Alejandro Sanz: La Gira Tour

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

suspension points from LED screens, which were spread over 36 carts. “Among them, 12 carts were motor driven and the others operated as slave carts.” The entire system was controlled by Kinesys Elevation1+ drives controlled by the Mentor 4 safety unit and K2 consoles. Despite the screens varying in size, they were similar in weight. “This was due to the fact that the smaller cubes were loaded with a lot of lighting fixtures,” revealed Szostak. “A n additional challenge was the fact that the entire weight of the LED cubes accumulated in the centre of the screens at its front, where we could not use any suspension point. Everything had to be calculated by our engineer, so the weights were distributed evenly on the rail trolleys. Nevertheless, all screens weighed around 2.2 to 2.5 tonnes each.” Szostak was also keen to draw attention to the fact that Visionlite was responsible for raising two panoramic screens 20m wide at the back of the stage, which worked on a total of 16 hoists, where each of them also

weighed about 2.5 tonnes. “In total, we used about 40 Kinesys hoists on the project,” he added. Su mming up, Szostak was delighted at the end result. We are very happy that we could prove that the Visionlite business model works in the touring industry,” he asserted. “We’ve learned a lot by working with such professionals as Borja Gonzales and Pablo Moreno. We must also thank the event designer, XLR estudio, as well as our Head of Automation, Marcin Krzyżański, who is currently on the Alejandro Sanz tour in Mexico. All of these elements made this route unique. The band and the idea that we had behind us, as well as technical resources, allowed to provide something new.” TPi Photos: Visionlite www.alejandrosanz.com www.visionlite.eu