VIENNA, Austria — The Queen & Paul Rodgers tour, with a new lighting design by Baz Halpin and rig supplied by Bandit Lites, is also setting a new mark with an all-HD video system from XL Video. “This is the first tour for us that has taken a high definition camera/PPU/recording package for its duration, and so it’s a significant milestone for everybody involved,” said XL’s Phil Mercer. An 85-square-meter upstage screen, designed by Mark Fisher of Stufish, dominates visuals. It’s made up of asymmetrically populated sections of Barco O-lite, with a block of fully populated O-Lite in the middle, and 304 ACL bulbs strewn randomly across it, but symmetrically patched at the dimmers. The screen, which weighs seven metric tones, splits horizontally via a 24-way Kinesys automation system.
The rig features over 100 moving lights from Coemar, Martin, Clay Paky, Syncrolite and Vari*Lite, moving along with the truss on the Kinesys automation system. Seven variable-length raked “finger” trusses run upstage and downstage, and the center three can hinge downward at the front. Bandit purchased the Lo Pro trussing & custom hinges from Total Solutions with some modifications made by Bandit Lites’ Dizzy Gosnell.
“This is a band that has always pushed the technical boundaries,” Gosnell said. “Baz's design called for lots of strong truss pre-hung with all the moving lights. The lamps needed protection up and down ramps, no time to fiddle with handrails and such, it had to stack/un-stack easily and securely and it had to be instinctive for stagehands all over the world to work with. The V-shaped castor frames we designed keep the heads safe and the truss flying quickly."
Baz Halpin and lighting director Trent O’Connor used Bandit’s MSD pre-programming suite for one week prior to rehearsals. There were also two weeks of production rehearsals at Elstree Studios prior to the first show.
There are a total of 77 Coemar Infinity Washes dotted all over the rig, including nine per finger truss, arranged in groups of three. Bandit purchased these instruments specifically for the tour. On the downstage edge of each finger is a Syncrolite — a 10K in the center and 5Ks on the rest.
There are also Martin Atomic Strobes on the fingers, along with a total of five Vari*Lite 3000s used for band keylighting.
Behind the fingers is a “Syncrolite truss” — also on Kinesys motors — containing seven 5K Syncrolite units, eight Martin Atomic 3000s and 10 Martin Professional MAC 2000 Washes used for back beam looks. In all, Bandit supplied a 24-way vari-speed Kinesys hoist system for video and a 25-way system for lighting.
In addition, four Lycian M2 follow spots are top mounted on another truss just in front of the screen at the back of the stage, and six Space Flowers are positioned on the floor in two clusters of three on either side of the stage, used for aerial effects. A four-foot diameter large facet mirror-ball is flown directly above the B Stage at the end of the thrust.
There are also six Martin MAC 2000 Performances set on the floor along the back wall of the riser positioned farthest upstage, dubbed “the bunker.” A row of PixelLine LED battens also lights the bunker, and a row of Clay Paky Alpha Beam 300s atop the bunker provides mid-level forward-shooting beams. Bandit also supplied four Lycian Xenon FOH followspots.
The downstage 1.5 meters of the stage, its front, the thrust and the B-stage are all covered with frosted Perspex and highlighted from beneath with PixelLines.
Halpin and lighting director Trent O’Connor, who is operating the tour, programmed two Martin Maxxyz control desks. Both Martin Maxxyz consoles were upgraded to Maxxyz+ for this tour.
XL is supplying six GV LDK 8000 cameras, two positioned at front-of-house, two on hot-heads in the pit, one focused on drummer Roger Taylor and the final one hand-held onstage. Aubrey Powell (Po) of Hypgnosis produced the show content. The crew is using a Catalyst digital media server for playback, and live director/vision mixer Stuart Roswell outputs it to the screen.
Rowsell cuts the mix using a GV Kayak switcher. Wolfgang Schram and Dave Rogers serve as video engineers. The touring camera operators are Saria Ofogba, Sacha Moore and Gordon Davies, and LED techs are Stef van Besien and Chris Isaccson.
Bandit UK Chief Executive, Lester Cobrin said, “A special thanks goes to the talented Production Director, Robbie Williams, Production Manager, Albert Lawrence and the entire production team. This tour wouldn’t have been possible without their expertise and hard work.”
Bandit’s crew is chiefed by Nick Barton with Gareth Morgan on dimmers and Kinesys operator Barry Branford. Technicians Tom Crosbie, Ben Hammett, Joe Simpson, Mark Pritchard and Chris Davis complete the line-up with Bandit’s Lester Cobrin project managing the tour.
Halpin says, “It’s great to be working with Bandit again. As always, they pulled out all the stops to ensure we had everything we needed, and chose a brilliant crew.”
For more information, please visit www.banditlites.com and www.xlvideo.com.
