The show is a fusion of popular and classical music, featuring a 72 piece orchestra and 50-strong choir, conducted by Robert Groslot, plus a series of soloists and special guests. The 2004 Antwerp line up includes Joe Cocker, Shaggy, John Miles and James Brown plus a four-piece 'house' electric band and three backing vocalists.
This year several important production changes were made, the main ones being the introduction of the additional visual component of projection and a new layout for the stage. LD Geert Vanhout approached several companies for quotes, including E/T/C UK. Vanhout specifically sought a creative collaborator as well as a company able to supply the hardware and E/T/Cs Ross Ashton came up with the winning combination - the most imaginative and exciting set of visual ideas and a competitive quote.
Flown on a front of house truss, three PIGI 7Kw projectors fill a gently curved 36m wide by 10m high screen with images, which are blended via soft-edging. The PIGI's are controlled via the WholeHog II lighting console run by Olivier Demoustier.
Vanhout developed the lighting cues closely with the projection, so the two visual elements are interwoven. The rig contains over 130 Vari*Lites including VL 3000s and VL5s and some classic VL2C's, which are still a huge favourite. On top of that there's about 50 PARs some with scrollers, 30 Molefeys, fifteen 5Ks with scrollers and 24 James Thomas Pixelline battens, rigged vertically and used for side lighting. Vanhout operates all the conventionals and the smoke machines using an Avolites Sapphire.
Sound designer and FOH engineer Patrick Demoustier is using an Adamson Y18 line array system as main PA - 24 elements in total, with 16 Y10s for the delays and 16 Adamson Spectrix enclosures for infills. The subs are EML's special triple-18" boxes, and the system is powered by Labgruppen amps. Demoustier uses a Digico D5 for the main mix. Next to him at FOH is Xavier Lecompte with a Yamaha DM2000, which handles a sub-mix of all the wood brass and percussion, and backstage, using two Midas Legend 3000s is Marc Ivan, who does another sub-mix of the strings and choir. All sub-mixes are then sent to Demoustier for integration into the show and outputting via the D5.
For the first year, all the orchestra and choir are on a mix of Shure 600 and 700 Series and H3 IEMs. Monitors are mixed by Tom Vuurstaek (electronic band and soloists) and Igor Dock (orchestra and choir) both using D5s.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
