Bandit UK's chief executive, Lester Cobrin comments, "Working with Steve [Levitt], Peter [Barnes] and Dave [Lee] is always a pleasure. Westlife continue to raise the bar and we are honoured to be part of such an exemplary production."
Barnes' design utilises some clever eye trickery, making the stage appear a lot larger than it actually is. He has dispensed with a front truss to give the impression of as much openness and space onstage as possible, and overhead there are seven architectural style lighting trusses, radiating out from a 4m circle upstage centre. The circle truss also provides the show's opening gag - flying in from the roof with the band inside.
There are also three rear 'video' trusses per side at the back, flanking a high resolution LED screen. These are actually lighting trusses, but each is disguised with a banner-style strip of Barco O-lite low resolution video surface attached underneath.
60 Martin Professional MAC 2K washes make up the majority of the moving light count. These are placed all over the finger and video trusses. As a concession to 'conventional moving lights' and at the request of the band, 10 MAC 2K profiles were added on the rear video trusses.
All the trusses are toned with a total of 26 JTE PixelPARs. The set features a large central staircase, which is underlit with Pulsar ChromaBank LED fixtures, and six Color Kinetics ColorBlasts, also mounted under the stairs.
Lee is running all lighting on a WholeHog II console and a wing. This is also driving a dual output Catalyst digital media server, loaded up with custom content created by Barnes. The Catalyst outputs are fed into the main video PPU system and routed to screen - either to the O-Lite panels, or to three strip shaped panels of Barco MiTrix, which criss-cross the O-lite on both sides of stage. The two Catalyst feeds are also made available to video director, Billy Robinson.
"Everyone involved has put a lot of creative energy and imagination into this show and it's been a really enjoyable process, and it has been really great working with Peter, and of course with the Bandit team again," Lee comments. Bandit is also supplying four Lycian 2K follow spots and four crew - crew chief, Johnny Harper, dimmer technician, Rob Starksfield and lighting technicians, Ricky Butler and Jason Dixon. Video is from XL Video UK, sound from Wigwam and the tour runs through early May.
(Jim Evans)
