Purists might take exception to the analogy, but watching the Rolling Stones' Bridges to Babylon tour is like viewing the most spectacular operatic event ever staged. LD Patrick Woodroffe and set architect Mark Fisher, who have teamed on all three of the Stones' world stadium tours, have no compunction about making the comparison.
"I always saw the show as being quite operatic, but what's interesting with the Stones is that when you start with them, you're never quite sure where you're going to end up. You just leap in and take this journey--which in this case lasted three months--and it was a very hairy journey at times," Woodroffe says. "You end up with something that's uniquely them, though it's created by a group of people. It's uniquely our perception or the public's perception of them at this point in their career, made real in that set. This one truly has all the elements that make up the Stones: danger, humor, grandeur, mystery. It covers the whole scale."
So while some of its contemporaries have channeled their composing skills into Broadway musicals, The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band has continued to expand, rather than contain, its unique brand of blues-infused rock music by staging a succession of world tours as showcases. They may not be examples of musical theatre, but neither can they be classified as typical rock shows. So in the Bridges to Babylon show program, Mick Jagger also compares the show to a 19th-century opera, "where they had very, very big effects and it drove people crazy. So you want to balance the songs with this spectacular show--this is the challenge."
Since 1989's Steel Wheels embodied a retrofit Blade Runner cybertech look, and the 1994-95 Voodoo Lounge imagined the Internet's invisible technology and a glamorous vision of the future, Fisher was determined to create something wholly unlike those environments. Before Bridges to Babylon had been adopted as the record's title, Fisher had already sketched out a bridge as a means of getting the band to the second stage they wanted to have. "I first talked to Jagger in August of 1996 and I drew the bridge in October," Fisher says. "And my initial idea was to base the theme on opulence rather than going down the route of decadence."
Europe's High Baroque period seemed to be a suitable jumping-off point. "European palatial and ecclesiastical architecture is very triumphalist in the way it records the earthly power of Divinity: in religion, in the idea of immensely wealthy people, and in events such as the building of Versailles," Fisher explains. "By combining that visual language with the High Baroque in Mexico--these incredible Catholic churches with carved decorations and saints with bleeding hearts--we could make the space very operatic and extravagantly over-the-top."
An effect achieved without having much lighting on top of the stage. "I knew going in that I would still have the same challenge that I've had on the last two Stones shows, which is how to light the back, because it looks better to light the scenery and to backlight the band than have frontlight," Woodroffe says. "They've always wanted this very open stage, and once Mark gave that to them on Steel Wheels, they never really wanted to look back. It's always a question of how to best integrate the lighting into the scenery as the whole concept of the show comes together."
Painting the system's 170 Vari*Lite(R) VL5(TM) automated luminaires and 80 LSD Icon(TM) automated luminaires played a huge part in achieving the almost seamless integration of the lighting and scenic elements. "The lights are all painted, so there's really nothing there that you would see in a typical rock show. There's none of the usual paraphernalia. Even the PA doesn't look like a PA. It's been quite successful."
Woodroffe and Fisher have main lighting contractor Concert Production Lighting (CPL) to thank for painting the luminaires. Wayne Boehning, who is based in the Dallas office, found a company to powder-coat both the VL5s and the Icons in silver and gold to match the set. "It's important that people understand that you can't just take out a can of spray paint and paint an automated light and expect it to function properly and look good for an entire tour," Boehning says. "It took a lot of research to find the right process and it was difficult to match the colors on both the metal and the plastic parts of the lights--that was a problem with both the VL5s and the Icons. Mark and Patrick have wanted to do this for a while, and it makes a lot of sense in the design--they're beautiful.
