In doing so, the company was renewing its penchant for working with some of the funniest people on the planet!
The tour already had a lighting design in place and a spec to which Adlib worked. Based on four trusses, the front one was in the 'advanced' position, around 30ft out from the front of stage. This was rigged with eight Martin Professional MAC 700 Wash moving lights, four ETC Source Four Profiles with 19 degree lenses and seven 4-way linear Moles for audience illumination.
Above the middle section of the stage was a 56ft wide truss that provided mid-stage lighting positions for 12 MAC 700 Profiles and a 24ft wide by 18ft high projection screen flown at 8ft off the ground, complete with black drape masking.
The back truss also had black wool serge drapes hung on it for masking. 7.5m upstage of this was a flown 2m truss section that accommodated two video projectors supplied by video contractors XL Video. The blacks on the back truss masked the left and right sides of the screen, leaving a clear path for the projector beams to shoot through.
On the stage floor at the back were 10 x PixelPAR 90 fixtures, up-lighting the rear blacks.
Adlib also supplied a pipe-and-drape system onstage which was covered in black wool serge and used to mask beneath and around the bottom sides of the screen.
The lighting was programmed and operated by Adlib's Charlie Rushton on an Avolites Pearl Expert console running the latest TITAN software. The cue list was supplied by Dunham's touring team and programmed at the first show.
FOH engineer Richie Nicholson and systems designer / engineer Tony Szabo were joined by Alan Harrison, and together they ensured that Dunham's multiple voices were audible loud and clear throughout each venue.
The main sonic challenge was keeping the sightlines absolutely clear for the audience to see the IMAG video screen which itself was 12ft upstage. With the facial expressions of Dunham and his array of characters so vital to getting the punch lines, there was zero compromise on this aspect.
It involved the main hang of 14 x L-Acoustics K1 and three Kara down-fills being positioned 1.5m upstage of the downstage edge of the stage. This had to be achieved avoiding any feedback whilst still reaching a premium level in the mic and not obscuring the screen.
The elegant contours and superlative sound quality and power of the K1 made it a perfect choice. Left-and-right of the main arrays were side hangs of 10 x L-Acoustics Kudo, and at the bottom were three SB28 subs-a-side to accommodate the low-end jokes!
Along the front lip of the stage six Kara's provided front-fill, their low profile ideal for the application on the 4 ft high stage.
These were all driven by LA8 amplifiers running the new L2 Network Manager software. ADLIB supplied one of their standard Lake LM44 / 26 systems for control, which was run over Dante protocol. The mixing console was an Avid SC48, specified by Nicholson.
The monitors comprised of four of Adlib's new MP4 wedges driven by Labgruppen PM10000 amps. Completing the sound package was a Shure KSM9 mic plus backup.
(Jim Evans)
