HSL's Mike Oates project managed, and comments, "Neil is always a pleasure to work with. He is one of a new, enthusiastic and inventive generation of LDs, and it is also good to be working with an artist surrounded by a real buzz like Lily Allen."
Trenell's basic design was based around two straight 40ft trusses - front and back - which in the ideal circumstances and sized venues, were trimmed at over 30ft to give the stage a real sense of height, depth and space. To frame the LED backdrop, he added two vertical ladder beams flanking either side of the back truss, and onto the cross struts of these were rigged four Robe ColorWash 700s per side.
The two trusses were toned with a total of 16 i-Pix Satellite LED fixtures, which Trenell calls, "awesome little units", that contain all the intensity and light within the trusses with minimal spillage. To create a carnival style theme he draped 14 strings of 10 and 15m festoons between the trusses in a random style.
Other 'set dressing' pieces included five strings of standard household Christmas tree lights, draped around the backline and front monitors, and several lengths of red and white (to match the album colours) rope light, wound around the drum kit and streamed over the backline. Four mirror balls were rigged across the front and back trusses and five 4-cell Moles resided on the front truss for audience illumination.
HSL also supplied two Robert Juliat Korrigan followspots, two compressed air confetti cannons and hazers. The moving lights were all Robe 700 AT series 22 ColorSpots and 10 ColorWashes. The back truss was a mixture of alternating Spots and Washes, with more spots positioned on the floor, while there were just spots placed on the front truss, fulfilling several roles including doing gobo work on the band, key lighting and for swinging out into the crowd. For control, Trenell chose the Avolites Diamond 4 Elite.
Sound was supplied by Skan, catering by Eat To The Beat, and trucking by Fly By Night. Production manager was John Delf and the man who kept everyone in order on the road: tour manager Pip Betteridge.
(Jim Evans)
