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ALEJANDRO SANZ: LA GIRA TOUR With the GRAMMY Award-winning artist currently in the midst of a gruelling world tour, TPi catches up with Visionlite’s Kosma Szostak to find out how the stage automation specialist tackles this ambitious production.
With an extensive tour that sees the musician pass through Spain, the US and South America, Alejandro Sanz is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to pleasing his throngs of Latin American fans. Ahead of the Spanish leg of the tour, which started in Seville on 1 June, Sanz’s production team was looking for a stage automation solution and got in touch with Visionlite. “We were introduced to the production at the beginning of April,” opened Visionlite’s Kosma Szostak. “The main goal for our company is to construct stage automation equipment available straight from the shelf. Thanks to this business model, we were able to make an offer the next day and confirm that we could implement this concept using equipment we already had.” Szostak went on to explain how the deal was struck. “Before the client confirmed the order, he asked for a private demonstration session of the system, which we prepared in our warehouse. After two days of testing, the client was satisfied with the results and we started work. Three weeks
later, we were in Madrid testing the system under full load and in various configurations.” Szostak noted that the main goal was to fly six large cube-shaped LEDs over the stage to create a telescopic screen effect that could be moved from the front to the back of the stage. “This was achieved, and the show looked amazing,” he added. Time was a challenge for the team. “We had to assemble everything in six to eight hours in each location,” recalled Szostak. “The entire system of our own VL Fly Rail was suspended under Eurotruss ST50 trusses. In total, we had 12 fingers with rails of approximately 11m long each. “Due to the fact that each structure had to drive independently, and the weight at the point of the largest winches exerted pressure with dynamic forces on our rail around 1.2 tonnes, the weight of one point had to be distributed in most cases between two trolleys spaced about 130cm apart,” Szostak continued, going on to note that, in total, there were 24 18
