Ryan Johnston @ryanjohnstonco

In March 2022, Glaswegian singer-songwriter Amy Macdonald walked out to a packed hometown crowd at the OVO Hydro. The loyal fans that filled the venue that night had held on to their tickets after the show was postponed from December 2021 due to the pandemic, but the journey to get to this show goes back far further and represents a true milestone in Macdonald’s live career. Winding the clocks right back was her Manager, Chris Kiely, who regaled TPi with the tale.

Kiely’s journey with Macdonald started back in 2007 as her Guitar Tech, before becoming her Tour Manager in 2009 and ultimately taking the title of Manager in 2015. “When I became her manager, my number-one goal was for her to sell out the Hydro,” he stated, proud to have achieved this milestone.

With Macdonald releasing the album Human Demands in 2020, there were several postponements of her biggest ever show, with the Hydro performance eventually set for December 2021. However, while pulling the pieces together in Fly By Nite Rehearsal Studios, the team waited anxiously to hear how the Scottish government was going to react to the emergence of the Omicron variant. “On the Tuesday before the show, Nicola Sturgeon said that events would not be cancelled but that the government were advising people not to go to them,” explained Kiely. “It was a hard situation to be in. Amy was getting messages from fans saying they wanted the show to go ahead as they had already made travel arrangements.

Not only that, we were very aware that our decision either way would create ripples within the rest of the industry. If we were to cancel, it might affect smaller venues who would be keen to make money before Christmas.”

In the initial days, Macdonald and her team stood strong that the show would happen.

However, with cases increasing and numerous positive tests within the touring party, it soon became clear that the show would have to be postponed again – this time until March 2021. “In hindsight, it was the right decision to make; it would have been irresponsible to go ahead in December. When we finally got the show into the Hydro, it was everything we and Amy wanted it to be and the feedback in the room was reflected. It was a real homecoming moment for a true Glaswegian artist.”

PRODUCTION GOALS Steven Down from Only Helix handled production responsibilities. “Amy has done lots of tours over the years that have been rather similar from a production standpoint,” began Down. “So, when we started on the concept for this show back in 2019, both Amy and Chris wanted to take her show to the next level.” At that point, the creatives from Cassius Creative were brought in to oversee the design concept of the show.

“Over the years, her shows have often incorporated a simple backdrop and floor lighting package,” stated Down. “Geoff Hall, her long-time Lighting Director, has never really

been given the budget to design and program a big show. However, with Cassius Creative, along with Amy’s new MD developing a new setlist, we had the foundation to create a much more ambitious show.”

The team was keen to incorporate video – something that had never been a focus on Macdonald’s previous campaigns. Instead of using a large rear LED wall or even a plain projection surface, the team opted for a more elaborate solution. “We call it the spaghetti curtain,” explained Down while describing the tasselled drape which, for the Hydro show, was hung in a semicircle around the stage.

“As great as it looked, it could be a bit of a pain in the arse,” joked Down, who described the challenges of untangling the 10m-by-10m material using an AstroTurf rake. “After much research, it seemed like that was the best tool for the job,” he laughed.

Although Cassis Creative was new to the production team, many of the suppliers on this project had worked with Macdonald previously, including SSE Audio, Siyan, Phoenix Bussing, and Fly By Nite. The only other newcomer was Really Creative Media (RCM), which supplied video content as well as the camera and projector package.

“We also managed to get most of our regular crew,” enthused the PM. “That said, we have had several dropouts in the lead up to the Hydro on the proceeding European leg due to COVID-19. Three people tested positive, thankfully all in different departments. When it

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

came to freelance crew from suppliers, it was very last-minute to get final names as, I’m sure most are aware, suppliers are really struggling to get the right people into shows due to many people leaving the industry.”

DYNAMIC DESIGN Dan Hill, one half of the show designers, Cassius Creative, reminisced about the early conversations he and Chris ‘Squib’ Swain had with Macdonald’s team. “They were looking to modernise her show, and change the visual direction from previous tours, giving it a contemporary and sleek finish ahead of her debut into arena touring,” he began.

One way in which the team looked to modernise the look of the show was to move away from the simple backdrop upstage to incorporate video into the overall stage canvas.

“The use of video came as a development of the show through festivals ahead of the headline at the Hydro,” stated Hill. “It evolved from a monochromatic live camera treatment we used to lift festival performances. From this, the contemporary, graded feel of live video extended into the content created by RCM to provide dynamic, scenic backdrops to songs.”

Hill went on to discuss the unique projection surface and what he thought it brought to the show. “With the minimal feel of the stage aesthetic, we wanted a large-scale, panoramic surface that looked good under both projection and show lighting,” he explained. “We also wanted to be able to lift the show with the

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reveal of hidden lighting for the more energetic songs in the set. The translucency and delicate nature of the unconventional spaghetti curtain met all of these requirements. Despite needing daily maintenance to keep it looking fresh, it kept the impactful yet minimalist feel we were aiming to achieve.”

As well as collaborating with content creators RCM, Hill and Squib also got to join forces with Lighting Director, Geoff Hall.

“Geoff’s involvement as Lighting Director was fantastic throughout. His attention to detail and musicality throughout the process lead to us achieving a refined and accurately implemented performance.”

When it came to the specific fixtures used, Hill stated that it was kept “simple” with lots of the same type of unit to help create a cleaner, more minimal aesthetic. Supplier Siyan provided 43 Ayrton Diablos as the visual team’s main lighting source, with key light coming from Vari-Lite VL2600 Washes. Meanwhile, side light was created by Martin by Harman MAC Aura XBs, with the drapes being lit from ChromaQ Colourforce 48 and 72s. There were also numerous Martin by Harman Sceptron to outline stage risers.

“Alongside these, we needed moments of the show to break from these cleaner looks and have the energy and feel of more ‘classic rock’ moments,” stated Hill. “We utilised an array of CHAUVET Professional Strike-Array 2 LED Molefay units, hidden behind the scenic backdrop to add this punch as required.”

Amy Macdonald Manager and Tour Manager, Chris Kiely; Production Manager, Steven Down; Lighting Director Geoff Hall; FOH Engineer, Tom Wiggans; Audio System Designer, Craig Burns; Monitor Engineer, Jasen Hattems.

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

A NEW ELEMENT Nick Dew and Jack Fox of RCM continued the visual conversation, discussing the video deployment on the show. “Cassius came to us in the summer of 2021 and outlined what they wanted for the show,” stated Dew. “They requested a video package that could be flexible and able to move from theatres to festivals and arenas.” The team at RCM got to work, testing various different tasselled drape options and assessing how they would work as a projection surface.

“Eventually, we opted to use Panasonic Laser projectors, either the PT-RZ21K 20k or RZ31K 30k depending on the size of the venue.”

Along with projectors, RCM also provided a camera package of four manned and one remote operated. The manned cameras were Blackmagic URSA Broadcasts with 4k Canon lenses. “Amy is not the type of artist to jump around the stage and she maintains her position in the middle of the stage,” stated Dew. “When it came to the live footage, the goal was to get as much movement with camera movements.” For this reason, two of the cameras were on a tracking dolly at the front of the stage. There was even a slider on the drums to add some dynamics.

