LONDON — With 59 sold out dates and a total audience estimated at 400,000, the Lee Evans Big Tour is measuring up to be the U.K.’s largest comedy tour of 2008, and the laughter from way back in the balcony can be credited at least in part to a very large LED screen.
The screen, which measures 150 square meters, is a Lighthouse R7-ER LED screen supplied by AV provider Creative Technology (CT). Configured with a 16:9 aspect ratio, the main screen is flanked by two IMAG side screens in portrait format to ensure that the audience can see Evans’ visual nuances.
The average size for the central touring screen is 10.16 meters by 6.1 meters (10 panels wide by eight panels high). The look of the show was transformed at London’s O2 Arena — the largest venue on the tour — to accommodate the re-set for Evan’s DVD shoot. Spanning 60 feet, the center screen was extended to the width of the stage and complemented by a 60-foot-by-14-foot projected image set between the LED screen and the stage.
“The R7-ER’s virtual resolution means we’d been able to drive it using a Vista Systems Spyder switcher, which allowed us to ‘pixel match’ to the Lighthouse LIP processor’s native resolution, getting pixel for pixel representation of the HD cameras and playback,” said Steve Purkess, CT’s project manager for the tour. “The picture quality achieved was fantastic.”
“One of the reasons video is such a critical element of this show is the nature of Lee’s comedy,” said Mark Harris, tour production manager. “When you put a stand-up comedian into a large venue where a large number of people sitting far away from the stage, it’s very important that you see what he’s doing. With Lee, this is even more important because his comedy is mostly physical. So to have close-ups of his face, or the way his legs are moving in the head-to-toe shots, in good definition is absolutely critical.”
Harris and his team took a significant amount of time at the design stage of the production evaluating alternative ideas. “Our video screens aren’t just wing IMAG screens, but a part of the stage set,” he noted. “CT was very helpful in demonstrating the available alternatives, what the parameters of them were, what they could achieve. We spent quite a bit of time in CT’s warehouse looking at different ideas, screen sizes, positions, shapes, different types of screen that we might use and ultimately, once we had decided what we wanted, I was confident they could deliver and at a competitive price.”
Along with picture quality, another requirement was ease of rigging and de-rigging. “We have a number of overnights on this tour and we also have a lot of screen,” said Harris. “Our wing screens are LED, which is unusual — most are projection solutions — and sometimes we’re in a position where we have no choice but to build the LED in pretty awkward positions. So we wanted a screen product that is relatively easy to rig and de-rig.
“Lighthouse is an industry standard and I’ve seen it being put up and taken down pretty fast on other events,” Harris added. “It ticked all the boxes and I was convinced that we should use it.”
CT screen technician, Giles Conte, agreed. “It’s speedy to rig and de-rig and, because it’s light, we can easily double stack the panels, which makes it simple to transport as we can get quite a lot on a truck. Add to that CT’s bespoke dolly system and it’s a good product to tour with.”
“I love the screen,” said Purkess. “It’s really versatile and, because of its high resolution, small or large screen formats all look fantastic. CT bought the Lighthouse R7-ER panels earlier this year, and it’s been in use ever since.”
“It’s very encouraging that R7-ER has provided CT with the quality required for large indoor shows that demand high resolution reproduction,” said Simon Taylor, Lighthouse’s U.K. general manager.
Harris added that “when the entire complement of screen went up in The O2 Arena, it exceeded my expectations. I was really chuffed. It did exactly what we hoped it would and probably more. We couldn’t do this show without the screens giving off this quality image. However good the artist is, when you’ve got 14,500 people in a venue looking at one man, it wouldn’t work without them.”
For more information, please visit www.lighthouse-tech.com.
