Dan Black was looking after lighting with his design based on Ben Dalgleish from Human Person’s design of the 2021 New Zealand tour. Dalgleish engaged Colourblind and Dan to design and operate the lighting for the Australian tour so Dan worked collaboratively with Ben to realise a design that has some of the key elements from the 2021 tour as well as some new elements, all working alongside a redesigned set and video surface.
“I wanted to achieve a similar look and feel to the New Zealand run but in my own style,” explained Dan. “As there was video content already created, I used a lot of the original colour schemes to match this content. The looks had to be bold, bright and dramatic and the band had to be well lit.”
The rig was Robe BMFL Blades and Robe RoboSpots on the front truss, mid truss had Martin MAC Viper Profiles and X4 Bar 20s, upstage was a horseshoe-shaped truss with MAC Viper Profiles and Robe Spiiders.
“I had a truss on each side running upstage/downstage with MAC Viper Performances and Robe Spiiders providing sidelight on the band and light on the set pieces, and MAC Viper Performances on the floor each side providing sidelight on the band and air effects,” added Dan. “Mid-stage on the floor featured 11 x MAC Viper Profiles on Wahlburg Lifting Columns and I had a row of X4 Bar 20s as a ground row for the set and 13 x GLP JDC-1s behind the band.”
The Whalburg Lifting Columns allowed Dan to raise the lower the MAC Viper Profiles so they could be hidden or revealed or set at different angles. With the set being semi-transparent, the MAC Vipers could be shot through the set when they were at their lowest position. The upstage X4 Bar set lights could also be tilted downstage and used in the same way.
The set was made of an extremely textured scrim material which took light very well and benefited from being lit from acute angles to accentuate the texture. There were two set-pieces located mid-stage and upstage and they were around the width of the stage. The advantage of the scrim was it was easy to set up and tour, and it hung off a frame of pipe and truss.
“I primarily used the X4 Bar ground rows for this but also used the MAC Viper Performances hung on the sidelight trusses to shoot gobos and add more texture over the top,” said Dan. “The framing shutters on these allowed me to really control the light and ensure only the set was lit.”
A large LED screen was hung upstage which played a mixture of video content created by the team at Human Person and IMAG video. IMAG was switched by Dan Aulich and Dan had control over the media server and IMAG from his lighting console. Additionally, they had a handful of Notch effects to run over the IMAG content for various songs.
The rig was controlled by an MA Lighting MA2 full size and an MA2 light running as a backup. Video content was from a disguise D3 media server fired from the MA2.
There were over 35 songs in rotation so Dan had to keep it pretty well organised on the console. Each song had a main cue stack and several other cue stacks and bump buttons to add over the top, as well as a cue stack for video content and IMAG, and Notch effects. With the real threat of COVID lurking in the background, Dan had to ensure the console was set up in a way so that a backup operator could step in with minimal disruptions.
Chameleon provided the lighting rig and Big Picture provided all the video equipment.