Representing RCM on the road was Jack Fox, who talked TPi through the IMAG style of the show. “The creatives wanted a sophisticated black and white look while mixing it in with the pre-rendered content,” he explained. RCM produced all the original content, which included several shots of the Scottish landscape. “This content was then

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mixed in with the sophisticated black and white IMAG content. It was good to have this all then projected onto the spaghetti curtain as the surface provided more texture than a plain projection surface.”

It was a sentiment that was echoed by Daniel Williams, Video Playback Engineer. “It was a great texture to work with,” he enthused – although as the self-proclaimed ‘rake technician’ who was responsible for untangling the drape during the preceding European run, he didn’t shy away from highlighting the challenges of touring such a drape.

The back end of video world was run on Resolume with the IMAG cut being put together on RCM’s new twin unit PPU setup. “The Twin PPU setup was a creation of the lockdown and has already been out with Steps,” stated Dew. “It’s been designed so that you can slot in any vision unit. For Amy’s tour, for example, we used a Blackmagic surface.”

Williams explained how the video – both IMAG and pre-rendered content – had to be treated to get the best result on the surface.

“We had to max out the intensity so it would appear on the drape,” he explained. “The surface has some imperfections by its very nature, but in many ways that’s what made the show look so unique.”

AUDIO TRIO Discussing the audio side of Macdonald’s landmark show were the trio of FOH Engineer, Tom Wiggans; Monitor Engineer, Jasen Hattams; and System Tech, Craig Burns.

The three audio specialists have had a long

history working with each other – not just with Macdonald, but also numerous tours with Bloc Party. Starting on stage, Hattams explained that he had not changed too much from his previous runs with Macdonald.

“My view is always to keep things constant wherever possible,” he began. “With this run, the size of rooms fluctuated from smaller theatres to venues like the Hydro and tackling spill from the PA down the microphones was one of my main concerns.”

To keep this consistency, the Engineer once again put his faith in an Avid S6. “I’ve also once again been working with the Shure PSM1000,” he added. “They’ve been rock solid and Amy had been happy with them.”

Aside from a wedge for her bassist, the stage was completely free of speakers with the musicians relying solely on IEMs. “We’ve been using DPA for a long time, which have a really open sound, so it often helps to keep the stage volume as low as possible, so Tom out front doesn’t get any spill.”

Jumping on the DPA conversation, Wiggans explained why they have been his go-to solution with Macdonald.

“The off-axis sound of the microphones is really nice,” he stated. He used the drum mics as an example, stating how he was able to differentiate between all the toms. “The coherence is amazing,” he continued.

“I started using DPAs back in 2013 and I found I started relying on gates less and it changed the way I mix. With everything being more coherent, I started mixing into groups and the console became a matrix mixer.” The

desk in question this time around was a DiGiCo Quantum 225.

“I don’t tend to use snapshots as I want to produce a mix that best suits the venues, which fluctuated an awful lot on this run,” stated Wiggans. “I find that when you rely on snapshots, you can predetermine how you’re going to mix the show, but you really need to mix for the room.”

Other than a few pre-set effects that often act as nods to something from the records, Wiggans explained the importance of keeping an element of ‘live’ in his mix.

“It’s the real difference when you compare the tonality of IEM compared to that of a PA system. If you treat a PA in the same way you do an in-ear mix, you end up having a very sanitised sound. It would sound great in your ears, but your live sound has been sent down an evolutional cul-de-sac.”

System Tech, Craig Burns outlined the PA deployed for the Hydro show, with SSE Audio providing a full d&b audiotechnik system including an 18 drop of GSL with a side hang of

16 KSL, with SL-SUBs on the floor. “Some might think that a hang of 18 GSL is excessive for the Hydro, but I think it provided better resolution and also meant I didn’t have to rely on the inhouse delay system.”

Burns was also complementary of the lack of rear spill on the d&b boxes. “When you’re working at a show in a venue like the Hydro, you don’t want to add any more sound than is necessary. I also went for GSL for the main hangs over KSL, as I was keen to have some more low-end in the air.”

He went on to complement his working relationship with Wiggans. “Some engineers can get lost in their toys and expect the PA to sound like it did in the studio,” he stated. “The art of mixing to a room has sometimes been lost with people simply blaming a PA system for a bad-sounding mix.”

To close, Wiggans reflected on the long journey to the Hydro. “I stayed in Glasgow after the show and laughed about the ‘full circle’ moment as some of the first rehearsals for this run took place just down the road from the

Hydro in a small studio space. Then finally in 2022, we got to play a sold-out headline show down the street.”

ON TO THE SUMMER Exuberant after their successful hometown show, all members of the production were excited for what the future holds for Macdonald. “Like everyone else, we are playing catch-up on the postponed shows from the past two years,” Down concluded. “We also have a busy festival season ahead of us and we’re currently in conversations to see how we can transfer some of this production to some of those dates.” www.amymacdonald.co.uk www.onlyhelix.com www.cassiuscreative.co.uk www.siyan.co.uk www.rcm.tv www.sseaudio.com www.flybynite.co.uk www.phoenix-bussing.co.uk www.allaccessinc.com

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IN PROFILE

IPS BOOSTS POWER CABLE AND DISTRO STOCK Milton Keynes-based Impact Production Services (IPS) increases its arsenal of power cable and distribution hire stock.

Photo: Impact Production Services (IPS)

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Impact Production Services (IPS) has added over 30km of power cabling and 300 distribution units to its growing hire stock.

The investment has already proved fruitful, helping support IPS productions onsite, as well as meeting the needs of IPS’ range of trade hire customers.

Over the past few months, IPS has invested in its hire stock and the hardware required for the distribution of temporary power at events. Its close working relationships with suppliers have proved essential while battling sector-specific supply restrictions and varying lead times along with all the other pressures associated with the after effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It has been a non-stop few months, but despite all of the obstacles we have faced, we are pleased to now have an expanded and upgraded range of fully tested cabling and power distribution equipment ready to hire,” Joe Martin, who leads the IPS service department, commented.

In total, around £750,000 has been spent on top quality hardware that will provide IPS with “many years of reliable service”, according to Martin. All the new cabling has been made with black H07 cable and fitted with either CEE Form or Power Lock connectors. IPS now has an available hire inventory of more than 80km of mains cabling consisting of both single

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and three phase options, in 16A, 32A, 63A, 125A, 200A, 400A and 600A variants. The 200A Power Lock range is new for 2022, with sets stocked in lengths of 5m, 10m, 25m and 50m.

All cabling is colour coded and labelled with length and ID details and has been electrically tested and logged on the IPS barcode-based inventory system.

The 300 new and updated power distribution units have been manufactured and supplied by Distro Design and incorporate lots of features to make them “perfect for a hard life” in the events industry. All units have been fitted with recessed tour plate labels and scribble strips to make each unit and circuit quick and neat to label onsite. Smaller distro units are fitted with carrying handles, and larger production units are fitted into wheeled frames for easy handling onsite.

This brings the total IPS power distribution stockholding up to nearly 550 units.

“We are proud to have been able to continue our working relationship with IPS, and the high specification of the units supplied is really raising the bar in professional event power distribution,” Distro Design’s Ben Stearn said. “This puts IPS among one of the largest stockists of power available for hire in the UK.”

