Following rehearsals in March and 45 US dates the tour has crossed the 'pond', with promoters Solo selling out 17 European dates in seven venues. Star Rigging's Phil Broad and Steve Armstrong were contracted as tour riggers throughout Europe joining Dano Rowley and Jimmy Vaughn. Phil's role included accommodating the complex rigging into each of the Arena venues.
The production includes 130 rigging points and 160 motors, carrying five moving video screens (the largest of which is seven tons), an arsenal of moving lights, four tons of Claire Brothers line array pa and a 22m 'V-Truss'. This flies down from the roof above the front of the audience as Madonna and 15 dancers come out above the audience.
The tour's production manager Benny Collins commented: "In all there is about 48 tonnes of production flown in a very compact area above the stage. Virtually everything that can moves; so the rigging has had to be very precise. Phil has been a true professional and Star Rigging have been an important part of a very close knit production team."
Star Rigging has been the in-house rigging consultant at both MEN Arena (Manchester) and Wembley Arena and they provided the additional in-house local crews for both venues. At Wembley, where the mother grid sits at a trim height of 53ft above the floor, Madonna was the first production that required a trim height above this, at 58ft. To fit the show into the venue, Phil consulted with Wembley's technical manager (of) production, Steve Lee, to raise the mother grid by 10ft to above the catwalks in Wembley's (listed) roof. This involved splitting the grid and introducing additional splitter trusses to spread the load across the roof beams. Star Rigging employed a team of four trained riggers to make the modifications over a period of 14 days, managed by Amos Cotter prior to Madonna's production arriving at Wembley. Then they supplied 14 riggers to ensure the production was loaded in over a 12-hour period.
Lee said: "I can't think of anyone I'd rather have trusted to achieve this complex operation. Phil and Mark have worked with us through out this whole project to ensure that Chris has been able to achieve his wish list."
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
