CRASH The Live Tour 2022
English pop star Charlotte Emma Aitchison, who goes by the stage name Charli XCX, is touring in support of her fifth studio album, Crash, which takes her through the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Europe. PLSN caught up with the production team to find out more about what was behind the design.
Imogene Strauss
Show Direction & Scenic Design
Show Director and Scenic Designer Imogene Strauss has been working for a while with Charli XCX and her team as her creative director for her album campaign as well as her live show. “I’m involved in everything visual in Charli’s world, which made the process somewhat seamless. We had discussed a bunch of things, columns, stairs, curtains—we hadn’t initially planned on an LED wall, but when I came with the design, it felt like a necessary component and step up. We actually only did one round of renders, and we were both very happy with the design. Things changed somewhat from that initial design for logistical reasons, but not much.”
The artist brought two male dancers on tour: Nathan Kim, who is also her choreographer, and Grant Gilmore. “They’re both amazing and couldn’t have been better choices for the show. The use of the set with choreography was something I thought about a lot with the design, in giving them something to interact with that feels unique and creates a dialogue and physical exchange between the performers and set itself in a new way.”
This is the third tour on which Strauss has worked with Designer Jonny Kingsbury, following two Clairo tours. ”I like working with Jonny because he’s always down to help me figure out how to do something that a lot of people would say no to off the bat due to timing, budget or logistics.” Some of Strauss’s other credits include a tour with Zedd, Blood Orange and several other one-off shows and TV performances. “Outside of live design, I also do creative direction for artists and brands as well as a bit of interior design.”
Jonny Kingsbury
Production/Lighting Designer
This was the first time Production/Lighting Designer Jonny Kingsbury has worked with Charli and her management. A few years ago, Strauss and Kingsbury went to see her last show and he was “absolutely blown away and inspired by it.” Kingsbury says, “It’s a pretty cool full circle moment to be on the other side of things now with Imogene just a couple years later. Imogene is actually the one who brought us into the fold on this show, and I’m very grateful to her for doing so. I really admire her vision for stage design, and how hard she fights to see her vision come to life. I love being a part of that. We had gotten into a good flow working on Clairo’s tour together and it seemed like a good fit to keep our collaboration going for Charli,” he says.
“This was the first time the artist has used video, so it was a leap into a new world,” adds Kingsbury. “It was definitely a consideration in the lighting design to make sure all design elements worked on stage cohesively together. I think at the end of the day, we really didn’t have too much of a battle of lights vs. video, it all just kind of worked together. This can probably be attributed to the skill of Kai Colucci as programmer, making it work together without becoming an issue. Imogene and I went and saw a lot of [other] shows together, and always left a little disappointed in the quality of the video and what we saw. We agreed that we didn’t like it when I-Mag looks like sports, or video content looks like a video game. This is usually because of the frame rate at which they are shooting video or doing animation in. Early on, we made the decision to run all video at 24 FPS to give it a cinematic look. This turned out to be a little bit of a challenge, from timecode, to edits, and animation exports. It was a lot of tiny details to get it all dialed-in correctly. We had a really great resource with Joe and Mary Vaughn at Rogue Productions. They were crucial in the knowledge they provided to help me integrate this idea into the show successfully.”
The fixture that he’s most excited about on this tour is the GLP JDC Line 1000 that they hid inside the second staircase. “It was actually (TM) Wilkie Wilkinson’s idea to use the JDC Line. We needed a solution for a fixture with a really slim profile, but still packed a big punch. Imogene is very particular about the types of fixtures on stage, doesn’t like the lights to be seen by the crowd as much, so I went through a lot of different iterations and ultimately landed on the fixtures that I believed to have the best looking faces as a compromise. The JDC1s obviously look great and have a lot of versatility, so I was pretty adamant that we use these and not accept any other strobe substitution. Next was the GLP X4 Bar 20s, again pretty obvious, but the face of the fixture looks great, and I love to use them in vertical lines and horizontal lines together. We used [Chroma-Q] Color Force II 72s to light up the soft goods framing the video wall; they are my absolute go-to fixture for lighting soft goods from the floor.” A fogger was something new that they haven’t used much before, in addition to the hazers. “There are a lot of musical moments in the show with the sound of cars burning out, and tires screeching. So, we came up with the idea of adding a fogger underneath our riser circle, and those are some of my favorite moments in the show. It helps sell the idea that there is smoke lingering in the air from the tires burning out, it’s really cool and immersive.”
When Kingsbury started work on the lighting design for this show, he knew he wanted it to be big. “Her music demands it. There are so many tiny flourishes, and little details in her music so I visualized how I might design the lighting in my head. I started to visualize the stairs lighting up with each hit of the synth. This was before Imogene even asked me to do it. This actually made it into the show. Something that I strongly believe in is using minimal house lighting. I like to let the floor package do the heavy lifting, and then only bring in the house rig for big moments when the music demands it, otherwise you’re just adding the house rig because you think you’re supposed to.”
He adds, “Knowing how much choreography there was in this show, and how difficult that would be to keep them well lit with only side wash was a bold choice, but it produced the best result. I wanted to make sure that I kept the ‘vibe’ of the show. Nathan, the choreographer, was crucial in helping us dial in all of lighting positions on stage from moment to moment to make sure the dancers and Charli stayed well lit the entire show.”
