Selena Gomez officially kicked off her Revival tour at the Mandalay Bay Arena in Las Vegas on May 6. The second solo tour by this popular singer showcases the 2015 album of the same name playing much of the new album among her 20-song set. She reached into her catalogue of five studio albums as well to keep the fans dancing for the better part of the 75-minute set. Baz Halpin put together a talented team of lighting designers, directors, and video personnel to build a cutting edge production together. PRG was called on to provide the lighting and video for the show while Pyrotecnico FX looked after the lasers and Tait Towers built the set.
Baz Halpin
Show Director/Designer
PLSN: As the show director and designer, tell us about the tour’s concept. The tour is named Revival after her album, so did you (along with Melissa Garcia) base themes of the show from those songs.
Baz Halpin: Selena and I discussed having a growth to the show. Basing it around the concept of “revival,” as well as primarily the songs from that album. As the album has been a metamorphosis for her as an artist and musician, so we wanted the show to have that appearance and that feeling also. We decided that it would be clever if we started the show with the title track, “Revival,” and then create a more up-tempo EDM mix of the same track to close the show — making the title track a bookend. It gives a nice sense of the re-birth that she as an artist has gone through. This is definitely a more grown-up Selena Gomez.
The show has five acts. Tell us about the development, the segues and the design process to make it all gel together. Also, how you worked in conjunction with associate director Melissa Garcia and associate designer Eric Marchwinski (who also programmed).
Melissa and I took all the songs that Selena wanted in the show along with some other suggestions from us and we arranged them into five acts. We consciously didn’t want to have an encore, so we built that into the final act. We were aggressive about keeping the pacing up and Selena’s time off stage to a minimum. Our longest transition is 90 seconds, and we are quite proud of that. Selena is synonymous with fashion and being a style icon, so we decided we wanted the show to have an almost runway feel it. That inspired the three runway approach. We also wanted it to be sharp, angular and clean, which gave birth to the LED/projection screen arrangement.
Each act was then given an inspiration. The first act was “Origami,” the second was “Architectural,” the third was “Black and White Orbs,” the fourth was a modern twist on Day of the Dead and the fifth was the more laser-inspired club feel. The lighting rig was comprised primarily of MAC Vipers on trusses that ran up and downstage. I wanted big, solid “statement” looks rather than a bunch of different fixture types. All of the fixtures in the system were grouped in specific areas — the Vipers and strobes on the trusses in the air. The MagicBlades on the triangular projection screens. The Sharpys on the LED screens, etc. etc. It was important that the lighting rig had a shape to it that was truly integrated with the set design. This also gave the system the appearance of being much bigger than it actually is. We are a ten-production-truck tour, but it looks more like 18 trucks.
Did you have a sit-down with Selena and her manager to go over everything? How involved does she get, or did they leave you some free rein based on your expertise?
Yes, Selena and I talked and texted regularly. We would also meet with management every few weeks and go over the creative and where we were at with everything. Management were quite involved, but trusted us to steer the ship in terms of the creative.
You have a combination of live feed and abstract content for video. Tell us about the decision to go with the winged shaped video walls and working with Gabriel Coutu Dumont of Silent Partners, and the video vendor PRG Nocturne to mesh together the video with the lighting.
Gabriel and I have worked together for a long time and have a very quick working relationship. The video content on the show is divided up into a few different styles. All of the interstitials are shot footage of Selena set to a specific treatment. The content for the songs are primarily graphic-based with some 2D and some 3D animations. When we use I-Mag on the LED screens we overlay content designed to work with the I-Mag and also put treatments on the I-Mag feed within the server. Steve Foster programmed the servers to create color effects, bumps, bounces and strobes, etc. It helps to bring the I-Mag more into the aesthetic and gives it a feel of something more cohesive than just image relay.
It’s a slight departure with so many tours that have long extended ramps or a B stage, but also nice to have the main focal point of the artist at a main stage. Was that decided all along, or did it go through different / optional concepts first?
As always we went through a few different iterations of the set design. The irony is that the stage is almost all thrust. We have pushed the band upstage and created three thrusts, which start out upstage and push out into the crowd. It helps to create fantastic sight lines and serves to push the action out into the crowd for the whole show.
Steve “Six” Schwind
Lighting Director
Steve “Six” Schwind has been working with Baz Halpin as lighting director for the better part of the last decade, on tours ranging from Cher, Taylor Swift, Lionel Richie, Christina Aguilera, and Mariah Carey to name a few. “It’s been one hell of an education!” says Schwind. The Revival tour launched May 6 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
Describe the preparations leading up to the first show.
