Top-Level comedians have been increasingly getting out of those 3,000-5,000 seat theaters and trying their jokes out in arenas and stadiums. Two of the biggest – Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan – thought they would pair up in a co-headliner mini-tour of just four cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and St. Louis. For the last show in St. Louis, they experimented with leaving the full theater curtain package set on the truck and seeing if they could pull it off selling seats on the extreme sides and behind them to increase ticket sales further. Halifax-based Tour Tech East made it work.
And how exactly did the Canadian company get the biggest pairing of comedians’ tours? “Relationships,” says Peter Hendrickson, Tour Tech’s Business Development Manager and Production Supervisor of this tour. “There is a lot of trust required in delivering the goods on time and in a professional manner.” In 2012, they got to do some small arena shows with Seinfeld and did such a good job that Tour Tech has been the preferred vendor since, handling most of his one-offs and tours in Canada. “But this is the biggest thing that Jerry’s done to date. He wanted to try to do this tour at a much higher level that involved more equipment.” They also needed to meet the production requirements for Matt Owens, Gaffigan’s Tour Manager. “The main concern for both artists was being able to be heard and seen in larger cavernous venues. With comedy it’s all about being able to clearly hear the punchline and see the expression on the comedian’s face. Typically, Jerry’s tech package fits on one truck, but this one required three, one each for video, lighting, and audio.”
The discussion to experiment with the “quasi-in-the-round” as Hendrickson put it happened prior to Tour Tech loading for the show a few weeks ago. “However, there was not a lot of time available to do a proper advance of the show. We received building drawings about 5-6 weeks ago in the middle of a busy period. We looked at what was available in current inventory during that time and decided to go with what we had. I think we did well, considering all our options.”
The St. Louis date involved clever rigging to make sure video screens were placed to maximize site lines. Adjustments and changes were made on the fly by the Tour Tech team once they were there. “The decision to split the larger rear video wall into two was decided on site once I saw the layout, which allowed for better viewing for the rear seating section.”
Otherwise, the team listened to the artist, and as this tour was primarily driven and put together by Seinfeld’s team, that meant him as Seinfeld likes to keep things simple. “It was a lot to talk him into some of what we wanted to do with the look, including the pixel bricks along the border of the stage, which Dan [Petten, Lighting Director] came up with. It really accented the stage beautifully giving it an old school look.”
Video
Nashville based I-MAG Video was the video supplier and CEO Steven Daniels was on the road with the tour making sure it all went smoothly. Daniels has been in the business over 42 years, taking care of acts from George Straight to Jimmy Buffett. Daniels knows that clarity is important especially in comedy done in an arena as “most are looking at the video. It’s visual reinforcement, just like sound reinforcement. It’s completely necessary because you want to see the expressions of a comedian, right? So, the magnification is important.”
Tour Tech’s Chris Swift was the Video Technician on the tour. He’s been with the company for 10 years, and has worked on Seinfeld shows before, though this was his first working U.S. dates. “Things change with every location, but [in St. Louis], we had to make sure that we have good sight lines for the people sitting in the back,” he says. “Originally we had one big screen in the back, but then decided to do two smaller screens to help with sight line.” Otherwise for the majority of the audience out front, there were challenges there as well; specifically, the amount of audio being hung had to be worked around. He pointed out that the stage left area had a speaker stack hanging in a manner that blocked a little of that video screen. “That’s about as good as we’ve been able to get it. We’re limited to how much floor space we must be able to start building walls to hang them up.”
I-MAG supplied the 400 Gloshine Legend 3.9 full tile outdoor panels, which Tour Tech just picked up in May. “For most of the Seinfeld/Gaffigan tour shows, we used 320 full sized tiles among two portrait side screens with a landscape downstage screen,” Swift says. “For shows with seats 360 degrees, we added two rear portrait screens and rear mounted robo cam for rear shots in addition to main cameras at FOH.” For the Seinfeld/Gaffigan tour, they needed to switch to using fiber data cables for LED walls as cable length in these large venues was too long for traditional copper data lines. “These arrived days before trucks had to roll, so it was a scramble to get all patch panels, jumpers sorted to make things work with the also brand new NovaStar MX-30 and MX-40 Pro processors that supported fiber and fiber breakout boxes (CTV10 Pro’s).” He adds that he was really happy with these new processors even though software/firmware is still early editions. “For backup, we brought two NovaStar VX1000’s which also worked great with fiber lines.”
