When founder Paul O'Neill and tour director Elliot Saltzman first put Trans Siberian Orchestra on the road 11 years ago, the entire production fit in a single truck. Today's TSO holiday shows, which give Christmas-themed orchestral music a heavy metal edge, are visually animated with massive video displays, moving truss, lasers and pyro, and it takes 20 trucks of gear, including one generator truck, to make the East and West Coast shows happen. Production/lighting designer Bryan Hartley (bryanhartley.com) has been adding to the design for the twin productions over the years. "This year I incorporated two 80-foot catwalks over the audience with high-res video and VersaTubes underneath," he said.
TSO East and West are identical and include 74 Vari-Lite VL 3500 Wash Fixtures, 68 VL 3000 Spots, 133 Martin Stagebar LED fixtures, 282 Philips/Color Kinetics Colorblast 12s, 180 Coemar ParLite LEDs, 88 Martin Atomic 3K Strobes and 32 Atomic Color Scrollers and 19 Syncrolites. There are also five 25-watt colored lasers and "more pyro than KISS." Hartley should know – he has worked with that group as well. The automation includes 36 motorized winches, and a Flying Pig Systems Wholehog 3 console runs the show.
Early TSO holiday shows toured without video, but for the last few years, they have incorporated it heavily. This year, in addition to the VersaTubes (12 0.5-meter, 193 1-meter and 112 2-meter versions), each show uses 190 WinVision 18.75 LED tiles, four fire screens and five upstage towers with a single row of 20-foot tiles, 36 tiles of Everbrighten BR15, and 144 feet of Main Light Industries SoftLED. Three Catalyst media servers providing content, not including backups.
Along with TSO's own crews, the two tours got an assist from Epic Production Technologies (lighting), Chaos Visual Productions (video), SGPS/Showrig Inc. (rigging/automation) and Pyrotek Special Effects/Laser Design Productions (pyro/lasers).
Patrick Whitley was the production manager and Steve Roman was the stage manager for TSO East, and David Comeau was the tour manager, Jeff Boguski was the production manager and Andy Omilianowski was the stage manager for TSO West.
Epic Production Technologies' TSO East crew chief was Kevin Cassidy, supported by crew members including Andy Figueroa, Matt Tucker, Mark Abra, Terry Smith, Ryan Lecomte, Marshall Blair, Jarret Borodenko, Glenn Rupert and Armando Figueroa. For TSO West, the Epic lineup included John Lunio, crew chief, and Daniel Brooker, Brad Wagg, Trevitt Cromwell, Tony Dorman, L. Mark Donahue, Justin Dowbiggin, Jason Marks, Jason Bowman and Mel Dorough. Syncrolite techs included Jorge Del Angel and Steve Sliger for TSO East and TJ Benton and Robbie Sheene for TSO West.
Chaos' TSO East crew chief was Kenny Ackerman, supported by Rusty Wingfield, Wayne Boehning, John Bedell, Chad McClymonds, Jeff Gainer and Tyler Munson. For TSO West, the Chaos crew included crew chief Joe Labbe and Jon Schulman, Dustin King, Steve Burkholder, Dave Sheppard, Karl Hansen and Johny Hayes.
SGPS/Showrig, led by Eric Pierce, built the catwalks, overhead truss and back wall of lights. For TSO East, the SGPS roster included crew chief Mark McKinney backed up by Jason Revis, Daniel Wright, Will Gurski, Jimmy George, Shane Bandy, Mike Williams and Angel Aguirre. For TSO West, the SGPS crew led by crew chief John Purciful included Len Purciful, Rudy Rodriguez, Ryan Doshay, Steve Davidson, James Ford and Zachary Purciful.
The Pyrotek Special Effects crew, implementing designs by Doug Adams, included, for TSO East, pyro crew chief Jan Sanderse, Tristan Ford, Eric Scott Muccio, Paul Cusato and Kenn MacDonald, and laser crew chief Jason McEachern worked with laser tech Jason Bridges. For TSO West, pyro crew chief Hans Lundberg worked with pyro crew members Adam Biscow, Clint Ranse, Gregg Pearson and Tim Bolin and laser crew chief Brian Van Trigt worked with laser tech Wally Gazda. EFX techs included Nick Zangari for TSO East and Adam Cryderman for TSO West.
