For her 2014-15 Prismatic world tour, Katy Perry treats her loyal fans to an extravaganza of visual and musical delights. In support of her fourth studio album Prism, the show has it all — a prism LED wall along with a huge pyramid shaped extended B-stage, pyro, lasers, Katy flying through the air, and it wouldn’t be a show without cats, a Perry staple. Along the way, there are some neon scenes, an Egyptian horse and lots more to delight the eyes.
Back again is show director and designer Baz Halpin of Silent House Productions, whom we spoke with along with associate designer and programmer Eric Marchwinski, production manager Jay Schmit and lighting director Drew Gnagey. Upstaging provide lighting gear, with an assist from Neg Earth in the U.K.
The marathon tour, launched in Ireland last May, had a run through North America from June through October and visited Australia and New Zealand in November and December. The production is back in Europe in 2015 and, after a final show in Sweden in March, the tour picks up again in Asia in late April and May.
Baz Halpin, Show Director and Production/Lighting Designer
It’s a pretty streamlined process with Katy Perry, as Baz Halpin explains…
“Katy and I have worked together for five years or so, and we’ve developed a very efficient way of working together. We started with a napkin sketch of a stage and a broad list of songs. For this tour, we started by honing down a solid set list, which was divided into seven sections: Prismatic, Egyptian, Cat-oure, Acoustic, Throwback, Hyper Neon and Encore/Prism Vision. We then began to develop individual themes and treatments for each of the songs within the acts that lived in the overall visual theme of the section. This whole process took about six months, with many creative meetings over that time to really delve into each and every detail, from costumes to content and everything in between.”
The set design started in a restaurant in ?Amsterdam during the MTV European Music Awards in November 2013.
“We looked at a lot of old set designs from iconic bands from the 80’s and 90’s, and we looked and what worked and what didn’t. We then sketched out a very simple triangular shape on a napkin and we took it from there. I knew that the scale and engineering involved in what we were talking about would require the skills of Tait Towers, so Adam Davis, Brian Levine and Winky [James Fairorth] flew to the Silent House offices for a meeting, where we began to draw up the stage and all the elements within it. It went through a variety of iterations before the final version, and as the storyline of the show developed, we added lifts, travelators and other elements to support the creative narrative.”
With high trim heights and ample LED screen output, the rig needed powerful fixtures with a lot of punch.
“We also needed the fixtures to be mounted to a hydraulic ‘flipper,’ which could move the fixture behind the LED screen as the individual screen pieces tracked back and forward on the stage. We surrounded each of the three LED screen sections with Clay Paky Sharpys. For the main profile backlight beamage, we chose the Martin Viper Air FX for their power, great color mixing and wide array of features; it’s a great multipurpose fixture which could be effective for scenic lighting as well as mid air effects. For the long truss runs, which run the length of the thrust, we chose the Vari*Lite 3500 FX, both to wash/key the thrust as well as give us gobo options. The trim from this truss could be 80 feet sometimes, so we really required something with great options. We also placed a number of Solaris Flare and [Chroma-Q] Color Block 2s around the rig for accents and powerful hits.”
More time was spent on the pre-production meetings, and the concepts of the show, this time around.
“Katy and I met regularly, so the creative development was fluid. It is a much bigger show this year than the last tour [California Dreams, 2011-12], but Jay [Schmit, production manager] and his team brought a wealth of experience and were in lockstep with the creative every step of the way. I think there were only one or two things that didn’t make the final cut but, all in all, the whole production team delivered everything that was in the original concepts.
“Eric Marchwinski was my right-hand man on this show. He looked after all of the video content programming alongside J.T. Rooney of Lightborne for the integration. He also programmed all of the lighting and managed the time code and automation networking. Eric worked the night shift programming cues for the rehearsals the following day. Kathy Beer would then run the cues as we rehearsed. It was a streamlined process but meant the rig got very little downtime!
“A show like the Prismatic tour could never be possible without the incredibly talented cast and crew that we have. Production manager Jay Schmit, stage manager Alan Doyle and the entire production team were incredibly supportive and always turned up with solutions to any of the hurdles we faced. Pat Seeley and the team from Tait Towers delivered an incredible stage and were always available to deal with any last minute requests or changes.”