Lighting
Petten has also worked with Seinfeld for years. “When he comes to Canada and does the arena shows, everything was masked and draped with a traditional rig,” he says. “On this particular tour, we’ve moved to automated lighting.” As far as opening the back for the St. Louis show, Petten says leaving the drapes in the truck was something he’s wanted to do for a while. “I wanted an open concept, and I had these nice footlights around for texture.” He has 28 Robe FORTEs which the company just recently purchased. “They are a great fixture and I use them often – I just did a large-scale military show in Nova Scotia with a whole bunch of them and they are amazing.”
He uses them not just for the audience but for what the comedians don’t want to see. A few were strategically placed downstage, so the comedians don’t see those front row faces. “None of the comedians want to be able to see the front row people – I think it can throw them off if they do.”
Success
The show is now a wrap, but they are already discussing going out again in 2024 – including always having rear seating. And that tour will likely be longer than this one, though that is still to be decided. But from the reviews and the crowd reaction, what was done with this was an unqualified success. “If you surround yourself with good people, good things will happen,” Hendrickson says. “And that’s really the, the simple mechanics of all of this. It starts with the relationships and if you have good people, they’ll figure out ways to make it work because there’s a common goal.”
Production Team
- Tour Manager: Matt Owens
- Production Supervisor/Account Rep: Peter Hendrickson
- Lighting Director: Dan Petten
- Lighting Assistant: Heather Romkey
- Head Video Supervisor: Chris Swift
- Video Director/Switcher: Shane Wasnidge
- Video Tech: Everett Stone
- Video Assistant: James Scarth
- Rigging Supervisor: Lee Morris
- Head Audio Supervisor: Ken Ryan
- Audio Assistants: Sean Currell, Andrew Gagne, Steve Doherty
Gear
Lighting
28 Robe Forte
81 Astera Pixel Brick PB15 with Dome
1 Theatrixx 72 Way 208V Distro
1 grandMA Lighting NPU
1 grandMA2 full-size Console
1 grandMA 2 ultra light Console
Video
400 Gloshine Legend 3.9 Full Tile
1 NovaStar MX40 Video Processor
2 NovaStar MX 30 Video Processor
2 NovaStar VX-1000 Video Processor
1 NovaStar H5 Video Processor (Backup)
4 NovaStar CVT 10 Pro-S Fiber Convertor
4 NovaStar CVT 10-S Fiber Convertor
2 Neutrik opticalCON Quad Extreme Fiber Cable 500′
2 Neutrik opticalCON Quad Extreme Fiber Cable 250′
Specifics
Downstage center LED Wall 10M Wide x 8M High
160 Gloshine Legend 3.91 IP65 500 x 1000 mm Tile
10 Gloshine 1M Hanging / Ground Bar
Stage Left LED Wall 5M Wide x 8M High
80 Gloshine Legend 3.91 IP65 500 x 1000 mm Tile
5 Gloshine 1M Hanging / Ground Bar
Stage Right LED Wall 5M Wide x 8M High
80 Gloshine Legend 3.91 IP65 500 x 1000 mm Tile
5 Gloshine 1M Hanging / Ground Bar
Upstage left rear facing LED Wall 2M Wide x 3M High
12 Gloshine Legend 3.91 IP65 500 x 1000 mm Tile
2 Gloshine 1M Hanging / Ground Bar
Upstage right rear facing LED Wall 2M Wide x 3M High
12 Gloshine Legend 3.91 IP65 500 x 1,000 mm Tile
2 Gloshine 1M Hanging / Ground Bar