"Yet they're very pragmatic people, Mark and Patrick and the Rolling Stones, and they also appreciate professionals for what they do," Boehning continues. "In the few instances in the past where we have had our luminaires colored, the three points necessary to make it possible came together: (a) the person asking you to do it was realistic about the fact that is costs a bit of money, (b) that it requires some lead time on our part, and (c) you can't just make them any color. Different colors react to heat in different ways. For instance, gold and silver done with the right process can be used to coat those lights and they will stay that way for quite some time. If they'd asked for green and pink, it's highly possible I wouldn't have been able to find a process that would work for those colors. It really is a science. There are certain colors that will work and others that will not. Metallic colors lend themselves well to the process because pigment and heat are the keys. If you don't take the time to color them correctly, the lights will either break down or they'll just start to look awful really quickly."
The almost unbroken wash of silver and gold survived the many permutations Fisher went through with the final set design, which now embodies four of the Seven Deadly Sins surrounded by a host of other influences. Down in front, Lust and Anger are depicted in Futurist, neo-Boccioniesque art sculptures (which double as lighting and loudspeaker stands) in a style proffered by designer Gerard Howland. Hidden behind drapes for the first seven songs of the show are the two huge, Classically-styled, golden inflatables (fabricated by Rob Harries/Air Artists), Ms. Sloth and Mrs. Gluttony. By June, when Fisher presented these designs to the band, the result was an amalgamation, a very rich Baroque environment, with very large figures, huge sculptures, and oversized architectural motifs, none of which made one composition. "The idea was that the show would go through scenes that started with an explosion on the big video screen in the center," Fisher explains. "The Bridges to Babylon title came out of one of these meetings--the bridge element was already there, and Babylon came out of these huge images being lost in the desert. But then I had to add a pair of neo-Egyptian Baroque towers to somewhat satisfy the Babylonian aspect. They live on stage right, and they're called 'Magic Mushrooms.' "
All of these elements are hidden by four prodigious silver curtains made by Landrell Fabrics. These drapes play an important role in the design by progressively revealing different elements of the stage. Woodroffe maintains that the show borrows not only opera's visual sense, but also its structure. "The drapes help break it up into four or five acts; we always used to do that, but only among ourselves," Woodroffe explains. "This time, we've made it much more deliberate, so the audience senses the progression.
"The idea is that this should be a show in three acts: from something that is very rich that hits you to start, then both very rich and Baroque, and then becomes much more stripped and bare," Woodroffe continues. "From that came the idea of huge curtains which look simple, but to make curtains that size, that can be used in the wind, took some extraordinary engineering."
When the show opened in Chicago on September 23, the drapes were actually not quite right and the now famous bridge was conspicuously absent. "We opened the show in Chicago with very little rehearsal and with a lot of things late, but the first show was actually very good," Woodroffe says. "It was funny because we came away from it with a slightly empty feeling--because rather than having just pulled it off at the last minute by the skin of our teeth, it actually felt quite comfortable."
Comfort levels have remained high throughout the tour despite the small amount of time the crew had to put such a behemoth together. With more than half of the Voodoo Lounge's crew returning to active duty, the number of unpleasant surprises dwindled considerably. "On the last tour we all went through a learning curve, especially me being the new kid," production manager Jake Berry says. "This time we have changed some people, but basically we have a great family out here. Everyone has a very workmanlike spirit; you don't have to ask anyone five times to do something. Considering we only had eight weeks to get this together, everything came together quite well."
CPL also has a long history acting as the Rolling Stones' main lighting contractor, and Boehning agrees that this tour has been the least stressful to put together. "The most custom requirement we had was to paint the lights, and for the last tour, mounting the lights into the Cobra face was much more time-consuming and difficult than getting the lights coated," Boehning says. "The crew is great and there is mutual respect between us and LSD. Patrick's design really takes advantage of the best functioning equipment available from each lighting company involved. Jake did a wonderful job putting this together and getting the right people in the right places."
