KISS 2020 GOODBYE

LEGENDARY ROCKERS, KISS PROVIDE A SHOT IN THE ARM FOR THE LIVE EVENTS INDUSTRY, WITH A FIRE-FILLED, RECORD-BREAKING NEW YEAR’S EVE SPECTACULAR.

It’s fair to say that 2020 was a hellish year for most people – not least for those in the live events industry. While stripped-back shows and living room livestreams have at least provided some sustenance in this most sparse of years, since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March, in truth, there has been precious little in the way of genuine large-scale live events, with top-end production values to match. However, as legendary US rock band KISS took to the stage at Dubai’s Atlantis The Palm just a couple of hours prior to midnight on 31 December, all that changed. An astounding show on a gargantuan scale, KISS 2020 Goodbye was the largest production in the history of KISS – and that’s really saying something, with the band having been around for some 47 years now.

The organisation behind this epic production was City Drive Studios, best known for its hit US TV series, Landmarks Live in Concert which, in its first season, saw the likes of Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon and Alicia Keys star in unique performances from a range of iconic locations around the world. Daniel E Catullo, Creator, Director and Executive Producer at City Drive Studios, explained how even as the severity of the pandemic was still becoming clear, he and his team were convinced that they would be capable of putting on a show of this scale.

“Back when COVID-19 first hit, we saw everyone scrambling to put on small-scale performances from their living rooms,” he began. “These were great for a little while, but as everyone else was figuring out how to do this, we were immediately looking into how to safely put on bigger shows with proper production values.”

With the pandemic halting the production of an ambitious second season of Landmarks Live in Concert, which was due to take in iconic locations in China and Brazil among others, Catullo set his sights on producing a one-off show for KISS, who he’d been working with for the last show on the band’s End of the Road tour. “I reached out to Doc [McGhee, KISS Manager] and the initial idea was to do a smaller production without an audience with some nice production values,” Catullo revealed. “It grew from that into the biggest production of the year on New Year’s Eve!”

One of the key reasons for this growth in scale of the show was the choice of location in Dubai. Having seen how the emirate had been dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, Catullo was certain that Dubai was the ideal place to host a show of this kind and, once the wheels began to turn, the production got bigger and bigger.

“Dubai has gone above and beyond in an effort to keep COVID-19 under control,” Catullo told TPMEA. “Without the support from the government, there’s no way this would work. They’ve been incredibly welcoming, great to work with and a massive help in getting this show off the ground. Dubai is one of the few places in the world where it’s possible to pull this off.”

In fact, Catullo was so impressed with what he saw in Dubai, that he is planning on bringing a further 10 shows to the city before Ramadan, which is due to begin in early April. Forming a new season of the TV series, Landmarks Live –Dubai, the concerts will take place at some of Dubai’s most iconic landmarks, with the Burj Khalifa, Museum of the Future and the Dubai Frame all potential locations.

“There are so many awesome and iconic landmarks in Dubai that there was more than enough to do a whole season here,” Catullo

confirmed. “It’s hard not to fall in love with the place. They do everything on a grand scale and we always intended on going there. We have plans to go really deep in the region.”

‘THE ONLY INFLUENCE FOR KISS IS KISS’ With a focus on boosting the UAE’s live events industry wherever possible, Landmarks Live engaged a number of local suppliers for the production, who formed a large part of the 400-plus production crew on site. PRG was appointed to deliver the full audio, video, lighting and rigging solution; AES designed and built the stage; and Done Events handled operations and infrastructure. “I wasn’t sure what I’d find before I came to Dubai,” Catullo admitted. “I was pleasantly surprised. To find such a thriving community of experienced and talented events professionals was reassuring and the show would not have been possible without them.”

Among the few incoming international crew were, of course, the band’s trusted team of creatives – including 25-year veteran of the KISS camp, Production Manager, Robert Long. Ahead of the show, Long joined Production Co-ordinator and Co-Designer, Ashley Zapar, as well as Nicolai Sabottka and Matthew Varley of pyrotechnics specialist, ffp on a Zoom call with TPMEA.

“This single show is just as much work as putting on a full tour,” Long began, much to the amusement of the other participants on the call. “It’s similar to the End of the Road World Tour, with video pods in the air, a huge stage with lifts and massive amounts of pyro – except everything is doubled in size, apart from video and pyro, which are times 10, if not more!”

When it came to designing the show, Long explained that, when you’re working with such an iconic and inimitable band, quite simply: “the only influence for KISS is KISS”. He added: “The question we asked ourselves is, ‘How do you make KISS relevant in 2020/2021?’ They started in the 1970s with their big, bombastic pyro shows, the makeup and craziness that made them KISS, so how do we bring that into the present while still retaining their essence?” The answer, according to Long, related to the band’s name. “KISS stands for ‘Keep it simple, stupid’, so that’s exactly what we did,” he laughed. “We looked at what they already did and made it bigger. The show can never be big enough as far as KISS are concerned – there’s no sky, there’s no limit.”

Zapar explained how she and Long had spent a long time with the band going back through old footage of KISS shows in order to see how classic ‘KISS-story’ moments could be retold and reinvigorated with the help of modern technology.

“That was really important for the band,” she recalled. “Although they wondered why some of the footage from those early years looked grainy, we were able to take some of that inspiration and incorporate it into our video content, into our Notch filters, and even into when and how we use certain lights during the show. This enabled us to create that iconic KISS show, but with

modern technology it looks so much bigger than was ever possible before.”

Asked if the emergence of Notch has been a game changer for how they produce shows, the group was unanimous in its answer. “I don’t think we can do a show without it nowadays,” commented Zapar, who has been with the band since 2017. “With Notch, the sky really is the limit in what you can create. There is such a variety of filters that you can go anywhere from basic filters for artists who want to go for a simple, strippedback vibe, or you create something which looks completely insane but provides the artists exactly what they want. It’s very customisable.”

With the ubiquity of social media, increasingly designers are being asked to create shows that fit inside an Instagram-sized box – “you have to create those ‘Instagrammable’ moments; it drives us nuts, but that is what most artists and, in fact, ticket-buyers want,” reflected Zapar. However, with this show being primarily a livestream with only a very limited in-person audience on the hotel room balconies and poolside at the Atlantis, the team were able to “take that box and design it all the way outwards”. Long commented: “As well as architecturally lighting the building, we incorporated lasers from the rooftop and downstage to the back of the stage. We’ve been able to add lots of different ideas.”

Zapar added: “The livestreaming factor means that we get to change that perspective a little bit. We get to make it bigger, we get to look at it from a different angle, which is fun for us, because it’s different.”

‘LOOKS THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE’ As with any KISS show, pyrotechnics played a huge role in the production – in fact, the team was even aiming to break some Guinness World Records in this field. With this in mind, only the very best would do and, according to Long, there are none better than ffp. “Working with Matt and Nicolai on redesigning the pyro aspect of the show has been a really big feat,” the PM commented. “They, of course, are the best.”

With more than 20 years’ experience of working with some of world’s biggest artists including Genesis, The Weeknd, Robbie Williams, Björk, Slipknot and – most notably when it comes to pyro – Rammstein, the ffp team was perfectly placed to create undoubtedly one of the biggest pyrotechnics shows the world has ever seen.

With the ffp team going into the show fresh from an enforced layoff due to the pandemic, they were bursting with ideas for how they could push the boundaries of pyro further than ever before. “We had a long period of sitting with not much to do apart from think about where we can take our delivery, so we have been able to develop plenty of new concepts that we wouldn’t have otherwise had time for,” Varley explained. “We keep pushing our own limits.”

The fact that the show had only a very limited in-person audience – all of which was situated a long way away from the stage – meant

that many of the normal health and safety considerations that typically apply to pyro were no longer an issue. Add this to the fact that the show was taking place on the largest stage that KISS had ever performed on, and it was a recipe for one hell of a pyro show.

“We have had some of the ideas that we’re using on this show for a while, but up until now, we’ve never had the opportunity to use them due to the safety distance required,” explained Sabottka. “To be able to finally put these ideas into practice means that we can create looks that have never been seen before.”

Varley added that the fact this show was for one night only rather than a full touring package that would need to be packed up and transported to a new location every night also allowed them to “throw much more at it”. He said: “There are certain things that you can’t do on tour because of the difficulty of upkeeping the units show after show. However, since this is one night only, we can put everything into it.”

Described by Long as “the hottest KISS show ever”, the sheer quantity of pyro was unprecedented. Varley put the numbers into perspective. “The average KISS show would use roughly 100 litres of pyro fluid, whereas this show uses around 1,900 litres of fluid,” he revealed. “So, I guess you could say it’s 19 times hotter!”

And sure enough, all this extra firepower saw two Guinness World Records tumble on the night, with the show breaking the records for ‘highest flame projection in a music concert’, setting a new benchmark of 35m, as well as ‘most flame projections launched simultaneously’, with a grand total of 73.

Reflecting on the enormity of the show, Sabottka joked about how he’d always wanted to empty both ffp warehouses in Los Angeles and Berlin – “and now it’s pretty much happening!” he laughed. “We love what we do. It can seem like hard work at times, but during those magic hours when the show is taking place and the pyro is firing, it makes it all worth it.”

