Producers Clear Channel Entertainment Italia called in Canadian set Designers Serge Denoncourt and Francis LaPorte and LD Alain Lortié who, along with production manager Giorgio Ioan and musical director Claudio Giudetti, came up with a world-class multimedia spectacle. Ioan says: "Eros decided he wanted a complete change and the show really is different - with a great deal of work going into the actual concept, the lighting, sound and video."
Ioan went to Canada and met the design team, whose members' work has included Cirque du Soleil and Peter Gabriel and, instead of a traditional stage with platforms and moving lights, the set represents an uneven road, with lop-sided telegraph poles and lamp-posts, and a huge collapsed billboard that's in fact a Barco DL7 LED screen, all reflecting the unstable worldwide situation.
Video plays a key role in the show. A seven-strong team from STS Communication, led by Emiliano Napoli have feeds from 12 cameras at their disposal (including track-mounted, pole and micro units) in a full-blown stage-side video suite, consisting of a digital mixer and frame synchronizers plus a playback rack with DVC, Betacam, DVD and M-PEG2 units.
Regarding the video content, Ioan comments: "Francis is a video director who's done a lot of experimental work and some of the sequences used in the show have five layers of films, recorded in deserts and other areas in Texas and Arizona. The live images are often processed in real time too, giving them effects that distinguish them from the usual, rather static, live shots normally used in concerts."
As well as pre-recorded footage, STS process live shots with a PC Cube 2xP4, running pre-set effects created by the Canadian team. They also get a feed from the three-man Andy's Tech team's balloon-flown Sony DXC-290 camera, mounted on a stabilized three-axis head with a custom stabilizer set-up.
Theatrical influences include a disappearing grand piano, and a flying bed whose sheet turns into a huge cloud then used as a projection screen as it floats above the stage, and more subtle touches, such as a travelator, which Ramazzotti walks down as an Arizona highway is projected behind him.
Ioan enthused about the great work done by the Italian firms that built the set "Delfini Group, Peroni, ABM and MADA came up with the goods, using motors fast enough to match the rhythm of an up-tempo rock concert and more."
With such a cutting-edge video system and set, the lighting and audio just had to be up to the same standard and rental firm Agorà of L'Aquila supplied both. Alain Lortié programmed the Wholehog II and Compulite Sabre lighting consoles, assisted by light op' Nancy Mongrain and Francesco De Cave. On her first pop world tour, Mongrain explains: "I work with Alain Lortié's Quebec-based lighting design company, which has worked with Serge and Francis in the past, so we came in as a team to work on the show. Being used to working on theatre and contemporary dance productions, I appreciate the space left for 'improvising' dynamic effects on the tour."
The FOH sound system has 48 V-Dosc, 36 dV-Dosc and 32 Sub 318, whose configuration varies according to seating layout and other variables. FOH engineer is industry veteran Jon Lemon, manning a DiGiCo D5 Live, ably assisted by V-Dosc engineer Antonio Paulizi. Ioan adds, "Jon has a lot of experience and was a perfect choice - the vocals are wonderfully to the fore, but the band's got loads of punch - we're really satisfied with the choice."Lemon has often worked in Italy with international artists
