The show's complex technical aspects are handled by Montreal-based Solotech. Long an integral part of the Cirque du Soleil magic, the media technology company works closely with each show's creative teams to help realise their visions on stage, designing and providing the show's essential infrastructure, from audio, video and lighting systems to rigging, trussing and automation.
The production requires 20 18-wheelers hauling the equipment and 14 tour busses for the artists and crew. The production crew also includes a technical staff of 73, as well as 25 management and support people.
"This is a show that has no 'big name stars' and no pop hits," observes Richard Lachance, Solotech's vice president of development. "Everyone truly works together in a classic ensemble manner, and there's a tremendous degree of respect and support between performers and crew and management. It's a pleasure to see so many people working so well together.
"The two-sided stage concept is very inspired, particularly the way the scrims and video are utilised," Lachance continues. "It opens up the stage and destroys 'the box,' so it doesn't feel like a traditional stage, and at the same time it transforms the performance space so it really doesn't feel like an arena anymore."
The sound system created by audio designer Yves Savoie was conceived as dual, opposing setups to cover both sides of the stage, using a total of 96 of Meyer Sound's MICA compact high-power curvilinear array loudspeakers. Each side sports three towers of 16 MICA cabinets, along with two columns of five 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofers. Six M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array loudspeakers per side act as front-fill for the first few rows of floor seating, with a handful of CQ-1 wide coverage main loudspeakers added to fill in some front corners.
On stage, six UPA-1P compact wide coverage loudspeakers per side act as monitors for the dancers, while 16 M3D-Sub directional subwoofers underneath the stage reinforce the performance's substantial rhythmic content.
The production plans to integrate Meyer Sound's Galileo loudspeaker management system into the existing network in December, in order to utilise Galileo's air absorption compensation filtering and array compensation presets.
FOH engineer Renate Petruzziello mixes the show on a Yamaha PM1D digital console, handling over 200 inputs on 80 channels.
"In some of the smaller venues, we will use only 12 or 14 MICAs (per tower)," explains Andre Jr. Pichette, Delirium's audio systems designer. "That's the genius of this setup: that we can change it so easily to adapt to the hall. Also, the rigging allows us to tip each cabinet as much as we need to reach the very uppermost seats. Most line arrays can't do that.
"Even more important for us is the MICA's self-powered design," Pichette adds. "Delirium is such a massive production, and we have very limited space backstage. With a traditional speaker setup, we would need about eight more amp racks back here, which would be impossible. And with the MICA, it's just one cable carrying signal, RMS (Meyer Sound's remote monitoring system), everything."
"Cirque shows are generally pretty complex productions, but in most cases it's a semi-permanent installation in a single venue," Petruzziello observes. "The challenge with Delirium is that we deal with two or three different arenas every week - one might sound pretty good, another might not. It's always
