Through February, Packemin Productions and Riverside Theatres presented a brand new production of the smash-hit musical, We Will Rock You at Riverside Theatre in Parramatta. Eclipse Lighting & Sound provided production.
“In 2018 I produced a production of We Will Rock You that performed at AIS Arena Canberra and WIN Entertainment Centre Wollongong,” commented Chris Neal of Eclipse. “Producing/promoting is not my normal gig, as my focus is definitely on my audio and lighting production company. My production of We Will Rock You was a two-year journey researching Queen heavily, and I spent a lot of time putting together a tracks rig that had the band play to click, timecode that triggers LED screen content from the original UK production and sound effects (including surround sound). I invited the producer of this show to mine, and after he saw it we started a discussion about bringing the same concept across to his show. So in this case, a lot of the brief was to re-create what we had already delivered in a new theatre to a new audience.”
Audio-wise, Chris initially couldn’t make up his mind whether he wanted to install a line array or a point source PA system into the theatre. As the theatre has three levels he decided to go with a point source PA so he could control where to point the sound more than is possible with a line array in the space.
“I have made use of the in-house Alcorn line array as a centre hang, but everything else I have installed for the show from our inventory,” he said. “Left and Right I have used EV XI 1152s at each level, EV’s high end wooden 15+horn cabinet for those not familiar with them. In the stalls, I also have two outfill and four infill boxes, for which I used the smaller EV XI 1122 12+horns. I’ve used EV Evolve column speakers for surround sound effects as they were super quick and easy to install.”
For control Chris uses a Soundcraft VI3000 saying for a show that doesn’t look like there is much going on input wise, it is full at 96 channels.
“I like that I have a screen for every bank of faders and that I don’t need to be bringing things to a central screen,” added Chris. “I also really dig the flip button that allows me to change to a backup mic on a performer so quickly if I get a headset that stops working. I am using V-mix in this show, which I’ve never used before and it is fantastic keeping the noise floor of dialogue scenes down low, and gets rid of any phasing when actors are talking right into each other’s faces.”
Chris is using 40 RX for the show; 16 x Shure Axient Digital and 24 x ULX-D. All seven leads wear two packs each, and they are wired with a DPA 4088 cardioid, and a DPA 4066 Omni.
“When I previously did the show I used the cardioid the entire performance and only went to the Omni if the mic had a problem such as it shifted position from performing, got sweat in it or had a crackle,” said Chris. “In this show, the cardioid sounds too big for the dialogue scenes, so I use the Omnis for dialogue and the cardioids for songs.”
Last time Chris did this show he had the entire cast on ears; 50 sets on 10 sends. The producer and creative team weren’t keen on using ears for this show. This meant that the main leads have wanted a large amount of vocal foldback on stage to compete with the band, which is loud. Trying to keep the balance between the 
performers having enough vocals and allowing the band to be big has been the biggest challenge of the show for Chris.
Chris remarked that the staff at the venue were absolutely lovely. Sean Clarke and his team made their life very easy and helped them work out how to implement everything into their space. Bump in was very hard, as they had a lot of gear going into a small space.
“This is my first musical since Covid hit and it’s been really good to be back in the theatre,” commented Chris. “There are some rules that are interesting for example, no singing within 5m of the audience. There is a line on the stage that marks where the performers are not allowed to sing in front of.”
LIGHTING
Queen is a band that always perform with a large amount of technical infrastructure. Their lighting, sound, screens are always a large component of their shows. Lighting designer Phil Goodwin had to aim big on a minuscule amount of Queen’s budget!
“Moving the show into the theatre meant several changes had to be made,” he added. “We performed the show on a 25m wide stage with a 14m trim height. I had to bring the same design elements into a 12m wide space with a 7m trim height. I wanted to achieve the same looks as I did, but I had a lot fewer fixtures and space to achieve this. I also had to re-think how I laid out power distribution and dimmers. I went from using Powerlock racks to integrating with theatre dimmers and in house power, which comes from another room, and I didn’t have easy access to enough power to run my racks. So there was a lot of work involved in getting the rig powered using a combination of my racks and in house distribution. I positioned my racks underneath a large riser at the back of the stage, which also housed audio infrastructure for the live on-stage band.”
There are two large sets of stairs that have wireless RGB LED tape in them. They used the same stairs as last time, which came from a company in Rockhampton and had been in storage since 2018 requiring a lot of work to get them going again. But Phil remarked that they do come up great and are worth the effort.
Four truss arches are over the stage, which is in line with the original UK design, and most shows around the world have followed this element. Except for the FOH lighting and a “laser cage” (not lasers but six Claypaky Axcor Beams on a rotating circle), all the lighting is hung from the truss arches and hung from motors from the theatre roof.
The rig consists of 15 x Martin MAC Quantum Profile, 15 x Prolight Stark 1000, 16 x Claypaky Axcor Beam, eight Aryton Ghibli, eight Robe Robin 300 plus, five Robe Robin DL4S and 18 x Martin MAC 101. Added to that are 10 x LED Beam, 40 x LED Cans, six SGM X5 Strobes, 12 x 2-way Blinders, 12 x 4-way Blinders, eight 12-way Blinder, 12 x 36deg ETC Luster2, four 26deg ETC Lustr 2, 18 x 14deg ETC Lustr 2 and one Cyc Cell.
Control is an MA Lighting MA2 light along with an NPU, three ACME Artnet node and two Catalyst V5 Media Server.
“When we were engaged for the show I set up L8 pre-viz at home to see what the new space was going to look and feel like,” explained Chris Neale. “It was mid-Covid so I had lots of time to play as I was not involved with getting any other shows out and happening. I had all the song sequences programmed before going into the venue, which was the largest portion of cues taken care of, and then worked with the director as to his staging of the individual scenes. As I was locked out of Sydney due to ACT border closures, I set up several meetings with the director where I screen shared L8 and the media content and worked through the show with him. During the show, almost all the songs are triggering from timecode, but for the ones that are not I have a base of looks on buttons that I hit! The end of the show is a series of some of Queen’s biggest hits such as We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions and Bohemian Rhapsody. At this point, the story is not relevant anymore and it becomes a concert, and I’ve lit it to feel like that.”
A 9m x 3m LED screen is located at the back of the stage and a 3m x 2m LED screen flies in for one sequence.
“We have footage from the original UK production, the director of the show put together a couple of the sequences and we filled in some gaps,” said Chris. “Some of the footage is cheesy and old looking, but it is fun and suits the show. The vision is all triggered via timecode which comes from the tracks rig controlled by the MD in the band.”
