The Justice World Tour, which was rescheduled from its launch last summer, started Feb. 18, 2022, in San Diego, CA and runs into 2023, with dates being added as Covid restrictions are lifted around the world. This is Justin Bieber’s first global run since his Purpose World Tour during 2016-2017. PLSN caught up with the creatives behind the design when the show played recently in California.
Nick DeMoura
Creative Director / Production Designer
Nick DeMoura had wanted to build this stage for Justin Bieber for a long time now. The goal with this design was to build a stage that can transform itself into many different looks, rather than just one big piece for the whole show. “It gave Justin and myself a big blank canvas to create anything we wanted visually. Justin loved to work with me on the visuals and the direction of his show. It’s not just one sit-down meeting for us, this is going to be our 12th year working together, so we discuss things all year round and for all future shows.”
The show starts with Bieber emerging from the top of a plane. DeMoura wanted a massive entrance and remembered when Bieber took a photo on an abandoned plane in Iceland years ago. “Right then I thought this would be amazing for a show! I just needed to make sure it was the right place and time to do so. We also have a flying platform and that was just another way I got to use this stage design to create an entirely new look for the show. We did have more props for the tour, but they might have taken away the show’s flow, which is always a high design priority for me, so we took them out. I think about the show’s flow when I first put the show creative together; that’s the choreographer in me. An end stage was always in the cards. I played around with a possible B-stage but because of the world’s circumstances we decided not to. But I still wanted to bring him out as much as possible, which is why the stage has its depth.”
DeMoura notes the great working relationship and friendship that he and Lighting Designer Nick Van Nostrand have developed over the years. “We challenge each other and are always honest with one another to do what’s best for the show. I can always rely on him to deliver beautiful lighting designs every time without hassles. This was my first time working with Production Manager Jason Danter; he’s a great leader. With any tour there are a lot of challenges, and he was instrumental in helping us figure out those things on the production side. I learned a lot working with him.”
He thanks everyone that was involved in putting this show together. “As the designer, creative director, and choreographer, I get a lot of praise but it’s just an idea without the amazing vendors and crew who work their tails off to help Justin and I pull off our vision for the show. A big thank you to them!”
Nick Van Nostrand
Lighting Designer
Nick Van Nostrand has been working with Justin Bieber for over 10 years in many different roles. This was his first time as the designer for one of his tours, which has been exciting for him. “The camp has a bunch of great people in place, so the design process has been relatively low stress, which is always nice.”
Having worked with DeMoura on many projects in the past, he notes, “We’ve developed a good workflow and a level of trust that allows us to get from the rough concept to the final design stages without too much back and forth. I generally do the initial production design renders for his projects, so I get to be involved in the process early on. This makes it really easy to add in the lighting elements once we hit that part of the process. I have a design studio in Toronto, so usually we do all our meetings remotely and that seems to work really well. It’s pretty rare that we have to meet in person until it’s time to rehearse. Working with Nick is great because we have a very similar design aesthetic and constantly bounce ideas back and forth. As a design partner and a great friend, I’m honored that he keeps calling me to work on his projects.”
Van Nostrand says lighting vendor PRG was great when it came to getting fixtures for this tour. “After sitting through a couple of years of the pandemic, they were very accommodating when it came to capital expenditures and were ready to purchase some new gear. We also worked with PRG to try and use fixtures that they were interested in adding to their inventory. Take the [Elation] Proteus Maximus, for example. We didn’t need IP65-rated fixtures, but I can’t complain when a company offers to buy a large number of brand-new LED-based high output fixtures for the tour. PRG had those on their list of fixtures they were interested in as they are trying to build up an inventory of IP65 fixtures, so it worked for us and them. ‘Looch’ [Account Executive Anthony Ciampa] from PRG was great throughout the whole process, but honestly, mostly because he was really accommodating and flexible when it came to accessing items in the PRG global inventory. Also, he never complained—to my face—when we had to change fixtures for various reasons during the design process.”
Spotlights were something they spent considerable time on when designing for this show. “Honestly, we really wanted to do something different, which is hard when it comes to spots. The standard is usually a couple of spots out front and one or two rear truss spots. This time we carried all our own spots [PRG GroundControl Followspot System], and we played with some very steep angles, putting inverted followspots on the deck as tracking side light, and yes, we played a lot with color. We weren’t afraid to try some weird things, and both the artist and Nick were game to try things out. We actually installed more spots than we needed at rehearsals so we could try out different angles to see what worked. I was really happy with the way the spots/key lighting turned out, which is something I don’t always get to say!”
The LD has high praises for the touring team, pointing out a special mention to the “amazing lighting crew” and to Crew Chief Ronnie Beal. “They made the whole process truly painless and gave us a rig at 100% right from the start. The system was well thought out and executed extremely well.” He also shines a light on “programming ninja Davey Martinez. It was so nice to work with someone who can take your idea and direction and run with it. This production wouldn’t have been the same without him. We feel extremely lucky to have him.”