Returning to head up the lighting crew, lighting director/crew chief Ethan Weber is running an Avolites Diamond III console and calling spots while Vari*Lite/Icon operator and crew chief Mark "Sparky" Risk is operating most of the moving lights from the LSD Icon Console(TM). Both were crew chiefs of their respective departments on the last tour. "I call a fairly simple spot show," Weber says. "It's a stadium show with no frontlight; so we light most of the band with spots and usually keep them to brighter colors. I tell the spot operators we have Vari*Lites and Icons to do all the fancy effects, they are there to keep the band lit.
"The spot calling can be pretty frustrating sometimes, especially in the smaller markets where they aren't used to large climbing spot shows," Weber continues. "Our low spots are at about 40' (12m), but most of them are between 60' (18m) and 80' (24m). It helps that we have four of our touring lighting crew on the key positions. Bob Batty has been Mick's personal spot operator for all three tours and knows every move he makes. Jon Wood has done two tours and knows the solos and spot calls better than any of us. Barry Branford takes care of Keith, and Pat Thomsen is our roving spot op."
With all of these familiar faces on board, Weber also agrees that this tour has been a lot smoother than Voodoo Lounge. "About half of both our lighting crews and the whole touring crew returned for this tour, and it's made a big difference," Weber says. "We all knew what to expect and knew how everyone else worked. There wasn't that initial meet-and-greet period where everyone is fighting for their own space. This time we all worked together and had a pretty good dialogue going right from the start. I'd say we were at least a month or two ahead in our load-ins and -outs on this tour compared to the last one. Plus, Jake knew us--we knew how he worked, and most of the crew chiefs had worked together before and all get along well."
Past experience also expedited the pre-production process. "Technically, we knew what we wanted to do, so we were able to spend a lot of time at CPL in Dallas prepping the system," Weber says. "On the last tour we had to piece the show together in rehearsals. Despite our lack of set pieces, we had the system up and ready to program after only a couple of days.
"There was some initial concern about Sparky and I being both board operators and crew chiefs of our respective departments, but we all thought that because of our work on Voodoo Lounge it was the right thing to do," Weber continues. "I had talked to Wayne and Carol [Croft, of CPL London] about it and it seems Patrick and Jake had the same idea. Jake feels comfortable with the two of us, which helps a lot. I've always been a working LD anyway, so I like the idea of being there and being responsible for both ends of it. We couldn't have done both jobs without our 16-member crew. Simon Harraghyhandles the LSD duties, and Nick Barton from Vari-Lite became our second, taking care of things while we were out at the consoles. Everyone out here is well-experienced and in no need of supervision."
While Weber knew Woodroffe and Dave Hill (the Stones' lighting director for the past two tours) from the Voodoo Lounge tour, he hadn't taken part in the programming before. "I wasn't sure quite what to expect," Weber says. "The last time I ran another designer's show was 1986, but I couldn't turn down this opportunity. It's been a great experience. Patrick's been very open to suggestions from both Sparky and me. It helps to run the show when you feel some sort of connection to the design of it. It makes it more satisfying than just pushing the right button at the right time."
Hill came out to help program the show in Toronto, and stayed with it for the first two shows in Chicago. "The whole programming period was a really pleasant experience, even though we didn't have a lot of time," Weber says. "It seemed like we had plenty of time at first, but the set was coming to us in bits and pieces, which meant a fair amount of re-hanging, re-lighting, and re-focusing every few days. At the end of our three weeks in the Toronto hangar, we still hadn't seen the full set."
While the tour started off smoothly, about a week's worth of shows into it the designers began to experience some doubts about how the show looked. "We started looking at it in a new light, and we thought that we had slightly overlit it at times," Woodroffe says. "We decided that we hadn't made enough spaces in there, so we had another mad week of re-programming and the style of the show changed quite a lot within that week."
When the bridge arrived 10 shows in and made its debut in Charlotte, NC, the LD had a new challenge to tackle. "It was actually rather anticlimactic, because it went in rather smoothly and that was it," Woodroffe laughs. "It's worked perfectly ever since, touch wood."