‘CALCULATED CRAZINESS’ With such a mammoth, record-breaking show, it was only right for it to take place on a stage of equally epic proportions. Enter All Events Services (AES), a company with a long history of providing some of the most iconic structures ever seen in the Middle East and described by Catullo as “the perfect staging partner”. Recalling the first time he met AES Founder and Managing Partner, JJ Trichardt, Catullo couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve never met a crazier person in my life – that guy would build a stage anywhere!” he said. “He simply does not say ‘no’. It doesn’t matter what I ask of him, he’ll always go away and think about how we can make it a reality.”

When TPMEA put this to Trichardt in a later conversation, the South African didn’t disagree. “You have to have a little bit of craziness,” he laughed. “However, the important thing from our point of view is that it’s always calculated craziness. Nothing is ever sent out that hasn’t been thoroughly calculated.”

The stage in question was of gargantuan proportions, made up of more than 100,000 running metres of scaffolding – equivalent to 120 times the height of the Burj Khalifa.

“This type of technology is not new, but we are utilising all of our years of experience in how we deploy it,” Trichardt commented. “The structure is a hybrid between steel and aluminium. It’s scaffolding used very cleverly, focused on where all the major load-bearing areas are so you can handle extremely heavy

loads. It’s all about activating the correct equipment to its fullest potential. There are 68 tonnes of pure production hanging from the roof, and we are not even at 20% capacity.”

Proud of the project, Trichardt reflected on the achievement. “KISS has been around forever, and they are still phenomenal performers. This stage does justice to KISS and allows the team to really up the production values, which will hopefully remind everyone watching at home and at the venue what we’re capable of and why we do what we do,” he stated. “Yes, it’s big, but we all know that Dubai likes to do things on a large scale and so does KISS. It’s a message that we don’t want to stand back regardless of what else is going on around the world.”

The fact that the show was taking place on the point of the Palm meant that it was always going to be exposed to the elements and, while thankfully the weather was fine and dry for the majority of the 30-day construction and, importantly, on show day, Trichardt was taking no chances. “We don’t want to play with Mother Nature,” he commented. “Building stages with these kinds of loads on a beach isn’t a walk in the park. There are lots of things we need to consider and address to avoid unforeseen incidents. As much as we have the passion and drive to do bigger and crazier structures, what grounds us is that nothing leaves the office uncalculated.”

With this show representing the first major production to take place in the region since the onset of COVID-19, Trichardt was full of praise for the UAE leadership on its management of the pandemic. “For Dubai to make this happen and allow this concert to go ahead at New Year while most other countries are locking down is testament to the incredible leadership,” he stated. “They are definitely leaders and not followers and, as a result, the eyes of the world are now on Dubai.”

He concluded: “It’s been a hell of an effort to get this monster up and I would like to thank my creative, confident and experienced team that’s given their best during a very reactive and limited time. I’d also thank all our suppliers, who have been co-operative with us over our demands. Hopefully this show will inspire other promoters to come and do a few shows here in Dubai.”

‘AN INCREDIBLE SHOW’ With the giant structure in place, the challenge of filling it with production fell to PRG, which was contracted to deliver the full audio, video, lighting and rigging solution. “I have a longstanding relationship with John Wiseman at PRG that goes back 30 years,” Catullo revealed. “They have everything we need here in Dubai, so they were a natural choice for us. They have been fantastic.”

Video was a key visual element of the design and PRG’s video team, led by Riaan Gomes, flew the back LED wall with over 330 sq m of ROE Visual CB5, and the side screens with 335 sq m of ROE Visual MC-7, which were automated to reveal the band.

PRG’s lighting team, led by Martin Smit, installed more than 400 fixtures across the stage, swimming pool and Atlantis hotel, including Robe BMFL Blades, GLP JDC1s and X4s, Claypaky Mythos, Vari-Lite VL Washes, and PRG’s very own ICON Edge fixtures and GroundControl Followspots.

The unique nature of the venue, with the audience situated both below the stage around the pool area and high on hotel balconies, meant that an unconventional audio setup was required.

PRG’s Matt Oliver and his team designed the unorthodox system using L-Acoustics K1s, K1-SBs, K2s, KARAs and KIVAs, positioned in such a way as to ensure full coverage for both the floor and balcony guests. The system was driven through

L-Acoustics’ P1 and signal was distributed through a Luminex network using Lake LM44. A Shure Axient system was the chosen mic package.