Davey Martinez
Lighting Director
Davey Martinez had worked previously with both DeMoura and Van Nostrand on Bieber’s Purpose Tour, which he also helped program. During the pandemic he filled in for Van Nostrand at Bieber’s various live-for-broadcast performances.
Considering all the fixtures in the show, the lighting director personally loves the GLP FR10 Bars, of which they have 96 for the tour. “Like everyone I was a huge fan of the X4 Bar when they were first introduced and the FR10 is like its bigger brother. The versatility that these fixtures provide is unmatched, they can be used both for key lighting and effects seamlessly and are extremely durable.”
The majority of the show is timecoded, he notes. “This allowed us to accurately accent the vast musicality of the live arrangements of each song. It would be a disservice to the hard work of the artists to not timecode the show, or to say program everything into one cue stack. Each song has dozens of accent executors, timecode tracks, the goal of which is to represent the musicality of the show as much as possible. I programmed the majority of the show, but Nick [Van Nostrand] jumped in and programmed a few songs that he was inspired to do himself.”
Martinez says they started building the showfile Jan. 5, the first day of rehearsals at Rock Lititz, with the first show Feb. 18 in San Diego, CA. “This gave us the perfect amount of time to hit crucial milestones without burning out. I commend the production for giving the entire crew ample time to flesh out the entire show; this kept everyone safe and healthy. I would say eight out of 10 shows stay the same. For the Los Angeles shows we had several guest artists which all required a day of programming. Thankfully we got it all done before doors each night.”
Justin Bieber Justice Tour 2022/23
Production Team
- Creative Director/Production Designer: Nick DeMoura
- Lighting Designer: Nick Van Nostrand
- Lighting Director & Programmer: Davey Martinez
- Production Manager: Jason Danter
- Tour Director: Marty Hom
- Road Manager: Eric Johnson
- Video Director: Nate Fountain Jr.
- Video Content Creator: Possible
- Media Server Programmer & Operator: Kayla Humphries
- Laser Programmer: Jessie Parker
- Possible Lead: Katie Plummer
- Production Coordinators: Emma Cederblad, Sam Steinle
- Stage Managers: Brian Wares, Brad Imrie
- Lighting Crew Chief: Ronnie Beal
- Lighting Techs: Matt LeVine, Josh “Cheese” Bazett-Jones, James Jones III, Alison Triplett, Dave Prior, Cole Wheeler, Mike Rothwell
- Video/LED Crew Chief: JM Schulman
- Video Engineer: Briony Margetts
- Video Systems Engineer: Johanns Litzenberger
- Video/LED Techs: John M Moore, Benny Welch, Karl Hanson, Chris Rodgers, Austin Wavra, Michael Quiroga, Chris Campbell, Brent Kirchner
- Props: Tracy Van Egmond
- Automation Techs: Jeremy Sorenson, Vince Gallegos, Rawd Van Egmond, KY Dobson, Christian Mikkelsen, Emerson Shewmake
- SFX Crew Chief: Stuart Wickens
- SFX Techs: Matt McCoy, Chrisy Bernat, AJ Seabeck
- Carpenters: Adam Cavanagh, Chaz Philips, AJ Haley, Karl Cavanagh, Jake Van Egmond, Dwayne ‘“Monkey” Diaz, Mark Ketchen, Eric Cardoza
- Riggers: Bill Rengstl (Head), Lew Lew Lewis, Lenyn Barahona, Alex Bolduc
Production Vendors
- Lighting & Video: PRG (Anthony “Looch” Ciampa)
- Staging, Scenic & Automation: TAIT (Aaron Siebert, Kevin Donnelly, Marisa Rinchiuso)
- SFX: Pyrotecnico FX (Rocco Vitale, Ron Bleggi, Larry Barcello)
- Drones: Verity (Federico Augugliaro, Claire Pokopac)
Gear
Lighting:
- 3 MA Lighting grandMA3 full size Lighting Console
- 1 PRG GroundControl Followspot System
- 8 PRG Best Boy HP GroundControl Spots
- 65 Elation Proteus Maximus
- 80 Ayrton MagicPanel-FX
- 18 Vari-Lite VL2600 Profiles
- 96 GLP FR10 Bar
- 46 GLP impression X4 Bar20
- 100 GLP JDC1 Strobe
- 9 Astera Titan Tube
- 1 Astera AX3 LightDrop
- 6 Scenic LED Crosses
- 4 MDG theOne Hazer
Video:
- Screens: ROE Visual CB8 8.3mm LED Panel
- Floors: YesTech
- Media Server: 4 disguise gx 2c Media Server
- Switcher: Barco E2
- 4K Camera System
- Barco Laser Projectors for I-Mag
Pyro & Lasers:
- 1 Pyrodigital Firing System w/ 2 FC-A Controller
- 1 Pyrotecnico FX Integrated Laser Control and Safety Network
- 8 FX Series Laser 25 RGBY Beam Brush High Power Laser
- 8 FX Series Laser 25 RGB High Power Laser
More Justin Bieber Justice Tour photos by Steve Jennings:
