An Ultraviolet Feel For Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto Tour

Longtime Coldplay production designer Paul Normandale is working with the band again, this time for the Mylo Xyloto Tour in support of the album of the same name (check out video below).

“We started in festivals,” says Normandale of this design, “so the idea was an evolving design that can scale all the way into stadiums from a core aesthetic. The band wanted a vivid ultraviolet feel, with a sphere of energy that could go from small to massive.”

Normandale notes that they did some preprogramming early on in Cast Software's wysiwyg for last year’s festivals, but since then, the lighting has been programmed on site. His workhorses on the tour are the 46 Martin Professional MAC 101s and eight Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FX units.

Additional lighting in his rig includes 25 Chauvet DJ LED Shadow™ blacklight wash panels, 16 GLP Impressions, 20 Martin Professional MAC 250s with beam kits, 13 MAC 2000 XBS Wash, 10 MAC III Profile, 22 i-Pix BB4s, five floor custom 2Ks with two BB4s Inside each, four Novalight 2kW units, eight Robert Juliat truss followspots, four Lycian FOH followspots, and 23 4-Lite liner Molefay units, with 112’ of red Neo-Neon and 227’ of white Non-Neon for accents. Atmospheric effects comprise two Look Solutions Orka Foggers and two Reel EFX DF-50 Diffusion Hazers. Two High End Systems Wholehog 3 consoles with wings run the lighting.

A Barco Olite 5m screen at the core of the video system, with additional screens for I-Mag in circular assemblies. A mix of live and prefabricated content, video makes use of a SAMSC Design Catalyst Media Server setup, and video is managed via an MA Lighting MA-Net2 network. Normandale says he has very few lights in his design, as “everything does everything in my world,” citing the fact that he uses his video elements as a source of light also. Also in use is a Thunder Jacks Video Dust live I-Mag management system.

A Kinesys system is used for motion control. Brilliant Stages built the set and staging. Normandale’s own Lite Alternative provided rigging and rigging services, and Upstaging is supplying lighting for the North American leg.

Strictly FX has provided the lasers for the tour, with a setup making use of six of high-powered Arctos diode lasers, four 34W RGBY units and two 32W RGBY versions. The laser team programmed seven Pangolin LD2000/BEYOND systems, including one LD2000 PRO.

In addition to Normandale, Misty Buckley worked on set design, while Andy Bramley is the video director. Graham Feast is the lighting board op, while Ben Miles looks after the catalysts/content operation.

Check out this video montage that shows off some of the design elements:

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