Project Manager, Theo Van As, led a total of 58 PRG crew onsite, who formed part of the 400-plus total production crew. “We would like to thank Landmarks Live for the opportunity to work on this incredible show and to congratulate them on achieving not one, but two Guinness World Records,” he commented. “It’s certainly one way to ‘KISS 2020 Goodbye!’”

Unsurprisingly on a show of this scale, there were a number of operational challenges that the team had to overcome – none more so than the immense task of ensuring that everyone involved was COVID-19 compliant. “Keeping a crew of this size working safely during these COVID-19 times is a massive challenge,” Catullo commented, adding that they were “going over the top on safety measures”, with production crews split into zones of no more than 30 people and multiple rounds of PCR testing for all crew.

For Long, the “biggest hurdle” he had to overcome was putting the show together at a working hotel, making sure to keep disturbance to guests at a minimum. “We get limited amount of time to work in certain areas,” he revealed. “The logistics side of it is the hardest part. We’re building the stage on a beach next to a pool, so it’s not easy.”

In fact, the team had to oversee the temporary removal of more than 70 palm trees from the stage area in order to create the desired effect. “We made sure they were planted in pots and replaced after the show,” Catullo confirmed. “Atlantis was amazing to work with and all the guests were very understanding. They are all there to see the show, so they understand that to build a massive show like this, there’s going to be a bit of disruption required.”

With such a large and complicated project to content with, assistance from a company with local expertise was vital to the show’s success. With this in mind, Done Events was contracted as the consultant and on-ground project manager and controller, with its remit encompassing coordination and management with all the contractors. Describing Done’s contribution as “amazing”, Catullo commented: “Every time we go into another market, we will hire a local company to help smooth the process. They have been outstanding, running the site, from security to infrastructure, just like how they do on any of their other shows.”

Working behind the scenes tirelessly, the Done Events team, spearheaded by Suhail Maitreya and Gautam Parekh, provided a range of services to ensure the event went smoothly. These included: staff accreditation; fulfilment of government licences and permits; managing hospitality riders; designing comprehensive COVID-19 and health and safety compliance plans for all crew; co-ordinating with Guinness World Records; and overseeing the technical and logistical requirements of the incoming equipment, from delivery and load-in, to derig and return.

“With live events and entertainment paused, we had an opportunity to set a benchmark and also share the best practices with the industry at large that live in-person events and concerts are possible if we plan and take all the necessary

aspects into consideration,” commented Done Events Managing Director, Girish Bhat. “The show went well and it was appreciated by the in-person audience and those online. It was a befitting end to a year that has been challenging for all. With this show, hopefully the entire industry starts its revival path.”

‘HOPE IS AROUND THE CORNER’ A multi-layered undertaking, the project was something of a departure from the docuseriestype productions that Landmarks Live usually produces. “It’s actually multiple projects,” Catullo revealed. So, not only was the performance being viewed live by a limited in-person audience, but it was also being streamed around the world on a pay-per-view basis.

“We don’t normally have the live aspect to our shows, but with it being New Year’s Eve and with demand for virtual shows skyrocketing while most of the world is in lockdown, we decided to run it as a ticketed event so people could see it as it was happening.” And the layers don’t end there. Before the show, an hour-long documentary featuring behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the concert aired; there will also be a DVD of the show, as well as a feature-length episode of Landmarks Live, which will come out later this year.

On the subject of livestreaming, Long described shows of this nature as a “viable option” for the short term. “I’ve been a big proponent of not wanting to hurt live music’s brand. I don’t want the audience to get too used to life like this, with limited audiences and watching the show from closed inside their homes,” he commented. “So many people use live music and live entertainment as a form of escapism and it’s hard to create that when it’s not live and in person.”

That being said, under the current circumstances, the PM was extremely positive about the production. “The timing was good and what we’re offering is not going to hurt the KISS brand – if anything, it’s going to enhance it. The band would not have it any other way.”

Catullo added that the show has now taken an “entirely different meaning” to when it was initially conceived. “This is a symbol that hope is around the corner and that our industry is on its way back,” he stated. “Even though this year has been wrought with tragedy, it’s OK for us to still smile, laugh and have a good time. The effort we’re putting in will all be worth it if we can make people forget about the pandemic even for a brief period and bring hope for 2021.”

As the show finally came to a cacophonous close, with Paul Stanley smashing his guitar violently down onto the stage and a triumphant blast of lights, lasers, pyro and fireworks erupted into the Dubai midnight sky, we were left under no illusions that 2020 was well and truly in the past. If this show is anything to judge the coming year on, then the live events industry is in for a hell of a comeback. Photos: Landmarks Live www.kiss2020goodbye.com www.landmarkslive.com www.ffp-fx.net www.aes.ae www.prg.com www.doneevents.com