The programming also stands out in the show, he adds. “Kai was essential, taking the time with Nathan to make sure that we got all these moments right as well. It really was a ton of work, and extremely time consuming. Kai and I make a great team together, he’s one the best programmers out there. I’m proud of our collaboration on this show.”
Kai Colucci
Lighting Programmer
The set list was mostly sorted by the time Kai Colucci started programming, so he worked on a set list of 20 songs. “I worked for about four to five days in my office with previz time, but I also had spent a few days prior working on the show file, timecoding, etc. Since there were so many people involved (choreographing, video, lighting, audio), the set list was decided on pretty well in advance. This show actually broke my record for most timecode events in one song, with 1,377 events in ‘Party 4 U.’ However, there are manual things to work on, mostly downstage wash and blinders.”
Colucci got into lighting by joining Cour Design in 2016 when he moved to Nashville, but in 2020 he set off for Miami to start his own Night Light Design. “After Jonny joined the Cour team and we started working together more, we developed a pretty solid rapport that makes the entire process far smoother. After so many projects, Jonny trusts my creative instincts so that I’m able to work on my own vision during previz, which he adds on during rehearsals.”
This is Colucci’s first experience with choreography. “I was nervous going into it, as I think my talents are sometimes best suited for working with just lighting or with the addition of video. But it added such a level to the show that I’m looking forward to my next project with it. This is also my second project with Imogene—and soon approaching countless with Jonny and Cour Design, but I really feel like this was something special.” He gives a shout out to Lighting Director Quincy Stanton and Lighting Crew Tech Alexandra Lutz-Higgins as “absolute champions” during late rehearsal nights. “I was really proud of watching it head out on the road,” he says.
Sam Barratt
Production Manager
Production Manager Sam Barratt says their relationship with vendor Christie Lites goes back to 2019 with Account Rep Mat Ilot for a previous album campaign. “We just loved the high level of service support we received. It was a no brainer for us to continue our relationship into this tour with them. Our fixture counts are actually relatively low from previous tours as we had the new challenge of finding a way to get the looks Jonny wanted without creating issues for choreography and blocking. Mat really helped us get what we needed to make the floor package work for us,” Barratt says.
“Video content was pretty much talked about from the word go. We had toyed with ideas of projection vs. an LED wall as there was a lot of logistics to consider because of the range of venues this tour is hitting. After deciding on LED, we brought Screenworks in to supply. We decided to go with ROE CB8 as the LED product because its weight is on the lighter side but still packs a big punch visually. The biggest challenge of having a video wall on this tour was how it was going to rig in the venues. On the larger venues it is easy, however some venues simply can’t handle the weights or even have the points for rigging available, so we carry the ability to hang/stack from Genie lifts so we can cover ourselves if needed. Randy and Marty at Screenworks fully understood what we needed to achieve this and really helped us get the various versions of the screen setup for the tour.”
The set pieces are designed to be as modular as possible and to scale down for when they have stage size restrictions. “We wanted the set to be useable across a variety of shows and festivals across the world, so we decided to keep the custom elements as minimal as we could. That’s where Robert Achlimbari at All Access Staging came into the picture and was great. I have to say that we have such a strong touring crew for this project. Everyone is extremely dedicated, hardworking, and a pleasure to work with. Without this team, we wouldn’t have the show looking as good as it does. They all really deserve a big pat on the back.”
Charli XCX CRASH The Live Tour 2022
Production Team
- Show Direction/Scenic Design: Imogene Strauss
- Lighting Designer/Production Designer: Jonny Kingsbury
- Lighting Programmer: Kai Colucci
- Tour Manager: Wilkie Wilkinson
- Production Manager: Sam Barratt
- Lighting Operator: Quincy Stanton
- Lighting Crew Chief/Tech: Alexandra Lutz-Higgins
- Video Operator/Techs: David Diller, Jon Stutsman
- Video Content Creator: Actual Objects, Cour Content, Clayton McCracken
- Stage Manager: Rafa Rodriguez
- Carpenter/Assistant Stage Manager: Morgan Isaac
Vendors
- Lighting: Christie Lites/Mat Ilot
- Video: Screenworks/Randy Mayer
- Staging: All Access Staging & Production/Robert Achlimbari
- Soft Goods: Sew What?/Marianne Lopez
- Column Design: Nu California
- Media Server: Rogue Productions
- Video Content Animators: Actual Objects/Rick Farin, Cour Content/M.K.A.V., C180n.tv/Clayton McCracken
Gear
Lighting
- 2 MA Lighting grandMA2 full Lighting Console
- 18 GLP impression X4 Bar 20
- 6 GLP JDC Line 1000
- 10 GLP JDC1 Strobe
- 1 Martin MAC Viper Profile
- 4 Chroma-Q Color Force II 72
- 6 Elation PALADIN Panel
- 2 Look Solutions Unique 2.1 Hazer
Video
- LED Wall 15’-9”H x 27’-7”W
- ROE Visual Carbon CB8 LED Panel
- Evision 102 LED Processor
More photos by Steve Jennings
