LOS ANGELES – A few years ago, Paul O'Neil's Trans Siberian Orchestra (TSO) did shows in small theatres, two or three times a week. Now, the dual touring productions do two arena-sized shows a day on both the East and West coast, a challenge even to Chaos Visual Productions, which is used to handling video for large shows. "I've been involved with a lot of large productions, and I have to say this is as complex and intense as anything I've seen in my 30 years," said Chaos president John Wiseman.Working once again with tour director Elliot Saltzman, Chaos provided visuals in support of TSO's Night Castle.
"Working with two enormous systems, two tour managers – Patrick Whitley on East and Jeff Boguski on the West, two sets of crew and many times a week, two shows a day, all at the same time, makes you realize how successful these artists are," Wiseman noted. Chaos provided both the East and West Coast tours with eight truss fascia, a custom frame made up of seven tiles of 18.75mm Winvision, along with eight 1-meter Versa Tubes and 2 half-meter Versa Tubes from Element Labs.
Each tour also traveled with three "Fire Walls" made of 24 tiles of Winvision 18.75 mm in touring frames. Hanging from large pantographs were six "TV Screens" made up of eight tiles of 18.75mm Winvision, eight 1 meter Versa Tubes and four half-meter Versa Tubes.
Mounted in each of the eight FOH truss pods over the audience were six 2-meter and four 1-meter Versa Tubes. Mounted on the truss uprights upstage were 30 2-meter Versa Tubes. Mounted on custom frames on the overhead trusses were 120 1-meter Versa Tubes. Onstage in the set there were 28 2-meter Versa Tubes, 12 1-meter tubes and 12 half-meter tubes. The video was controlled via two Catalyst media servers and two more were used for hot backup.
Touring on behalf of Chaos on the West Coast was Joe Finn, crew chief; Tyler Munson, Catalyst operator; LED techs Dave Sheppard, Dustin King, Steve Burkeholder; and Wayne Matlock on Soft LED curtains.
Touring on behalf of Chaos on the East Coast was Kenny Ackerman, crew chief; Brandon Oosterhoff, Catalyst operator; Soft LED curtain tech Kevin Levasseur; and LED techs John Bedell, Wayne Boehning and Dave Duca.