For Selena’s tour, we got almost three weeks’ pre-production time with the rig in tour form. Two weeks in L.A. and a week in Vegas before opening, working with Baz and Chris Nyfield [Silent House],Eric [Marchwinski, associate lighting designer & programmer], Melissa Garcia [associate director, Silent House] and Gabriel [Coutu Dumont, video content producer, Silent Partners]. Together, it was quite a team!”
I understand that PRG is supplying gear for this tour. How were the fixtures chosen?
Most of the fixtures were decided, but there were a few changes made. Baz has a “shopping list” he tends to stay with. However, we are utilizing some of the PRG Best Boy Washes. The output in those fixtures is unreal! It’s my first time using the PRG ground control followspot system. What a cool product. Everyone is going to want those after seeing what they do. Loads of thanks goes out to Curry [Grant], Michael [Lamb], and Mickey [Curbishley]. For the gear, a great crew, and the support.”
Steve Foster
Video Media Operator
Operating the video media content is Steve Foster, who worked side by side with Baz, Gabriel Coutu Dumont and the Silent Partners team all through rehearsals to program the custom content that they produced for the show.
Describe the collaborative process you used for the custom video content.
We would collaborate with David Boisvert, our video director, to work out the framing we needed to make certain looks with I-Mag on the center LED screen. We also worked with associate lighting designer and programmer Eric Marchwinski and “Six” [Steve Schwind] to complement each other with video and lighting. We got some great looks out of it!
How are the visual elements synched?
Both the lighting and video systems are locked to SMPTE timecode triggered by our playback engineer. Every day on the road, I dial in the screens and projectors with our crew. We make sure that everything is aligned and trimmed correctly, so come showtime, all the content looks correct on the screens.
Describe the control setup.
I’m on two grandMA2’s (one active and one spare) where we control content with PRG Mboxes. We have four servers out here, two main and two backup. And we run four outputs — one for the center LED Screen, one for the I-Mag outputs, one each for the SR and SL projectors.
How is the LED display configured?
Our center LED wall is made up of three columns, where the center section raises and lowers throughout the show. This is for Selena to make entrances and exits, and to move props on and off the stage.
Any special visual tricks to discuss?
One cool thing we do is when the wall moves during a song and we have content playing, we track the content with the wall so it appears that the image does not move. It makes for a very clean video look when we open and close the wall.
Describe the projection setup.
The screens on and off stage of the LED screen are two rear projection screens, with double stack 20K projectors for each.”
Selena Gomez’s Revival Tour plays North America through July 9, then heads overseas. The tour’s last show is set for Guadalajara, Mexico at the Telmex Auditorium [Auditorio Telmex] on Dec. 18, 2016.
Selena Gomez Revival Tour 2016
Crew:
- Show Director & Designer: Baz Halpin
- Associate Director: Melissa Garcia
- Set Designer: Tamlyn Wright
- Lighting Designers: Baz Halpin, Chris Nyfield
- Assoc. LD/Programmer: Eric Marchwinski
- Lighting Director: Steve “Six” Schwind
- Lighting Co: PRG/Reps: Curry Grant, Michael “Chicken” Lamb
- Lighting Crew: Jerry “Hodgie” Vierna (Crew Chief), James “JT” Thom, Hayden Katz, James Mayer, KB Noffsinger
- Tour Manager: Michael Richardson
- Production Manager: Robert “Hydro” Mullin
- Stage Manager: Rod Van Egmond
- Video Co: PRG Nocturne/Rep: Mark O’Herlihy
- Video Director: David Boisvert
- Video Content Producer: Gabriel Coutu Dumont
- Video Media Operator: Steve Foster
- Video Crew: Rob McShane (Chief Engineer), Jeff Apregan, Pia Eerikainen, Dave Moss (Projectionist)
- Laser Co: Pyrotecnico FX/AJ Seabeck
- Riggers: Willy Williams (Head Rigger), Shawn Gibson
- Staging: Tait Towers/Rep: Aaron Siebert
- Set Carpenters: Dewey “2” Evans, Luke Larson
Gear
- 2 grandMA lighting consoles (Full/Light)
- 2 grandMA2 Light consoles
- 2 PRG GroundControl Followspots (w/Best Boy Spots)
- 20 PRG Best Boy Washes
- 40 Martin MAC Viper Pro
- 24 Martin MAC AirFX
- 56 Ayrton MagicBlade R fixtures
- 13 Clay Paky Sharpys
- 16 Jarag-5 fixtures
- 6 GLP impression X4 Bar 20s
- 36 Martin Atomic LED strobes
- 38 ColorForce 12s
- 2 Martin Jem ZR44 foggers
- 2 DF50 hazers
- 3 Automated LED panels for main LED wall
- 2 Side video screens (rear projection)
- 4 PRG Mbox media servers
- 4 20K projectors
For more Selena Gomez Revival tour photos by Steve Jennings, go to www.plsn.me/PLSN-2016-Selena.