In keeping with the existing IPS stocks, distribution units follow the same naming conventions. Distro units are fitted with incoming MCB protection, and then depending on the specific configuration RCD protection for the outputs. Larger units are fitted with digital metering, variable RCD protection, power lock and earth terminals.

“We have focussed on consolidating our range and making units compliant with all current regulations, while remaining user friendly onsite,” IPS Managing Director, James Mason said, commenting on the “significant” investment.

“We have vastly increased the stock quantity of the most popular distro units to make larger systems easier to deploy. This is reflected in our stock count, with each model of distro being stocked in quantities from 20 to over 100 units.”

IPS stocks a broad range of power adapters, with converters, splitters, plugboards, as well as 13A, 15A, powerCON, TRUE1, IEC, and Shuko adaptors to name just a few.

IPS also have over 750 sections of cable ramp available for hire, with a range of standard, modular and wheelchair accessible options to choose from to make everything work onsite. www.ips.co.uk

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IN PROFILE

OBSERVATORY A company born out of a passion for VJing, Observatory specialises in bringing visual experiences to life. TPi sits down with Founder, Ben Sheppee and Director of Production, Simon Harris to get their take on content creation for the live entertainment industry.

Words: Stew Hume Photos: Observatory

The use of video within the live events space has arguably seen some of the biggest leaps when it comes to technological innovation in the past decade. With more artists and set designers opting to utilise LED screens in shows, the increase in the sophistication of media servers, processors and the LED surfaces themselves has been remarkable. Even throughout lockdown, the speed at which software such as Unreal Engine progressed was nothing short of jaw dropping. Not only that, but with the rapid progression of techniques such as xR, video technology now takes the lead when it comes to the entertainment sphere.

Of course, it’s worth remembering that no matter how outstanding the technological innovation, content is what drives this technology. It’s for this reason that TPi was keen to chat to Observatory about this very topic and learn from the content creators,

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how they approach a live tour and some of the changes they’d like to see in the industry.

While the company has featured in the pages of TPi several times in the past year due to its work with Andy C and Enter Shikari at the cutting edge of content creation, Founder, Ben Sheppee, explained that the roots of the business date back to the glory days of VJing for nightclubs.

“I remember back in early 2000s when I used to borrow slide projectors from college and use them to decorate DJ backdrops in nightclubs on Tottenham Court Road,” he reminisced. Over two decades later, at the company’s London HQ, he still keeps a few of the heavy projectors behind his desk on a shelf.

While looking around the office, particularly the massive render farm that is busy processing content for several projects, it’s clear to see how far this side of the industry has come.

Observatory was founded in 2018, building

from the foundation of Sheppee’s previous company, Lightrhythm Visuals, established in San Francisco in 2003.

“Lightrhythm was born out of VJing and we published VJ artwork.” Essentially, the company sold DVDs with VJ content that would then be sent to event spaces. However, as the DVD market began to fade away, Sheppee opted to pivot. “The ability to roll with the changing technology has become an integral part of Observatory’s attitude.”

As content creators, although working on a range of projects for big brands such as the BBC, Sky and Adidas, a clear passion for the Observatory team is music. “Creating a visual response to music is somewhat a unique set of skill,” said Sheppee. “I used to play piano; my colleague Simon and I were in a band together in the ‘90s and having an understanding of music and song structures definitely helps.

When creators don’t have that background it

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IN PROFILE

Nine Earths – Immersive Experience by D-Fuse in collaboration with Observatory, as part of collateral events of G20 Indonesia Presidency, Sembilan Matahari/Kala Kini Nanti, Bandung 2022; Observatory’s Founder, Ben Sheppee and Director of Production, Simon Harris.

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takes a little while to rewire their approach and get them to think about BPMs and how content can loop to work with the stems in the music.”

In fact, it exists as such a ‘dark art’ that Sheppee stated that very few educational faculties even teach it. “You often find your Unreal Engine kids come from courses on videogame design, whereas film courses teach students how to shoot with a camera. Graphic design courses sometimes produce motion graphics artists, but they often end up working in broadcast. We find what we do often sits in the boundary of art, film and music.”

Sheppee at one stage even co-developed a course to teach aspiring content creators. “We received funding for the course and during the syllabus we went into the history of visual arts, going back as far as the 17th Century all the way up to the use of modern technology such as Resolume and Green Hippo.”

Sadly, the project only lasted four years and had to be halted due to lack of funding, but it seems that such a course would be very useful at this point as the industry collectively clamours for new talent.

“Due to the acceleration of the industry in the past few months, everyone is looking for new staff,” commented Director of Production, Simon Harris. “No one has time to onboard them – and we are in exactly the same boat.”

Currently, there are six people who work at Observatory – a number that Sheppee would like to see expand to at least 10 in the future.

“I had this vision for the business for a while, in that there would be a separate side of the company working on R&D,” stated Sheppee.

“Unless you have something feeding the constant flow of content, it’s challenging to keep creating new ideas. Up until COVID-19, we were slammed all the time and maybe we even lost our direction, so the forced lockdown help us refocus.” The vision of the R&D department in Sheppee’s mind is rather out there, exploring

ideas such as using motion capture suits to create visuals.

With the future in mind, TPi asked how the duo feel about the current landscape of live touring and some of the changes they would like to see.

“Shows are getting more complex – even the smaller ones,” stated Harris. “This is why shows require more manpower. Not only that, ‘real-time’ rendering has created some real misconceptions as to how quick changes can be made to content on a show. Even using that type of technology, it still takes time to fix.”

Harris and Sheppee also wish to be involved early in conversations when it comes to show design. “The sad thing is, when it comes to the pecking order of where the budget is allocated on a tour, we find productions are willing to fork out for a giant LED screen but not necessarily the pixels that will bring it to life.”

That said, there’s a chance that this mindset will hopefully change as Sheppee discussed requests from more artists for content that could not only be used live, but also in promotional content – the natural assumption being that content creators are able to designing flexibly across mediums and can supply the same animations for stage, social media and other marketing channels. “Younger audiences have higher expectations from shows,” stated Harris. “This means more time and thought should be spent on content.”

It’s a challenge that Observatory is excited to take on, looking to provide advice to clients on what will add more to the show. “With some projects, we have to talk people out of ideas and encourage them to think of fresh looks,” closed Sheppee. “Having a deep knowledge of art and history. You can create something truly incredible through digitation of old art and movement. We are not here to just regurgitate media trends, but to add something unique.” www.observatory.design

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SIYAN TURNS 21 High Wycombe-based lighting and video rental company, Siyan, celebrates 21 years of business with a refreshed ownership and management structure, signalling a generational shift for this proudly independent outfit.

Words: Jacob Waite Photos: Todd Kaplan, Elliott Hatherley, Ryan Johnston, Oliver Bowring, and Siyan.

Anniversaries are typically an opportune time for reflection and to take stock. However, this seems even more poignant when emerging from a global pandemic. Siyan – which this year celebrates 21 years at the forefront of the entertainment industry supply chain – is keen to return to normality after a turbulent two years. Having made significant ownership and management structure changes in 2019, the flourishing independent lighting and video rental outfit has managed to weather the economic storm of COVID-19, retaining all of its workforce, while making further investments in people, processes and technology.