Cantilevering out from the center of the 200'-long (60m) main stage, the bridge extends 120' (36m) out to the stadium's center, where a 20' (6m) square platform rises up from the field to meet it. As soon as the band has safely strolled across, the bridge retracts and folds itself back into its sub-stage cubbyhole while the band kicks into a trio of songs set. Undoubtedly, it's the most incredible engineering feat ever pulled off on a rock tour, so it was worth waiting for.
"The bridge and the B stage setup cost over $1 million, and yet it's only seen for about 40 seconds in the show," says Fisher. "But the bridge is fantastic. It's exciting for a touring show like this to actually have an effect of that size--because it truly is stadium-scale. It's a lot like a Broadway-style mechanical effect that has been both outfitted and adapted to a stadium scale, and then toured in the traditional rock concept. The Stones are the only people that can really afford to pull off that kind of stunt."
And Fisher may be the only designer who could have imagined pulling it off. As Charlie Kail of Brilliant Stages says, "It's a tribute to Mark Fisher's engineering and architectural knowledge that he could conceive of a completely lunatic idea as this and then find someone equally deranged to build it. I'm still amazed every time I see it."
While many engineers voiced doubts as to its viability, Neil Thomas of Atelier One Ltd. (who has collaborated with Fisher on elements on previous tours including the dome for Pink Floyd's Division Bell, the Voodoo Lounge tour's Cobra, the towers for Metallica's Load tour, and the yellow arch on U2's PopMart) deemed it was indeed possible. "It was a strange thing to build because the sections have about a 140' [42m] radius, because the bridge is curved, and that's quite a big measure to build to," Kail explains. "You only need to be a little bit off, and it won't fit together. So I was hugely proud of my welders and fabricators for getting it right. Tony Bowern, our workshop manager, is the one actually responsible for getting the bridge built. It's probably the single most complicated fabrication I've seen in the stage set business."
Brilliant Stages put together the bridge's entire deployment system. "It drives into the stadium, fits into the stage, lifts to the angle of attack and then telescopes out to the B stage," Kail explains. "It's quite an interesting machine: The basic chassis is quite complicated because it's 36' (11m) long, it has a diesel engine that powers four hydraulic motors on the hubs to drive the wheels, and it powers a central hydraulic power pack, which steers the bridge and does the self-leveling. You can level it any which way at the four points of the chassis, so you never have a problem, no matter what type of ground you're on. It is a one-piece effect--that only the likes of the Rolling Stones could afford to tour with, of course."
What Kail describes as "a giant fireman's ladder," is on top of the chassis. "But it's curved, and it's just under 16 tons in all," Kail explains. "The sections all move simultaneously when the bridge is deploying. Each section is joined by wire ropes and pulleys and driven by one major winch underneath, so the top speed of the bridge is quite fast, which makes its deployment all the more spectacular."
"It took that leap of imagination by Mark as to how to get them there, because everyone knows the image of them playing in the middle of the stadium on that little stage is a good one," Woodroffe says. "But the problem is getting them there and getting them back--because you can completely kill the pace of the show if it takes five minutes."
But with no rehearsal time with the bridge, the LDs had a difficult time lighting it. "All the light is coming from one direction, which is a striking composition when you're looking at it from the front, but it wasn't really popping the bridge out enough," Woodroffe says. "We kept trying to think of new ways to light it and new angles, lights on the spot towers and such. And it was Mick's idea to run a row of lights underneath. So we laid a run of PAR cans along the walkway, which was quite a natural position and had been staring us in the face all the time. Although it's not a huge amount of lights, it's just enough to rim it and have it appear to float much more, and that has made a big difference."
"The bridge has undergone several different lighting phases," Weber adds. "We're limited in our angles because the stage has no frontlight, and because of the band's desire not to have the audience lit while the bridge is extending. At first, we lit it with a fair amount of lights and brighter colors, but it's evolved into much less light and darker colors to make it more mysterious and dramatic."
