Lionel Richie

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LIONEL RICHIE

TPi caught up with Lionel Richie’s All the Hits tour at The 1st Central County Ground to meet the crew who created the infrastructure for the singer’s loyal fans.

With a successful career that spans decades, Lionel Richie is one of the world’s most renowned artists on the planet with hits such as All Night Long, Endless Love, and Hello, recognised by every generation. Richie’s popularity in the UK has risen since his 2015 Glastonbury appearance and this June, he made his return to the UK with his 13-date All the Hits tour.

The tour’s technical production was specified by Richie’s management, bringing in SSE to supply the PA, Neg Earth for lighting and VER for screens. TPi visited The 1st Central County Ground, home of Sussex County Cricket Club - a factor which, during the season, added to the usual logistical challenges.

Marshall Arts’ Production Coordinator for the tour, Anna Parry said: “Marshall Arts has amassed a lot of experience taking artists to sporting venues. The venues love it as it generates revenue and connects them with a wider local audience. From our side it’s great to expose the artists to new audiences they haven’t played to before.” But of course these venues weren’t designed to host concerts, which gave the production a logistical challenge that fell outside of the tech production and into the site elements. Thankfully Marshall Arts had already worked with the venue back in 2011 and has developed the knowledge how to turn a cricket ground into a concert venue in a very short period of time.

“This particular venue was selected as it’s such a lovely place with great facilities and they were keen to host concerts,” said Parry. “Concerts held at Hove Cricket Ground are a great experience for fans as the place still feels intimate despite having 18,000 people here. The whole surrounding residential area also got involved as they watch and sing from their balconies - it adds to the fantastic atmosphere of the event.”

Despite the local support, working in a residential areas did create limitations that the production had to work around. These included working curfews, which had a major effect on work. This only allowed Marshall Arts to load in or out at certain times with all lighting checks having to be completed before a set time in the evening. Similarly sound checks could only be done on the day and had a tight, strict schedule to pull it off.

Parry was appointed the role of Production Coordinator at Marshall Arts having worked with and learned from the company’s vastly experienced Michael Stewart. “Marshall Arts organised many elements of the concert, including the stage, seating, infrastructure, track-way and disabled platforms,” Parry explained. “We had a lot of meetings and discussions so we could plan for the build and ensure that we finished the set up in the strict time frame. This has been a great team effort from all of the brilliant suppliers we’ve worked with on this tour.”

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LIONEL RICHIE

Above: Serious Stages’ Project Manager, Tim Norman; Marshall Arts’ Production Coordinator, Anna Parry; Howling Productions, Mark ‘Wolfie’ Wolliscroft.

The tour had a total of 5 site managers over the 11 dates. Mark ‘Wolfie’ Wolliscroft of Howling Productions managed 3 dates of the tour, including the event at the cricket ground. He said: “Timing is of the essence at this venue. I’m lucky to have worked here as Site Manager for the Elton John concert which meant that I’ve learnt from experience and implemented a better plan.

“Working closely with Anna, we made sure that we planned ahead and ensured that all the suppliers arrived at the correct times as loading was limited to between 8am and 8pm to keep residents surrounding the ground happy.”

Due to space constrictions, suppliers could only unload 2 arctic trucks at a time, which meant all personnel had to adhered to a tight schedule. Additionally, Wolfie had to liaise with the venue’s groundsmen to ensure that the grass wasn’t damaged as a result of the event. In addition to the Lionel Richie concert, Little Mix was scheduled to play 2 weeks later. “We had to take everything away so the grounds men could work on the grass in-between both events,” stated Wolfie. “This kept any damage a minimum as a cricket game was due to be hosted only days after the Little Mix concert. Everybody worked together to make this event a success and Anna played a huge part in that success.”

Also singing Parry’s praises was Serious Stages’ Project Manager for the tour, Tim Norman. He said: “Anna has taken over as production manager and she is fabulous. She’s calm under pressure and is very resolute in getting things done and bringing order.”

Serious Stages supplied 3 especially adapted TZ tower stages, measuring 20m, which were smaller versions of the company’s 25m TZ roof. Specific adaptations were made to compress the standard configurations of the system to fit the client’s specifications and needs.

“The 20m stage still more the comfortably accommodated the tour’s technical requirements, while reducing the need for 2 artic lorries per system. This cut load-in / load out times, and also minimised costs, so it was a great result.

With 6 cross stage trusses, the stage’s 48-tonne load capacity was more than enough to carry the lighting and 5 portrait screens. A pair of 7m wide goal-posts flanked the stage carrying further portrait screens and flying the PA from a swan’s neck and out-rig.

Arena Seating supplied a range of the company’s audience flat and grandstand seating across all tour dates to augment the ground’s own permanent seating to ensure fans’ comfort.

Arena has worked with promoter Marshall Arts for many years across a range of outdoor venues. For this particular tour, Arena Seating supplied over a 100,000 seats with 18,000 of those for the The 1st Central County Ground concert.

Dave Withey of Arena Seating, said: “It is great to see this tour selling so well at these new destinations for Lionel. We exceeded previous capacities at Sussex County Cricket Club. Despite the challenging nature of the venue, the event was a true success as we were still able to offer a large capacity.”

Arena also worked to a tight schedule for getting the seats into the stadium, installing them and numbering each of the 18,000 temporary seats, with clear signage so that concert-goers to locate their seats quickly and easily.

The success of the Lionel Richie (and subsequent Little Mix) concerts at Hove reflect a trend of more sport stadiums looking to host concerts and promoters taking gigs to new audiences. These venues may prove challenging as they are not designed with gigs in mind and its apparent that an expert production crew is invaluable to achieve the level of success of these recent concerts. TPi

Photos courtesy of Plaster www.lionelrichie.com www.marshall-arts.com www.stages.co.uk www.arenaseating.com

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