Founded by Nick Valdez and the late, Bryan Leitch in 2001, Siyan has remained a proudly independent cornerstone of the live events supply chain, with a team talented enough to deliver complex projects, yet tight-knit enough to go to the enth degree on every single job.

In 2019, Managing Director Mark Baruch and Business Director Tom Grant purchased Siyan

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from then company founder, Nick Valdez, who assumed the position of Technical Director alongside long-standing Project Manager Jez Johnstone, who became Projects Director with Pam Farrant continuing as Company Secretary.

“I am pleased to be selling the company to existing members of staff, safeguarding both Siyan’s ethos and its independence for the future,” Valdez commented on the move at the time. “This is a seamless transition, so it really is a case of business as usual.”

Farrant added: “Nick and I are so glad to have been able to hand the company over to its current owners and we feel that it’s in such safe hands.”

Regarded historically for its lighting expertise, Siyan were early adopters of thencutting-edge developments like RadLight and Green Hippo media servers while working with the likes of ZZ Top, Coldplay and Adele.

Regailing TPi with some of his favourite moments over the past two decades, Valdez highlighted Coldplay’s Earls Court show

during 2003s Rush of Blood to the Head Tour as a significant turning point in the course of Siyan’s trajectory. “It proved to me that we were capable of supplying such prestigious shows,” he said. “It was also great to see the success of the band, who we had been working with since their first tour as the opening act of a four band bill.”

Over the past five years, Siyan has transitioned into specialist and bespoke lighting and video rigging solutions. “Rather than staying static, we’ve evolved into a provider of almost all visual infrastructure for live entertainment needs,” Grant remarked.

Amid the pandemic, Siyan began exploring new markets, pivoting its creative capabilities to provide equipment to the corporate, film hire and sports broadcast sectors, as well as renting its in-house production space as a livestream facility. “Even in those dark times we were able to drive growth and investment in our video capabilities. It was a bit of a punt initially, however, the risk has paid off – we are

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IN PROFILE

now able to provide professional-grade camera packages and PPU systems to the live events sector,” Grant explained.

Siyan also lent its services to campaigning for sector-specific UK government support amid the lockdown, helping create material for the #WeMakeEvents Campaign, which highlighted the plight of the sector with its stirring ‘Unfamiliar Faces’ video, which attracted over 200,000 views across social media platforms.

Circus 1903, design by Paul ‘Smiffy’ Smith; The Script 2011, design by Bryan Leitch and Jamie Thompson; The Killers 2009 tour, design by Steven Douglas; BBC Radio 2 Proms in Hyde Park 2013, design by Steve Finch and James Scott; DanTDM Presents The Contest, design by Cassius Creative; Reading Festival; Coldplay 2005, design

by Bryan Leitch and Nick Whitehouse.

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THE ROAD TO FULL STRENGTH Like most businesses in 2022, addressing workforce shortages – in addition to financial stability and accruing two year’s worth of losses amid the lockdown – is at the top of the Siyan’s agenda.

“There’s a lot of pressure to hire good people and we have been lucky to recruit five production technicians on a full-time basis over the past few months,” Grant acknowledged. “It won’t be long until we’ve doubled the size of our 2019 team!”

Newly-recruited Production Technician and TPi Breakthrough Talent winner, Owen McIlreavy, said his favourite aspect of working at Siyan is the culture of camaraderie.

“People always have time for each other, both professionally and personally and I think when one is in such a working environment as that, it’s easier and more enjoyable to put on the growing number of great productions that Siyan is known for.”

The latest addition to Siyan’s accounts department, Tamie Masters added: “I’ve received such a warm welcome and support from the entire Siyan ‘family’ – from the directors right through to the warehouse team.”

As well as investing in personnel and products, Siyan’s medium term plans include a move to a significantly larger new premises, as part of the company’s next phase of expansion, enabling it to service its ongoing and future workload more easily.

With a busy summer season ahead, which will see Siyan’s new look workforce traverse their way through a series of concert tours, projects and muddy festival fields, Grant was optimistic about the future. “We’ve recently landed all three stages at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend Music Festival, which was a big coup, in addition to our annual pilgrimage to Leeds and Reading Festivals,” he stated.

Key to Siyan’s success, it seems, is its ability to focus on maintaining a steady rate of growth. Not only from a financial perspective, but elevating its portfolio of work which is, according to Grant, ‘self-perpetuating’.

“Most of the people who work with us are either long-standing clients who are themselves growing, or are accrued based on the recommendation of others,” Grant concluded. “We are also well aware that the groundwork which we have put in over the past few years has put us in good stead for the next 21 years.” www.siyan.co.uk

INTERVIEW

ANDREAS AND DANIEL SENNHEISER Sennheiser co-CEOs, Andreas and Daniel, highlight the company’s new structure, following the sale of its consumer brand, with a renewed focus on three core business units: Pro Audio, Business Communications and Neumann.

Words: Stew Hume Photos: Sennheiser

Back in May 2021, Sennheiser revealed it was selling its consumer division of the company to Sonova. A year on, co-CEOs Andreas and Daniel Sennheiser review this change of culture within the Sennheiser camp, how the company fared over the past two years, and how this new framework is set to improve the companies’ progression within the professional audio sphere.

“One of our main goals over the past 24 months has been making steps to set Sennheiser up for future success, which has involved streamlining many workflow processes,” began Andreas. “The sale of our consumer division was the end of this transition and we can now focus on three core units: Pro Audio, Business Communications, and Neumann. Each one has a different strategy for growth, and with our combined resources, we are now strong enough to go to the next level of success.”

Although confident with the company’s position as we move into 2022, both brothers spoke candidly about the hardship the pandemic inflicted on manufacturers in the sector. “It was difficult to predict trends and demands in the pro audio market,” stated Daniel. “We saw a boost in wired microphone sales, which we attributed to artists and professionals working in their home studio, who had no immediate need for wireless setups.”

As well as having to be flexible to accommodate market demands, like any manufacturer, addressing the issue of the

global supply chain was at the forefront of Sennheiser’s road to recovery post-lockdown.

“With supply issues – specifically the lack of microchips – we had to step back from our normal planning process into a short cycle process,” he outlined.

As a family business, the team were afforded the flexibility to make decisions when it came to purchasing specific components.

“Thankfully, we have direct access to various core components and were able to continue to create products with little interruption,” stated Daniel.

Like many other manufacturers within the sector, Sennheiser’s core team utilised the enforced downtime imposed by the pandemic to research its customer base and discover what they would like to see when it comes to the next generation of Sennheiser products.

“There’s a strong desire from our customers to create solutions for the digital ecosystem,” informed Daniel.

“The question for us now is how do we slot into this ecosystem? We don’t want to create a whole new one ourselves. At Sennheiser, we believe in an agnostic approach, which allows us to connect seamlessly with established networks. For instance, on the Business Communications side, this would undoubtedly mean integrating our products with Zoom and Microsoft Teams.”

When it came to its live event offerings, both CEOs highlighted the importance of Dante and AES. “We want to ensure the best

audio quality for our end users,” stated Daniel.

“We also believe we can up our game on the configuration side of preparing for a show, such as making it even easier to set up a wireless system.”

Andreas picked up on the upward trend of immersive audio. “We understood the potential of spatial audio and what it can provide for an audience or individual,” he noted. “Now, with the increase in virtual events and hybrid performances, people seem more susceptible to exploring this idea further, and more importantly, the benefits of reduced listening fatigue – not to mention providing a more realistic experience for the viewer.”

With a focused business model more prepared to cater for the demands of the marketplace, both CEO’s seem optimistic about the future. “Customers are going to see more specific communications along with dedicated products for each strand of our business,” stated Daniel. “We’ve showcased this with Neumann, following the release of MCM, its first clip-on instrument microphone – something we’ve never done before.”

Andreas concurred, adding: “During the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched Evolution Wireless Digital – another example of a sectorspecific product, which was frankly a bit of a gamble. Given its success and the positive feedback we have received since the release, we’re looking to expand our EW portfolio in the near future.” www.sennheiser.com

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INTERVIEW

CORE PRO SHOW 2022 Midlands-based Core Pro Audio welcomes manufacturers and members of the community for a day of training and networking – offering an alternative to the traditional tradeshow format.

Words: Stew Hume Photos: TPi Magazine

As we move into Q2 of 2022, we’ve seen a welcome return for tradeshows. From Prolight + Sound and Integrated Systems Europe in Europe to NAMM and InfoComm in the US, these staples of the live events community are sure to be appreciated by both exhibitors and attendees. That said, throughout the twoyear lockdown, we’ve seen many companies take it upon themselves to offer a different type of networking opportunity to the community at large.

Taking place last year at its warehouse, Core Pro Audio welcomed the UK audio industry to meet face-to-face with some of the manufacturers it stocks. Due to the success of that event, the Core team wanted to take the concept to the next level, moving out of their warehouse into plush surroundings of the Mount Hotel, Wolverhampton, with an L-Acoustics K3 demo out on the green as well as demo spaces for DiGiCo, Yamaha,

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DPA, Shure, Allen & Heath, XTA, Sony and representatives from Medialease and Vista Insurance.

Speaking about the event was Core Pro Audio Director, Joe Jackson. “The main disadvantage with many of the major trade shows is that there is a wide audience, whereas here we’ve gathered a group of people who are passionate about audio,” he began. “We wanted to create something for the UK community where they could come and learn about the new features for the key brands we work with.”

One point the team at Core Pro Audio were keen to push was that this event was not so much about selling products as it was giving people a chance to network and learn. “There is no secret that stock issues are hitting all corners of the industry,” stated Jackson. “We made orders in September that were only being received at the beginning of April. This event gives manufacturers the chance to have direct

access with customers to explain the situation and make more people aware of the issues.”

Despite the hard times created by stock issues, Jackson was pleased to report that all the manufacturer partners were very receptive to the idea of the latest open day. “Everyone was keen on the training and network side of the show last year and happy to sign up for this bigger event,” he stated. “We’re here for awareness and to create great networking opportunities. We estimate that there are nearly 200 firms in the UK alone that deal solely with audio rental. Our hope is to become a onestop shop for this community moving forward.”

One return supporter to the open house was Tim Shaxson from DiGiCo. “We really enjoyed the event last year and wanted to be part of it this time round,” reported Shaxson. “The people who are coming here want to talk about audio and it’s great to have a captive audience to walk them through the kit.”

During the day, visitors were divided into groups no bigger than 10 and then made their way round the exhibitors in a circuit for 25-minute sessions. “As well as having a captive audience for each session, what came out of the first event was the social side of this project,” stated Shaxson, who commented on the importance of face-to-face interaction with the community, especially after two years of not getting to meet potential customers.

This event was hosted at the opportune time as the events industry looks set to shift into high gear with touring in full swing and, of course, the summer festival season just around the corner. “I think this year is going to set a benchmark in terms of how people prepare for the busy season,” stated Jackson, commenting on the level of pre-planning that must be put in place due to global shortage of kit. He also commented that Core Pro Audio’s secondhand offering has recently become more prominent. “Part exchanging of equipment is something we are really promoting to customers at the moment as a way in which customers can reinvigorate their stock.” www.coreproaudio.co.uk

GEAR HEADS

CAMEO LIGHTING OTOS H5 BY ADAM HALL GROUP Daniel Wrase, Product Manager of Light Technology, previews the company’s new beam spot.

Photos: Adam Hall Group

What benefits does the IP65-rated OTOS H5 bring to the live events market?

“OTOS H5 is the first member of our new OTOS series. We wanted to create a real workhorse for professional show and effect lighting that impresses with its flexibility and power both indoors and outdoors. For this reason, it was obvious from the very beginning that we would have to develop a particularly bright hybrid moving light comprising beam, spot and wash which is also IP65 rated. If I had to break down our objective into one sentence, I would say that with the OTOS H5 we have developed a fully road- and rider-ready outdoor moving light that is currently the lightest product in its class.”

What features will end users in the live events sector benefit from and why?

“The 480W discharge-lamp has an output of 19,000 lumens, high-quality optics with

135mm front lens and wide zoom range of 2° to 42°. From tightly focused effects to wide-area illumination, anything is possible. In addition, the output can be reduced to 380W to be used in acoustically demanding environments with reduced noise and heat generation.”

Why is it important to develop a robust fixture with a range of application options?

“The expectations of lighting designers, and production and rental companies are becoming more complex and multifaceted. The traditional categories like indoor or outdoor, touring or installation, etc. no longer apply. In addition, sustainability aspects are playing an increasingly important role. Professional users are looking for lighting solutions that are able to handle as many tasks as possible, take up little space and weight in the warehouse, during transport as well as in the rig, and still deliver

top performance. Our answer is: OTOS H5.”

What has the response been like since the release of the product?

“We already expected a high demand on the market. However, the actual orders to date have exceeded our expectations by far. We are proud to tell you that the first batch of the OTOS H5 has already been completely sold and will soon celebrate its live debut at several large-scale events. The world premiere will be the ceremonial launch of the new cruise ship AIDAcosma in Hamburg, which will be accompanied by concerts and a spectacular drone show. Around 150 OTOS will be deployed here in one fell swoop. In addition, the OTOS will surely be seen on many large festival stages, in TV shows and at corporate events as well.” www.cameolight.com www.adamhall.com

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GEAR HEADS

LUXIBEL PAR SERIES Luxibel previews its latest series of pars at AED Customer Nights 2022 and Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt.

Photos: Luxibel

Luxibel has launched a new series of pars at AED Customer Nights 2022 and Prolight + Sound exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany.

All new pars come with a humidity extractor, which is already widely used in the car industry.

This humidity extractor uses electrolysis which turns water into gas, so there won’t be any moisture left in the fixture. Ensuring that there is no more trouble with temperature changes and condensation.

In addition, all units will come with top hats attached to them. This helps control the light spill and reduce the viewing angle to the

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lens. Luxibel’s new top hat accessory is also compatible with the previous Luxibel B Par generation and models. The largest fixture of the new par series is B PAR360Z – a compact, yet powerful lighting fixture with a seven 60W zoom LED par to create vibrant colours and has a zoom range of four to 45°.

