Adlib's head of lighting Pete Abraham says: "It's exciting to be working with such an amazing breakthrough artist as Mika. There's a massive buzz about him and he's a great live performer. Ian came up with a highly adaptable and dynamic rig that fitted a variety of venue sizes." These ranged from the Birmingham Barfly to Koko in London.
Tomlinson started with floor-based trussing to build a structural outline for the stage. To give it a quirky flavour - matching Mika's interesting performance style - he chose a semi circle of truss that rested on the floor at the back creating an arched effect, flanked by two quarter circles, which also appeared as arches.
Onstage were six upright sections of A-type trussing, four at 8ft and two 10ft . . . all toned with JTE PixelPARs. These could be shunted around according to where the risers were placed that day. On top of each of the uprights were six Martin Professional MAC 250s which effectively took up the role of 'rear' truss luminaires.
Twelve JTE PixelLine fixtures were dotted around the rig - their exact positioning altering "as needed" each day, according to they layout of the risers. These were chosen for the "Incredible brightness and high impact effect", explains Tomlinson.
Adlib Lighting is also the first to use JTE's new PixelLine Micro E's, a sixth of the size of a full PixelLine fixture, twelve of which were randomly fixed to the arches at the back, and used for super-bright point source and silhouette lighting.
Keeping if fun, funky and glittery Adlib supplied six half mirror balls, which were fitted in between the backline wherever there was a gap in the floorspace! 60m of red and white festoons were hung around the stage and FOH each day. They also carried a hazer and a Hog iPC console with a fader wing. In addition to the touring rig, where possible, they also hooked various aspects of the house rigs.
• Mika goes out on a larger production tour in the UK and Europe again in May, followed by various festival dates.
(Jim Evans)