Eric Marchwinski, Associate Lighting Designer and Programmer
“Baz always pushes the boundaries of the production, artistically and physically and, in turn, stretches everyone else on his team to higher levels. We started working together on some Usher one-offs, and I have been very lucky to have been asked back to work on a few of his other shows.
“As an overall show producer, Baz flies at 30,000 feet, yet he has an uncanny ability to see every last detail — especially the lighting! As an associate designer and programmer on his show, I have a lot of freedom to create based around his vision. After working overnight, Baz will come help me refine it further through notes and suggestions during rehearsals. He and I share the same design aesthetic and programming style. This makes for a very synergetic process and has been the ultimate learning experience for me.
“This show is extremely large; the control system, the data network, and the integration across departments all play pivotal roles in its technical success. Above all, successful programming relies on organization. Every show I program is bespoke, and the internals of the show file are built from the ground up. Baz likes to use timecode on these large shows, for reliability and repeatability. While this show has a few manual sections, for the most part it is time-coded.
“Drew [Gnagey] has been a perfect fit for the LD [lighting director] position, which is a hard role to fill, particularly on this show. All of the programming — both lighting and video —is in a single show file. Drew, as a programmer himself, has a deep understanding of how the show was programmed and what it needs on a day-to-day basis. Over the past four months, Drew has done an excellent job in keeping the integrity of the show and my programming intact.”
Drew Gnagey, Lighting Director
“For Katy’s tour, the show file is integrated with elements from many other touring departments. I receive real-time feedback of what is happening in those other departments. Beyond focusing a rig with many lights and many position focuses, every video, automation, special effect and flying element which is integrated into our system is checked throughout the load-in. I have to be ready at all times to ensure that everything that is integrated with our show file is operational and feeding back information as expected.
“The grandMA2 system is very powerful. We have two full-size consoles at front of house (one primary and one backup) as well as five NPU’s and four 4-port nodes in the grandMA2 system. Keeping everything talking is a single-ring fiber network, which has been designed to make sure this mission-critical system stays online. Within our network switches, we have about eight to ten VLAN’s, which allow shared network support between all stations in the system. MA-Net, Art-Net, video routing, two automation networks and other supplemental VLAN’s all work together in the one system to keep everything cohesive.
“We are utilizing four PRG MBox media servers to play video content. We have two active machines and two spare machines as well as an MBox Remote station at front of house. The MBoxes are a great media server for this system, as we are using full HD content spread across multiple surfaces. The MBox remote software is extremely useful for managing the servers as well as seeing a real-time status of how the servers are performing.
“During the show, I have constant contact via intercom to my crew chief, John Chiodo, as well as our two dimmer techs. Having this communication link is vital as we are able to immediately suss out and fix issues that may arise during the performance.
“As a lighting director on a tour of this scale, having an extremely organized and cohesive show file is critical to maintaining the design of this show on a day-to-day basis. Eric Marchwinski is by far the most talented programmer I have worked with, not only in a design sense, but in an organizational sense. He has made sure that this show file is executed in a way that ensures that every detail, from major to minor, is not overlooked or lost in a show file which could be very overwhelming. Making some of the minor changes since the tour began has been very easy due to Eric’s organized and professional programming.”
Jay Schmit, Production Manager
As Production Manager for the likes of Shakira, Paul Simon and Journey among others, Jay Schmit has his work cut out for him on the logistically complex Prismatic tour.
“As with anything you do, you need to have a good working relationship with all parties involved every step of the way on a project. Be it with the artist, management, creative and logistics, they all need to be in sync from the start. I think we were very lucky in that fact and were able to eliminate any obstacles that keep us from discarding anything from the original creative concepts. The team — wow — it’s a long list, but every one of these key players is what makes this show a huge success.
“John Huddleston from Upstaging is our global lighting vendor, with support in the U.K. from Dave and the crew at Neg Earth. Bob Brigham from PRG/Nocturne was a huge help with his positive attitude all along the way. That transcended to the Nocturne crew building those walls everyday.
“What has to be said about Tait? A lot should be said, from Winky [Fairorth], Adam Davis and Brian Levine getting this project off the ground and working through the design phase, to project manager Pat Seeley and his team of guys — Brock Mearig, Mitch King, Alex Owens, Jimmy “South Park” Southworth, Ben Gasper and the many more that kept this thing on track to make our opening night in Belfast. My hat is off to them for their effort.