This makes the B PAR360Z a creative unit that can be used for events, exhibitions, theatre and much more. Meanwhile, the smaller B PAR105RGBW V2 is a compact yet very powerful par with a seven 15W LED engine at a 15° angle. It features high saturated colours, an

extensive colour mix, dimming capabilities and fits into a NX34/30V truss.

B PAR180RGBW V2, however, is a more powerful par with a 1215W LED engine at a 25° angle. These models can be used outdoors and can take a couple of rain showers.

For long term and heavy-duty outdoor use, Luxibel created the IP66 version of the B PAR180RGBW V2. This par has heavy-duty wired waterproof connectors. With its unique power to size ratio, the B pars are a class of their own. www.luxibel.com

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27/04/2022 16:59

PRODUCTION FUTURES

BRADLEY NICHOLSON Backstage Academy Live Events Production student operates the lighting on the British Music Embassy (BME) Stage at South by Southwest (SXSW) 2022, powered by the Production Park team, covering over 70 sets in eight days.

Words: Jacob Waite Photo: TyneSight Photographic Services

“It was definitely a daunting but equally exciting prospect,” Backstage Academy Live Events Production student, Bradley Nicholson modestly recalled, referring to his time operating the lights for 70 performances in eight days on the British Music Embassy (BME) Stage at South by Southwest (SXSW) 2022 in Austin, Texas, some 4,798 miles away from home.

“I didn’t feel like I had a lack of knowledge when I was out there, every challenge that was thrown at me was backed up by the skills taught to me at Backstage Academy,” he reminisced.

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“To overcome everything relatively unscathed was an unbelievable experience, especially having the added experience of being in another country without the home comforts of Backstage Academy – like being able to walk into the warehouse and pick up a cable that you’ve forgotten – was key in preparing me for SXSW.” However, it was far from a walk in the park for Nicholson. “There were points where I questioned my abilities, but thankfully, I managed to get everything looking the way I wanted, and even if that meant doing it in a different order, it was a nice way for me to learn to adapt to the situation and come up with solutions,” he added.

“Seeing everyone come together to achieve a collective goal of showcasing the next-generation of talent was amazing to see.

Experiences like SXSW definitely help when it comes to career progression.”

As the dust settled on the whirlwind eight day tirade of fader riding on an Avolites Tiger Touch II, Nicholson reflected on his journey thus far, particularly the quiet moments spent in lockdown amid the grounding of live events and remote learning.

“I used Avolites Titan simulator and four universes of WYSIWYG to make four full timecoded shows in lockdown. Having the time to sit and experiment with software, watch YouTube tutorials, and speaking to lecturers online, wasn’t exactly the university experience I was expecting but I was definitely able to use all of the resources available at that time

to make the best out of a bad situation.” At SXSW, Nicholson relished the opportunity to do something creative and ‘out of his comfort zone’, as opposed to sticking some lights on a truss. “I was limited with my DMX outputs on an Avolites Tiger Touch II, so figuring out how to control 70m of LED pixel strip on 10 universes of data, took me the best part of a day but I managed to get it working and it looked really cool. I even had to read through my Avolites training books to fix an issue we had with recreating the colour red on the LED pixel tape, which was a testament to everything I’ve learned at Backstage Academy.”

Production Manager, Ant Forbes added: “Bradley’s confidence levels changed throughout the week when it came to problem solving and overcoming any challenge or task required… nobody would have thought for a second that he was a Backstage Academy student, you’d have thought he was just a veteran road dog who had aged really well!”

Nicholson concluded: “This experience has given me an insight into a future in live touring, which isn’t something which I necessarily considered prior to SXSW. “However, having jumped in at the deep end, it was pretty fun and ticked every single box – it’s given me a lot to think about when I consider my next steps. My advice to those looking to break into the sector is to jump at any experience offered and give it your all.” www.sxsw.com www.productionpark.co.uk www.backstageacademy.co.uk

PRG UK: WHY APPRENTICESHIPS MATTER Leigh Yeomans, Head of People Services at PRG, details what opportunities are available for those looking to make their first steps in the live events sector.

PRG UK Event Rigging Specialist, Max Reynolds; Head of People Services, Leigh Yeomans.

With a greater focus on introducing new talent to the sector than ever before, PRG UK has revealed two apprenticeships available for application: Live Event Technician (Level 3) and Live Event Rigger (Level 3).

Both schemes last for three years and are specifically designed to provide applicants with an introduction into the technical delivery of live events. Over the three years, apprentices

build a solid foundation of knowledge in the services PRG provides, from familiarising themselves with the basics and functions of technical production equipment in its warehouse, through to learning how PRG events are delivered and receiving hands-on experience with the PRG team.

As apprentices’ skills and abilities progress, suitable key projects are identified for

apprentices to join PRG crews so that they can start to build up a portfolio of events for their CVs. At the end of their three years, PRG apprentices will have a qualification as either Live Event Technicians or Riggers.

As they look to their next steps, PRG will work with them to consider different avenues to help apprentices find work with the company either in-house or in the wider industry

PR With Stuart Wood Our experienced PR team specialises in the live events industry, and can help create a buzz and positive coverage around your business.

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PRODUCTION FUTURES

talent pool. Either by offering assistance and guidance should they wish to enter the freelance market; suitable full-time positions within PRG EMEA or a further level of training and development through PRG’s Event Services team, which would result in becoming trainee Event Services technicians.

“We are always looking to tap into the next generation of talent. After the devastating effect of COVID-19 across the live events industry and its talent pool, we recognise the huge opportunity we have before us to engage with younger people, who have been widely negatively affected by the pandemic. Over the past few years, PRG has sought several avenues to find raw talent locally and to inspire individuals who embody our company values to get their start with PRG,” Leigh Yeomans, Head of People Services at PRG, said.

“PRG has a long history of working with and sponsoring industry education partners throughout the UK, including the BRIT School, Birmingham Ormiston Academy and several other local and national higher and further education organisations,” he added.

“These relationships are at the heart for our ongoing mission to inspire a diverse and

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inclusive talent pool of prospective PRG applicants.” According to Yeomans, PRG is building a pool of homegrown talent from local communities through apprenticeships, work experience opportunities and school sponsorships. “We are passionate about providing opportunities for young people from all walks of life to realise their potential, ultimately demonstrating that they can have a career in our industry,” he remarked.

Max Reynolds, Rigging Specialist in Event Services at PRG UK added: “Apprenticeships create an option to gain hands-on experience with the assurance that the knowledge gained is being carefully audited to be correct and appropriate to the skill set. Our apprenticeships also give the assurance that the knowledge can be gained safely and in a controlled environment that considers the apprentices lack of experience.”

This practical application is overseen and demonstrated by PRG’s roster of industry specialists, creating a natural mentorship within the team and imparting key lessons on operating in a team and adapting to changing team dynamics and environments.

“A common outcome of onsite learning is the

understanding that a project can live or die by the strength of communication within a team,” Reynolds explained. “Only by working with other people on a task can you understand how important it really is.”

As the landscape for live events continues to improve, PRG will adapt to new avenues of recruitment as the need for different roles increases; including apprentices, work experience placements, targeted recruitment for skilled positions and incentivising current staff to refer.

“For every singular person on a stage, there is an army of people behind it making the show a reality,” Yeomans concluded.

“The event industry is full of people who live and breathe entertainment and the PRG team is certainly representative of that. We’re looking for young people who share in our drive, passion and obsession for the industry and encourage anyone looking to get into the business to share their experience with us.”

Discover more information about apprenticeship opportunities at www.prg.com/uk/en.

For enquiries and application details, contact PRG UK at ukhr@prg.com

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PRODUCTION FUTURES

Production Futures successfully kicks off the first leg of its brand new UK tour at live events venue Depot Mayfield, Manchester and London’s Rose Bruford College.

Students, graduates, young entrepreneurs and freelancers across all disciplines of entertainment and production industries took advantage of the training workshops, networking and career opportunities on offer at Production Futures ON TOUR. Both events saw major international players Avolites, Sennheiser, Neumann, ChamSys, CHAUVET Professional, disguise, Shure, Brompton Technology, Production Park, NEXO and Vectorworks showcase products with others running training with careers workshops from Interfacio.

Creative Directors, Tim Routledge, Willie Williams, Nick Whitehouse, Brian Vaughan and Audio Engineer, Simon Honywill also shared their insight and advice on how to establish long and successful careers.

Avolites Marketing Director, Andrew McKinlay commented: “We’ve always believed that young people are vital to our futures and we believe championing their skill development is extremely important to ensure we as an industry remain at its forefront and are the best in the world. The move by Production Futures this year to go on the road to get the live events industry to meet young people where they are studying, is a groundbreaking move and fundamental in attracting great talent and building relationships. We believe Production Futures will soon become students’ primary gateway into the industry.”

80six, Sterling Event Group, Engine No.4, FIX8Group, Pearce Hire, White Light, RSH Audio and Colour Sound Experiment shared their upcoming projects and work opportunities available for graduates and young entrepreneurs as well as offering summer placements and internships for students.

PSA, UK Music, ISCVE and NEKO Trust offered invaluable careers advice and insight to visitors, who travelled from across the UK. Industry panels ran throughout both days on the main stage, where speakers were welcomed from the likes of Epic Games, National Theatre, Broadwick Live, Live Nation, No Nonsense Group, EFM Global Logistics, Neutral Human, Festival Insights, We are the Fair, Ethix Management, UKTV, Wise Owl

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Productions and Spiralstagelighting – covering various topics from entering the industry, hidden job roles, promoting transferrable skills and diversity, to the latest real-time technology in virtual production.

Neutral Human’s Sarah Cox commented: “We are all too aware of the huge skills shortage across the event technology industry and it’s not going to fix itself overnight. Production Futures is exactly what our industry needs, to inspire the next generation to look at what we can offer and the varied roles and pathways they could follow, to bring our profession out from the dark. A roadshow that tours the UK, is an inspired way to ensure we are making ourselves accessible up and down the country!

I can’t wait for the next event.”

Rob Fowler, Director of Business Development at Brompton Technology, commented: “It’s been a tough two years for the production industry, but I still believe it’s an incredible industry in which to build a career, and I think Production Futures is a worthwhile initiative to help young people learn and find out what a role in our industry can offer them.”

Social media was flooded with posts from attendees sharing their experiences and positive feedback of the events.

Production Futures CEO, Hannah Eakins

stated: “We feel very lucky to have been able to deliver these two events before the start of the Summer festival season and to begin this new chapter for Production Futures. The touring concept for the show has been challenging, but so well received by the tutors, students, freelancers and young people looking to start careers in the entertainment industry.

“The positivity and passion from our incredible partners, panellists and speakers has already created a community which feels very special and one that we can grow as we connect with more young people around the UK. To the hundreds of young visitors who joined us for both events, we thank them all for their enthusiasm and positivity.

“We were pleased to learn that some had commuted from all over the UK to join us. The talent that we have seen already is second to none and makes us all very excited for the future. It very much feels like 2016 again for us when we launched Production Futures so we are excited to keep growing our supporters and community throughout 2022.”

Production Futures has lots of other exciting events and projects in the pipeline, and perhaps most important of all is the relaunch of the TPi Breakthrough Awards this Summer. www.productionfutures.co.uk

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SPARTAN CREW BROADENS ITS REACH IN THE UK Crewing and staffing company, Spartan Crew branches out to the Midlands.

Words: Craig Strachan Photos: Spartan Crew

Spartan Crew has expanded its reach in the Midlands, with the launch of a new regional hub in Birmingham.

The project, led by Commercial Director, Paz Brennan, aims to target the thriving nationwide exhibition and entertainment market beyond the reach of its London HQ as the UK moves out of all COVID-19 restrictions.

Staff are currently being appointed for the new office, conveniently located nearby Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, less than one and a half miles from New Street Station.

“With the upcoming Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and a host of major events happening in the city, we felt we could no longer ignore the possibilities,” said Brennan. Not familiar with sitting on the sidelines, Spartan Crew assembled its market research and commenced work on acquiring an

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office and training area. According to Brennan, another draw is the proximity of Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC), which hosts several exhibitions featuring both prospective and current clients.

“Many of our current clients have a large presence in Birmingham, so we wanted to offer a more favourable solution,” he explained.

The Steward Street office will follow a similar blueprint to Spartan Crew’s London headquarters, incorporating a crew training area as part of the facility.

This ensures consistency to its production of improved crewing solutions, with a commitment to health and safety, performance and compliance.

However, it hasn’t been the easiest of journeys to get to this point. “We had a huge crew shortage at the back end of last year,”

Brennan stated. “With a lack of confidence in the industry, many crew, across all sectors in the industry, had gone on to work in other industries. This posed many challenges in terms of recruitment and training. We had to step up to the challenge, offering a more robust training programme. As a result, we can train 10 crew at a time, which we do twice a week in London, and once a week in Birmingham. With this comes more administration so we took on more office staff and space to meet demand.”

Spartan Crew’s new venture will allow the company to not only offer multi-site crewing solutions to keep up with current demand, but also extend its services to new clients. This includes a larger reach across the UK along with a bigger roster of crew should it need to increase crew in either region. www.spartancrew.co.uk

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SEARCHING FOR THE IDEAL COLOUR PALETTE In the quest for perfect whites, Elation Professional discovers the beauty of colour.

Words: Larry Beck Photos: Elation Professional

From the first moment that light was projected onto a stage, lighting professionals have been in search of the ideal colour palette.

The colour spectrum is infinite, however, and the variety of shades that designers desire and have sought to create over the years is immense. It’s no surprise then that recreating the full range of colour, and transferring that into an automated luminaire, has been elusive.

For years, subtractive colour mixing systems were the default and only viable way to achieve a rich colour palette. White light from lamps or LED engines combined with gels or subtractive colour filters, such as CMY, was seemingly the only option. Additive LED systems that tried to bring a quality RGB alternative mostly failed to produce the rich, saturated colour that designers needed, and resulted in unnatural skin tones and a general washed-out look.

However, not all colours can be generated by mixing just three colours. It became clear

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that an RGB only system was limiting access to the colour spectrum and was incapable of achieving perfect whites, accurate colour temperatures, pastels and almost any of the desired vivid colours that designers value.

Those RGB emitters were only capable of a decent saturated red, green, or blue – everything in between and mixed colours looked unnatural and lacked the accurate hue and saturation that designers desired. When lighting people, sets or objects, we simply couldn’t achieve the natural tones or colour reproduction needed, a fact that was made even more evident when used alongside other conventional or tungsten fixtures.

Lighting designers have a responsibility to properly light the myriad of skin tones and the intricate detail of costumes and scenic sets but lack the proper tools to do so. Elation Professional was determined to find a solution and invested years of research into LED colour quality, optics and consistency. With time

and comprehensive research into chromatics and LED emitters, the company realised that the production of luminaires capable of utilising the full colour spectrum was within reach after all. Elation began working with pioneering LED manufacturers to develop multi-array LED engines that could deliver what designers needed – theatrical grade precision instruments that expanded a designer’s creativity and options, not limiting it.

It made sense, of course, to put more colours into the LED engine design. Extra emitters were added to the RGB and when carefully balanced the output was much improved, but better still, access to a broader colour gamut was the real benefit. The extra emitters, although an important step in the quest for a true theatrical-grade LED engine, were no cure-all and eventually raised more questions than answers. A new journey of experiments ensued.

The early additions to the RGB array certainly helped, such as a dedicated white emitter and amber – which both allowed for dynamic whites to come into play. Often though they were hard to balance with the RGB, and still only gave a modest improvement to the colour gamut. Yes, an added White emitter provided access to a wider part of the spectrum and helped with fine tuning colours, but it was clear that the spectrum was still not fully balanced.

Amber, for example, isn’t the brightest emitter compared to RGB, so giving up space to it as part of the engine wasn’t proving to be the most efficient solution either. An RGBA fixture perhaps gave something extra for event applications but for the theatre or opera designer, improvements were marginal. What

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amber did well however was to offer a better range and control of warmer tones. Now we were starting to get somewhere.

Balance was the key. All these individual emitters by themselves offered nice, saturated colour, but how they blend together to achieve a natural colour mix was crucial. Was the control of whites enough? Which mixed colours simply weren’t bright enough? Are all colours looking natural on skin? How was the dimming? And what about unit-to-unit consistency?

Answering these questions, or rather solving these problems, tended to uncover other related issues, complicating the solution. Dimming is a prime example. With one LED source, dimming was always a difficult aspect to control to make it look smooth, seamless, and natural. Now you have a fixture with four, five, six emitters and upwards, all with their own individual dimming characteristics. How to solve all these issues involved the combination of many engineering factors – careful selection of optimised LEDs, batch control of those LEDs, perfect lens/ diffusion choice, innovative electronics, and intuitive calibration software to tie it all together.

Much of the impetus for a revolution in colour can be laid at the feet of the LED manufacturers, who were pioneering new emitters that brought additional criteria to the mix. Mint arrived, giving a substantial boost to overall output. Lime offered a somewhat similar scenario. Yet both offered a differing ability to offer high-quality whites without sacrificing saturation.

It was clear, too, that these new modern emitters would have a different impact for specific applications and for different types of fixtures. An automated spot fixture wouldn’t necessarily need the same colour capability as say, an LED panel for instance. Mint added to an array could be more suitable to help theatrical whites, pastels and the unique colours needed for that application. Lime helps to fill in the entire spectrum and benefits more TV, film and broadcast scenarios. Furthermore, an efficient Cyan emitter came along, which helps with ultra-precise colour temperature control, joining the Lime LED to create a colour gamut for the demanding world of on-camera work. The result has been LED arrays that can boast a superior balanced colour gamut with best overall brightness and more precise fine-tuning of any colour.

Adding LED emitters to the RGB array has resulted in increased colour choice and higher quality light, but most importantly it has opened up for designers a whole new world of creative possibilities. Who knows what extra colour emitters will join the LED arrays of the future. Elation’s R&D engineers probably do, but will be tweaking, finessing, and experimenting until every last recess of the colour space can be harnessed and made accessible in the latest, cutting-edge luminaire. www.elationprofessional.com

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FUTURE CREW PROGRAMME NEKO Trust and Gallowglass team up to recruit 20 individuals aged 19 years upwards to gain hands-on experience ahead of a busy Summer season.

Photos: NEKO Trust and Gallowglass

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NEKO Trust and Gallowglass have joined forces to develop the Future Crew programme – targeted at individuals with a ‘can do’ attitude who are interested in building a career in the live events sector.

From June to August 2022, Future Crew will offer a free training programme led by Neko Trust’s industry professionals in South West London, focusing on tour management, production management, live sound engineering, backline and live event special effects.

Future Crew participants will also gain paid work experience with crewing company, Gallowglass.

“We’re keen to attract those who might face barriers to the industry and proactively support young women and people of the global majority,” NEKO Trust’s Glen Rowe explained. “Together with Gallowglass, we are enabling career progression in a wide range of touring production fields while also giving young people the security and rewards of a solid future in the industry.”

Completion of the programme will lead to guaranteed employment as Event Crew with Gallowglass and clear progression opportunities in the live music sector. Register your interest at: www. nekotrust.org/neko-futures/future-crew

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JACK DRURY Make The World Your Stage returns.

Jack Drury, Market Development at Shure tells us more.

Make The World Your Stage by Shure is a campaign designed to support up and coming artists by giving them a platform to share their music and story with the world. The sonic goal of these sessions is to capture a live and honest recording with Shure microphones, while simultaneously giving artists a platform to raise their voices.

The spaces we choose are driven by the artist and the visuals, which means we record in very challenging spaces with long reverb times.

Separation of audio sources isn’t possible. This is raw and honest recording and means the microphones have to work extremely hard to get the results we need. If there is drum spill, it’s embraced wholeheartedly and goes in the mix.

All live elements are tracked in one take with no overdubs straight into a DAW. Everything is then mixed down with very little processing. There is no vocal comping or gating and very little in the way of audio automation. The signal chains from the mics involve a very small amount of corrective EQ, compression and a bit of reverb where needed but that is it. It’s all about how the mic is performing in the space, and how the artists express themselves.

Each artist is very different – this time we have a subtle neo soul vibe with Sharlene and a hard-hitting rock sound with Holocene. The spaces are also very different to work with and present dynamic and changing challenges.

We purposefully allow room for spontaneous decision making on the sessions, choosing the correct mics for the correct space. This is

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“As a company, we have always supported young musicians but when the pandemic hit, the world changed for them, and we couldn’t just sit by. This is where MTWYS was born.”

Shure Market Development, Jack Drury

sometimes a massive surprise, like when a Beta 27 large diaphragm condenser becomes the hero mic for the bass amp over a Beta 52.

A group of extraordinary artists headlined the stage last year with stunning performances recorded in unique locations that inspired the artist in some way. With this connection we were able to bring the music and their story together to amplify the messages they want to share as an artist.

As a company, we have always supported young musicians but when the pandemic hit, the world changed for them, and we couldn’t just sit by. This is where MTWYS was born, and since then we’ve received such a great response from both the artists and from our audiences across the world and we’re extremely excited to bring you another round this summer! www.shure.com

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Don’t miss us at: ISE 2022 | May 10th - 13th Booth 7Q800 June 8th - 10th | LAS VEGAS, NV Booth #W208 VIP Code : ADA167