More details from Adlib (www.adlibsolutions.co.uk):
Adlib was asked by AEG Live to supply full technical production to the shows which played true theatre / concert halls rather than traditional pop-orientated venues.
With 4.4 million Twitter Followers, 4.3 million Facebook Likes & over 155 million YouTube views to date, the chart topping singer is tipped as ‘the next big’ pop phenomenon. Having already won the hearts and hormones of America and Australia, he’s now repeating the magic in the UK and Europe.
Adlib Design’s Ian Tomlinson designed the show’s look and Adlib Lighting’s Michael Summerfield created a very smooth moving pop vibe ambience, using a combination of house rigs and a small but extremely well spec’d and multi-purpose ‘specials’ rig.
This included four Martin Professional MAC 700 Profiles and six MAC 101 LED wash lights, added to the house lighting systems at each venue.
The MAC 700s were rigged on four upstage vertical truss towers and used for gobo texturing of the stage and strong pop-tastic back beam-light looks, while the 101s were used to efficiently light a white cyc as well as for stage washes and back lighting.
Summerfield received a cue list from Cody’s management which basically indicated whether the song was up-tempo or slow & moody, complete with some color suggestions.
On a couple of numbers, Cody was lit just with followspots, which brought a stark contrast to the stage and enabled all to enjoy the power of his vocals, and for the James Bond pastiche intro, he produced a searchlight effect. Summerfield ran the lightshow using an Avolites Pearl Expert. With such a compact rig, there were no issues with fitting the kit into the venues.
For each show, they requested a basic four-colour PAR wash from the house, which was added to the looks in Summerfield’s console. The houses also provided a front open-white look, and profile fixtures to key light the drummer and guitarist.
Adlib Account Manager Phil Kielty comments, “Already this year we’ve worked with an eclectic selection of artists, and thanks to AEG Live, it was great to work with Cody Simpson and his band, all of whom were seriously good musicians. Justin Sinclair and Steve Welc (Tour Manager) were great to work with on all levels and we hope to be doing so again soon!”