"The trick is that when the bridge comes out, it's the most epic moment, which is then completely turned around by the moment when the band gets on it--suddenly it becomes sunny and light and we play jazz music and they wave and it's a great expression of joy," Woodroffe continues. "Then it becomes rather tongue-in-cheek, which is always the way they've been to me. When they come back walking along the walkway they are able to get much more in touch with the audience and that kicks us into the last third of the show which is the very dramatic 'Sympathy for the Devil'--and then we're home."
Weber says that the last half of the show hasn't changed much from night to night, but the band has changed the first half around quite a bit. "Luckily, a lot of the songs they added were on our tentative rehearsal set list; so we have some basic looks for them," Weber says. "Patrick's given us the freedom to touch things up as long as we stay within the basic theme or framework that he set up. We've done a fair bit of cleaning up on our own, but most of the major revisions have been done while he's been there.
"Ethan and Sparky have worked with the Stones before so they understand what they're all about, and they're a very important, supportive part of the team," Woodroffe says. "Dave came in and programmed a lot of the lighting, but they're the ones who not only had their input at the beginning when we were creating the show, but they have to carry it for the next yea r. I'm around quite a lot of the time, but it's very much their interpretation on a night-to-night basis. The band often puts different songs into the set, so it's not a complacent position: You have to be constantly watching and they both do that very well."
"I've always thought that it's hard to tell how a show looks when you see it every night," Weber says. "Patrick comes back with a fresh perspective, which has helped a lot, and we've done a fair amount of re-programming since rehearsals. Programming has been pretty much an ongoing process for the five months we've been out, both to tune things up and because the band is constantly changing the set list."
Because the band is always adding and subtracting songs from the set list, the two LDs have to be constantly prepared to change cues. "The Icon desk is very powerful and it has a high degree of buskability, so if you want to change cues around you can do that very easily--more so than other boards," Risk explains. "We are using the UGLI (Universal Guest Luminaire Interface) to run the VL5s--LSD provided the software. The Icons are working great, and it's really nice having this many VL5s because they'll just keep going and going--like the Energizer Bunny. They're very good for the amount of set lighting we have to do and having them outdoors, because even if we have no smoke due to wind, we will still have a show you can see."
Seeing the show from the stands without having to look past the normal FOH control positions was another breakthrough for this tour's design. "Jake Berry wanted to get away from having the huge mix and lighting control and spotlight tower in the center field," Woodroffe says. "So he came up with a way to split up the positions and created separate spotlight towers. The band loves them because they're looking at people rather than scaffolding. And they're very elegant devices. It's been a fantastic success; it's the way of the future in stadium rock shows, because it gives such an open look to the arena."
"Separating the FOH sound and lighting positions is not new, but I got the idea when we were in Germany with the Voodoo Lounge tour," Berry says. "Having the sound/lighting/spot positions so tall and right in the center of the field always bugged me, so I was talking to Hedwig DeMeyer at StageCo about splitting them up into two, and we worked it out with Mark Fisher. It gives us 2,000 more seats with better sightlines. Patrick, Mark, and I try to keep things low because sightlines are always an issue."
Practicalities and aesthetics aside, it's been a welcome change for the lighting and video crews. "It's nice to be close to the ground so you can feel more a part of the show," Risk says. "But it was strange trying to work out our focuses from off center."
Video director Dick Carruthers says he would rather be completely away from the audience and the various guests who invade the lighting/video platform every night. But amid the general chaos, he directs the images, which are a mixture of live footage from six cameras, animation, and computer-generated graphics, MIDI-driven by an ArKaos software package that also runs QuickTime movies and special effects. BCC Video supplied what is the largest and first non-square touring Jumbotron. Also a newcomer to the crew's production team, Carruthers exudes a boundless enthusiasm for the array of different techniques he would like to incorporate as the tour progresses, but he's been somewhat held in check by the band's resistance to superfluous effects.
