The Japanese Band’s big show at MSG got an assist from PRG
The Japanese group L’Arc-en-Ciel is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a world tour and making some concert history along the way. They became the first Japanese band to ever headline at New York’s Madison Square Garden (MSG) with their sold-out performance on March 25, 2012. Starting off the final leg of their world tour at MSG is a daunting undertaking — doubly so when you are starting off your first show with a brand new set, lighting, and video. The group decided to bring in concert touring production manager Tom Hudak to handle the Garden performance as well as the subsequent European dates and some of the Asian tour stops. PLSN spoke with Hudak about the MSG show.
PLSN: I imagine it is challenging to kick off a tour at MSG?
Tom Hudak: At the Garden, it’s always preferable having a machine that’s finely-tuned, but you don’t always get that chance. The key production challenge was building and interfacing a system that we had never seen before in the limited amount of time that we had. For this performance, we were also interfacing 22 cameras to film the show for a live simulcast for Japanese television at the same time as building a whole new production. To help bridge the Japanese team with the western venues, they brought in three Westerners on the production side for the tour — myself as the international production manager, Chris Gadd as international stage manager, and tour director Richard Ames. There is a 26-person Japanese crew that travels with this show that includes cameramen, lighting operators, audio and video operators. Not that many of the Japanese crews speak English, but the production manager for the Japanese team is very fluent in English, so it works out fine.
You went with PRG as the total production provider. What made you decide to use a single production house?
At the end of the day, I was very, very happy that I went with PRG as the overall contractor. Not that it wouldn’t have worked the other way with separate vendors, but it would have been much more challenging. I feel like I had a great deal of support from PRG, especially [PRG account executive] Bobby Allen. I could easily bring everybody together on the same plan for the load-in; I wasn’t dealing with three different vendors working on their own.
I could prioritize the needs of the production without having to coordinate between different vendors. For instance, getting up video screens so they hung out three-quarters of the way over seating in the house is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Rather than hanging the lighting system immediately, we went in with the sidewalls of video first. We hung the motors for the lighting system and used a few of the onstage motors as electric bridles basically. We were able to hang the screen and then get it up above the seating and release those motors to swing the video screens over into position. It was a matter of video working with lighting; everyone working together to get the whole thing done.
You did a two-day tech rehearsal at the Izod Arena first, correct?
Yes, I knew the production couldn’t go into Madison Square Garden cold without some preparation. It helped immensely with the load-in at the Garden. It created the relatedness of all of the departments. First of all, they got to interface with the touring crew and make sure that everything was working. We found the snags, which I was able to deal with, little things, but given that I only had 20 hours at the Garden, it was nice to deal with them before load-in. We were also able to load the trucks the way we wanted them unloaded, which was a huge help. It just made so much sense.
This was the first concert to work with the new PRG Rolling Deck. How did it work for the MSG show?
The stage was a huge, massive advantage. For actually coming out for the first time, it went together beautifully. It’s well-engineered; it is a work of art. Taking it out for the first time at the Garden — that really was trial by fire, but it was so intuitive; just a great design. It was like unveiling a new Apple product. The guys just put it together; they didn’t need to read an instruction book. They put the whole 70-deck main stage up in just over an hour. It was just astounding.
Any other thoughts or comments about the show?
It was quite an undertaking, but I think that we made all the right decisions. Evidently, the crystal ball was working back in December when I was trying to figure out how to do this. Everybody gave it their best effort.
It’s not an easy thing to work 28-hours straight, but everything was done very efficiently and very well. It was a big, high profile show for the band, their fans and for all of us. The production certainly came together the way it was supposed to and everyone was happy with the results.
