Following her explosive, video-laden performance at this year’s Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show, Beyoncé announced that she was going to hit the road and take the world by storm with her fourth concert tour, The Mrs. Carter Show. The show opened on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia to rave reviews; the European leg of the show has just finished, with the show moving to North and South America next and additional dates for Australia and Asia to be announced soon.
The team responsible for creating The Mrs. Carter Show includes LeRoy Bennett, production and lighting designer. Having worked with Beyoncé last May for her Revel concert in Atlantic City, he was asked if he would be interested in designing The Mrs. Carter Show. “Shortly after Revel, the Super Bowl came into play, and I was asked to get involved with that,” says Bennett. “At first, it was more of a consulting/intermediary position between Beyoncé and the Halftime production team. I ended up designing the stage/production for the [Halftime] show.”
Preparations for the tour started in September 2012, with the show’s design concept revolving around a giant wall of lighting, nicknamed “The Wall of Inferno.” “At the Revel show, most of the set was LED screens,” says Bennett. “Beyoncé wanted to try something different.” The result is an upstage custom-designed lighting wall consisting of columns of stacked frames intermixed with six light ladders, with the vertical frame assembly alternating between a frame of strobes—three frames per column—and a frame of moving mirror heads—four frames per column.
The strobe frames consist of SGM X-5 White LED strobes, four high by four wide. The moving mirror frames have custom mirror fixtures, two high by four wide, and there are five columns of this configuration. Above and below each column is a group of Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures that line up with each mirror in all the frames. The lighting wall uses a staggering total of 426 SGM X-5 strobes, 196 custom mirror fixtures, and 204 Clay Paky Sharpys. Tait crafted the framework for the strobe/mirror structure, which measures approximately 24' high by 60' wide.
The Wall of Inferno doesn’t distract from the action on stage, but rather it complements the choreography, and helps the performers pop out from the background. “I was impressed by the combination of power consumption, brightness, and rugged design [of the SGM X-5],” Bennett explains. “But I was particularly impressed by the fact that each strobe breaks down to three individual cells, enabling me to project very low-res graphics as well as bright blasts of light and strobing.” During the closing song of the show, “Halo,” every strobe in the house is triggered, creating a sparkling finale.
Complementing the Wall of Inferno is a rig from Upstaging that includes 94 Martin Professional MAC Auras, 71 Martin Professional MAC Viper Profiles, 28 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FXs, seven Syncrolite SXLs, and five Lycian M2 short throw truss followspots. Bennett explains that he set out to achieve a design that was “a combination of lighting the choreography and building a lighting visual that fills in what used to be video. I’m visually portraying the emotional and dynamic side of the music. This is what I always aim to do on all my shows.”
LIGHTING GEAR
Lighting provided by Upstaging
204 Clay Paky Sharpy
196 Custom Mirror Fixture
5 Lycian M2 Short Throw Truss Followspot
94 Martin Professional MAC Aura
2 Martin Professional MAC III Performance
71 Martin Professional MAC Viper Profile
426 SGM X-5 White LED Strobe
28 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash FX
7 Syncrolite SXL 7kW