Boyband Tour kicks off with Robe
- Details
Lighting, visuals, staging, and technical production is right at the heart of this project, which is the brainchild of Silas Holst, so Sune Verdier was delighted to be asked onboard to co-ordinate these aspects and also to production manager the first leg of The Boyband Tour which kicked off in Aarhus in December 2022 and continues around Denmark through February 2023.
Sune specified some of his favourite Robe moving lights for the show with Esprites, LEDBeam 150s, MegaPointes and Pointes plus other lighting and LED fixtures all supplied by Copenhagen based rental company, European Touring Productions (ETP) along with the audio and LED screen.
Integral to Sune’s show design is the video content that is crafted into the show which he commissioned from media specialist Faceoff Media House, which also produced coherent graphics, imagery, logos and promotional and marketing packages and content for the whole Boyband tour concept.
Video and lighting cues work in complete harmony with the slick choreography (directed by Kim Ace) to help produce the pulsing, foot-tapping, up-beat performance that fires up everyone in the room.
A relatively long gestation period – thanks to Covid interruptions – allowed the artists to refine the show they wanted to create. They established a set list, and from that Sune discussed potential video content and the gags that would work well onstage to keep the pace pumping and the visuality fresh and invigorating.
“There was plenty of scope,” he commented, “Together, we - the artists and myself - devised a storyboard, which I then translated into practical and deliverable video content, and this was produced by the Faceoff team led by Mathias Berthelsen.”
Sune established the position of the 12m wide by 2m-deep screen, upstage of and above a raised catwalk with stair access at each end and a set of toaster lifts at the back – without which no self-respecting boyband set would be complete.
When it came to choosing lighting fixtures, Sune already knew he needed bright multipurpose luminaires and that the lighting would really have to pop to maintain the flow and speed of the show. It also had to fit the budget and into two trucks including the PA and video elements and furthermore, the design / rig had to be managed by a crew of three.
To capture the pop aesthetic, there is a lot of back, side, top and bottom lighting and around the screen. The three side booms a side are all on wheels and movable for easy re-scaling in different sized venues.
Kicking in from the upstage corners are two – left and right – matrixes each comprising 12 Robe LEDBeam 150s, chosen for their small size and high impact. They also re-emphasise the widescreen look.
At the top of the side booms and above the screen is a row of 11 x MegaPointes, wow moments and massive beam looks, as well as for silhouetting and framing the five artists from behind and above.
Below the screen, peeping through across the top of the raised catwalk are 10 x Robe Pointes, making a complement to the MegaPointes higher up.
For front lighting, the keys and specials on the front truss are seven Esprites, chosen for their output, high CRI and excellent quality of light.
In addition to these, there are some other moving head spotlights on the rig plus substantial LED lighting inside the set including 11 well-worked strobes. These and serious amounts of haze have all been programmed by Sune onto a grandMA3.
Video content is stored on a disguise server and triggered via the grandMA3. As a timecoded performance synched to the backing track, the entire show is run by FOH sound engineer Jonas Jørgensen.