"Dick was hired not only because he had a reputation for being able to press the buttons at the right time, but also because he had some real enthusiasm and a freshness to the whole approach," Woodroffe says. "And we wanted to learn from him--a lot of the show's ideas, including the opening with the meteor coming out was developed from his ideas. In all of this we want to try and harness that energy in a way that the results all come out on the screen. There is always alot to learn about the Stones, and it's quite a dichotomy, because on the one hand they want to let you do absolutely what you want to do. They hire good people and give them a free rein. On the other hand, they have an incredibly strong sense of who they are--the Stones. So while they were very open to all of Dick's suggestions and ideas, when they were up there they were 100% convinced of the ones that worked and the ones that didn't. Which in a way is a great kind of client to have if you can accept that, because they allow you the money and the freedom to do what you want, but they have a very clear idea of what works and what doesn't. And for Dick, as it was for all of us, it took two to three weeks to find that balance. The cut and the angles and the way he uses the cameras are really exciting and there are enough tricks and gags in there to make it a bit different without taking away from the whole reason that the video is there, which is for people to see the band from a long way away in these great big venues. He's been very good, and the bottom line is that everyone is very happy with what he's done."
"We've concentrated on getting the basics established first--getting comfortable with the band and how they move, then we work more on extremes," Carruthers says. "The Rolling Stones' music is not esoteric any more than my method for covering it with live cameras is. There is a very generic structure to visual images and a philosophy of how you put pictures onscreen behind the live band. If we're transcending what's happening onstage, then I'm not doing my job properly. Whatever we do, we cannot possibly transcend the fact that this is the Rolling Stones and they're playing live. That's why everyone is here."
Almost everyone involved with the production is only too happy to reiterate that statement. When the band performed three sold-out shows at New York City's Madison Square Garden, the staging was set up in the round. There were still gold and silver luminaires and speaker cabinets and top drapes, but no set pieces blocking sightlines. The biggest after-show dilemma seemed to be where to position the six confetti cannons. "We keep moving them around to see where we can make the biggest mess," Berry laughs. "But you have to give the band credit for playing in the round like this--it just proves they're the ultimate rock band. They sound great and everyone is working well together; it's getting better as it goes along. But you don't really have to talk about how great it is--the show speaks for itself."
Of course, only a few of the tour's dates will be in arenas--a fact that is hardly lost on Mick Jagger. "You still have to go out there and deliver the songs as if you were playing in a theatre, but you've got to balance that against the different demands of putting on this spectacular show. The challenge when you're playing these stadium shows is to really entertain people."
"We've created a Cyber Opera, but, really, all Stones shows are the same," Fisher concludes. "They just do the same songs better. A lot of shows done on this scale come off cold and artless or very harsh and in-your-face. I don't think people go to rock shows to be taught something. So if you just want to be entertained, go see the Rolling Stones."
