Roy Bennett created the production and lighting design for the Maroon 5 World Tour 2015 in support of V, with media/video programming by Loren Barton and video supplied by PRG Nocturne.
Bennett's set design features 19 custom panels constructed from aluminum with a sort of sandwich of two pieces of acrylic plastic in the center. "Fog is introduced between the acrylic for certain songs, and the normally clear panels turn opaque, allowing for the projectors to make an image on the fog surface," adds Barton. "Sometimes we also open the panels and use the projectors purely for aerial effects as well."
Barton started working on the production in the earliest testing phases of the design, he says, "working with the content company and Upstaging to develop the projection and LED template files that were used for content creation." Initially, we did tests with the projection on the 'fog panels' and determining the best position for the projectors to go, given the constraints of a primarily hockey arena tour." Tobias Rylander led the content creation team at Los Angeles-based Syndrome, while Barton created additional content onsite.
Barton calls this tour design "a unique show where we really wanted to use the benefits of the live effects engine of the [Green Hippo] Hippotizer media servers." The tour uses Hippotizer v3 servers, as opposed to the newer v4 models with previz. "We ended up importing video signals into a d3 machine to previz in 3D during the lighting/video pre-programming time. This ended up being a great work-around solution before going onsite," Barton says, noting that he, lighting programmer Jason Baeri, and lighting programmer/director Brian Jenkins mapped out the framework for each song using timecode and tracks provided by the band. "This way, we were ahead of the game when we actually got on site to start working with the physical set," Barton adds.
The Hippos run six outputs of rear projection for the fog panels, two outputs of LED for the panel borders that Barton says are "an important part of defining the panels," and 3D "fishbowl" LED strips, and one output of pixel-mapping for the Ayrton MagicBlade™R fixtures that hang overhead. "The Hippos are all networked together using HippoNet to distribute content and monitor the servers, while Art-Net from the [MA Lighting] grandMA2 system controls all of the servers and provides the Art-Net merge capability for the pixel-mapped MagicBlades," says Barton. "Video is a key element of the design because we introduce the audience to the set as the show progresses. We begin by just showing some of the LED frame borders without showing the full frames, then we use all LED, then we introduce projection."
All visual departments work from the same grandMA2 showfile so that, Barton says, "one person can easily operate the show. We like working this way because it allows everything to be modified and controlled together, and we can share work and update cues more quickly than if we were working on different control platforms. Jason and Brian also use the grandMA2 preview function, which acts as a second programming station in MA 3D to work ahead, and then they can flip back and forth between songs. Artistically, Roy likes to utilize the visual elements regardless of what technology is driving them. There are conventional moving head lights, LED strip lights, and LED video strips embedded in the set and projectors. We really aim for a seamless experience where the lines between video and lighting are not blurred but complementary parts making up a unified stage picture."
Using projection on the tour isn't without its challenges, especially due to the time required for projector alignment. "Depending on when the trucks get to the venue, there may only be a short amount of time for lighting focus and projection alignment to happen," says Barton. "We use the Hippo RegionMapper feature to quickly map the panels every day without adjusting the content. Since the projectors are hung in slightly different locations based on venue restrictions, we needed a fast, easy way to align the projections given a short amount of load in time. RegionMapper allows the media server techs to quickly line up each panel so the whole process takes a matter of minutes." Projectors on the tour include four Barco 40k and two Barco 26k projectors, with an additional two Barco 20k units for I-mag.
Stay tuned for more on the Maroon 5 World Tour 2015, including lighting plots, more visuals, and more interviews.