The production design for this tour was created by Willie Williams. XL's Paul 'Macca' McCauley has managed the account for the last three years, although XL's association with Bryan Adams' live work goes back several more years.
Macca worked closely with Adams' own video director Marc Ledoux and Encore operator Sebastien De Bellefeuille in co-ordinating and setting up the tour, together with production manager Andy Proudfoot.
Macca commented, "It was great to be working with Bryan Adams and his team again - there were many familiar faces. Visuals are a vital element to the stage presentation and he's an artist with a very keen eye for the potential and impact that judiciously applied video brings to the whole performance experience."
At the back of the stage was an 11.4m wide by 4.8m high surface of XL's Pixled F-12 LED, which was fitted with a clean, elegant scenic surround each night giving it the appearance of a contemporary cinema billboard.
The two side IMAG screens measured 20 x 15ft and were hung in portrait format, each fed by a rear-projecting Barco HD20K projector.
XL supplied a camera / PPU package comprising a Grass Valley Karrera mixer and four Sony HXC 100 operated cameras - positioned at FOH, in the pit and onstage.
Two Bradley CamBall 2 robo cams and two Bradley mini-cams were also part of the camera package - positioned around the stage in quirky places. All of these camera sources were fed from the Carrera into the Encore, and output to screen from there.
Adams also had his own CCTV-style black & white camera that was used to capture particular grainy footage for one specific moment in the set.
All the playback material was stored on a Catalyst media server system, and these cues were also routed into the Encore ... and output to the screens.
XL's crew were engineer Dave Rogers, crew chief Roger Nelson, camera operators Brian Miles and Mark Young and LED technician Connor Canwell. Phil Haines programmed the Catalyst system during production rehearsals at Nottingham Ice Arena ahead of the first gig at the same venue.
Macca sums up, "It's an amazing show that is completely different in look and style from last tour, but equally as powerful and enjoyable."
(Jim Evans)