Production manager Jake Berry
Production coordinators Dana Jaeger, Kari Stevens
Stage manager Gary Grosjean
Project manager Chris Deters
Architect Mark Fisher
Lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe
Lighting director/crew chief Ethan Weber
Vari*Lite/Icon operator and crew chief Mark "Sparky" Risk
Lighting programmer Dave Hill
Chief Vari*Lite technician Nick Barton
Icon crew chief Simon Harraghy
Vari*Lite technicians Greg Brooks, Patrick Thomsen
Spotlights Bob Batty
Sky Art technician Jonathan Wood
Lighting technicians Kenny "Cobra" Ackerman, Barry Branford, Simon Honnor
Icon technicians Terence Archer, Colin Green, Steve Haskins
Video director Dick Carruthers
Video crew chief/head engineer Zainool Hamid
Assistant video engineer David Moss
Jumbotron technicians Dave Anderson, Angelo Bartolome, Kraig Boyd, Mark Johnson
Camera operators John Clarke, Bruce Green, Scott Russell, John Tinetti
Head rigger Bart Durbin
Riggers Rodney Johnson, Danovan Rowley
Ground rigger Robert Baker
Head carpenter Kurt Wagner
Carpenters Martin Capiraso, Kendall Carter, Steve Chambers, Alan Doyle, Danny Gavin, Seth Goldstein, Bruce Haynes, John Hurd, Gordon Hyndford, Bill Shewmake, Ian Tucker
Carpenter/teleprompters Flory Turner
FOH sound engineer Robbie McGrath
Monitor engineer Christopher Wade-Evans
Assistant FOH sound engineer Mike Piper
Sound crew chief Jim Homan
Sound technicians Ken Check, Dan May, Guy Nowak, Niall Slevin, Michihiro Tanikawa
Pyrotechnics crew chief Ken Kinard
Pyrotechnic crew Gene Brown, Flip Firoir, Jeff Pier, John Stevens
Showpower crew chief Andries Odendaal
Showpower crew Vincent Campion, Mike Loveday, Peter Moore, Jon Williams
Tour accountant Mark Aurelio
Scenic collaborator Gerard Howland
Site coordinators Robert Hale (red), Ian Kinnersley (green), Toby Fleming (blue)
Red steel crew chief Filip Wouters
Red steel crew Martin Beckers, Randy Ellson, Raf Goethuys, Ludo Hoebrechts, Stu Pearsall, Eddy Shugart, Herwig Smets, Willy Veltmans, Bart Vergauwen, Ronnie Whitlock
Green steel crew chief Dirk Van Der Goor
Green steel crew Stefann Angillis, Brian Cerneck, Hugo Colpaert, Gerrit Geens, Tim Orehowsky, Patrick Reyman, Jeremy Shand, James Terrell, Andre Verbeek, Hendrik Verdeyen
Blue steel crew chief Belekes (Johan Van Espen)
Blue steel crew Russell Glen, Farley Gross, Jan Heylen, Robrecht Morren, Keith Ray, Frans Schilte, Ortwin Smets, Filip Vanderbruwane, Jean-Pierre Van Loo, Zachary Zagrodsky
Set construction Brilliant Stages/Charlie Kail, Tait Towers/Michael Tait and Winky Fairorth, Tomcat, StageCo/Hedwig DeMeyer
Drapes Landrell Fabrics
Systems engineering Atelier One/Neil Thomas
Video BCC Video and Screenworks/Danny O'Bryen
Pyrotechnics MPA
Sound db Sound/Barry Dane and Harry Witz
Trucking Upstaging
Lighting Concert Production Lighting (main lighting contractor) and Vari-Lite/Wayne Boehning, Carol Croft and Matt Croft; Light & Sound Design/Nick Jackson
Lighting equipment: (148) Vari*Lite 1.2k VL5s (84 black, 36 silver, 28 gold) (22) Vari*Lite VL5Arcs (20 black, two silver) (80) Light & Sound Design Icons (60 black, 14 gold, six silver) (8) Theater Projects 4k Sky-Arts (51) 8-Light Molefays (43) Wybron Mole Colorams (3) Lightning Strikes 70k strobe units (5) Lightning Strikes 40k strobe units with Wybron Colorams (36) Diversitronics 3k strobe lights (24 silver, 12 gold) (10) L&E MR-16 Mini-Strips (16) PAR-64 ACL bars (8) Strong 2k xenon long-throw spotlights (4) Strong 2k xenon short-throw spotlights (4) Lycian 1.2k Starklites
Control: (1) Avolites Diamond III (1) LSD Icon 040 Console (5) Avolites 72-way dimmers (1) Vari*Lite VL C3 dimmer rack (2) Vari*Lite VL5 Arc mod racks (4) LSD Icon mains racks assortment of CPL180 distro/mains racks
Atmosphere: (8) Reel EFX DF-50 smoke machines (2) JEM Roadie smoke machines (2) High End Systems F-100 fog generators