“The show props were delivered again by ShowFX and DAS Design Group. Both Quantum Special Effects [pyro] and ER Productions [lasers] were great in support as well. Also I need to applaud the efforts of TransAm, Upstaging Trucking, Hemphill Coaches, Beat the Street and all the rest of the many, many people that came together to make this project happen.”
Working with Schmit on Katy Perry’s tour is stage manager Alan Doyle. They go back many years, to the late 1990s on the Bridges to Babylon tour for the Rolling Stones.
“Alan was a carpenter, and I was a staging guy with StageCo, and we have talked about working together ever since. This came together with a large part of his crew that he assembled from Taylor Swift and a good amount of guys I had here with Katy already. I have been doing production for about 10 years, and I was terrified coming into this tour with the size of it and the complexities of the show itself. Alan was crucial in taking a great amount of the burden of load-in and load-out, plus the running of the show off my hands, so I could concentrate on the logistics of this beast.”
On Perry’s relationship with her fans…
“Katy is unique as an artist and her connection to her fans. I started working with her just prior to the Teenage Dreams record [released in Aug. 2010]. She had a lot of grand ideas, and nothing was going to slow her down. I learned right away to just say ‘Yes,’ and then figure out how you were going to pull it off — from her telling me one morning prior to a private show later that night, that she wanted to pop out of a cake, to adding an additional six trucks of production in the middle of a tour, as we did on the California Dreams tour in 2011. Telling me this is all because her fans deserve the best performance we can give them, regardless of the cost or challenge they impose.
“I would say that my job as a production manager is only as good as the people you surround yourself with. As far as logistics go, I have daily calls with Justin Carbone with Sound Moves to see how to get around the globe in the most sensible fashion possible. I could not do any of this without the help of my wonderful production coordinator, Kim Hilton. I see a lot of my peers rely heavily upon their production assistance or coordinators and they never get any credit. They deserve it all. Kim tolerates me like no other. My wife and kids have no idea how she does it.”
Crew
Show Director and Production/Lighting Designer:Baz Halpin (Silent House Productions)
Associate Lighting Designer & Programmer: Eric Marchwinski
Production Manager: Jay Schmit
Tour Manager: Harry Sandler
Stage Manager: Alan Doyle
Production Coordinator: Kim Hilton
Lighting Directors: Drew Gnagey (2nd leg), Kathy Beer (1st leg)
Lighting Crew Chief: John Chiodo
Lighting Techs: Bart Buckalew, Chris Donati, Tony Cerasuolo, Martin Joos, Rob Corman-Savage, Brian Reed, Calvin Mosier, Todd Turner
Video Engineer: Eugene McAuliffe
Video Director & Crew Chief: Omar Montes-Rangel
Head of Automation: Robert Moore
Choreographers: RJ Durell, Nick Florez
SFX Crew Chief: Dan Ivory-Castile
Laser Tech: Alex Oita
Pyro Techs: Michael Morey, David Hurtado
Lead Rigger: Chuck Melton
Production Companies
Lighting (U.S.): Upstaging Inc. (Account Rep: John Huddleston)
Lighting (U.K.): Neg Earth (Account Rep: Julian Lavander)
Staging & Automation: Tait (Project Manager: Patrick Seeley)
Video: PRG Nocturne (Account Rep: Bob Brigham)
Video Content: Lightborne (Ben Nicholson, J.T. Rooney)
Lasers: ER Productions (Managing Director: Ryan Hagan)
Pyro: Quantum Special Effects (Shaun Barnett)
Props: ShowFX, D.A.S. Design Works (David Mendoza, Aaron Ford); Braun Productions; Scappoose (Michael Curry Design)
Pre-viz: Earlybird Visual
Trucking: Beat The Street, TransAm, Upstaging Trucking
Gear
2 grandMA2 consoles
8 grandMA2 NPUs
4 grandMA2 4-Port Nodes
64 Martin MAC Viper Air FX fixtures
62 Clay Paky Sharpys
36 Clay Paky Sharpy Washes
91 Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash FX fixtures
20 Vari*Lite VL 3515 Spots
3 Vari*Lite VL3015 Spots
39 GLP impression X4 fixtures
80 Chroma-Q ColorBlock 2 fixtures
27 Solaris LED Flares
600 Channels custom LED Lightbox by Tait
{mosapa album=”katyperry”}
