In 2012, Rhys-Evans became equally as successful with Only Boys Aloud, comprising of over 180 boys on ITV1's Britain's Got Talent winning a respectable 3rd place on the talent, and off the back of the success of the show went on to sign a record deal with Sony Music. Recently they have added Only Kids Aloud to the family.
For the Aloud brand's Aloud at Christmas tour lighting director was Steffan Jones, brought on-board directly by Rhys-Evans to work on a show that would aim to fit a choir of up to 400 men, boys and children onto a stage that was also being used for the touring version of The Phantom of the Opera at the same time.
Planning time was short, and it was expected that at least one of the concerts would be recorded for broadcast on S4C. With this in mind, Jones had to plan lighting designs to accommodate both broadcast and concert expectations.
There were to be five Christmas concerts - two in North Wales at Venue Cymru, Llandudno and three in Cardiff. The two in Cardiff were to be a week apart, which meant the complete set and lighting being rigged and de-rigged in one day on December 24th and the whole procedure repeated again a week later.
The staging was kept simple with five rows of raised rostra across the full width of the stage, backed by a large video wall. Creative director was Nik Ashton - current residential director on London's West End hit Matlida. He worked closely with Rhys-Evans on every creative aspect of the production, and had specific ideas for each of the songs that featured in the concerts. These ranged from James Bond - Goldfinger, The Lord's Prayer and Most Wonderful Time of the Year through to Welsh favourite Calon Lan.
All the concerts over Christmas were sold out well in advance, with high expectations of the same level of production qualities seen on the raft of recent TV performances and appearances by the groups. "Tim understandably wanted a TV entertainment look and feel to these shows that maintained and reflected the glossy TV look following their long list of recent high profiled TV engagements," said Jones.
Orchard Entertainment was the production company promoting the concerts with Jacques Batchelor acting as production electrician alongside Jones. The lighting design for Cardiff had to fit on just four rigging points available within the forest of scenery and lighting of the Phantom rig.
The design featured a large wall of Martin Professional LC panels across the back of the stage, supplied by XL Video. The main moving light rig came from Light the Way in Manchester with HSL and Stage Electrics supplying the staging. AnyFX looked after the snow machines used at the end of the first half of the show. Video & Graphics were produced and provided by Dave Newton of Potion Pictures with the LC panels being driven by Jones' own Hippo Critter.
Because of the limitations of the hanging points available, the over-stage rig was on just three bars. The fixtures chosen by Jones were 10 x MAC 250 beams, 4 x MAC 700 profiles and 23 x Clay Paky Sharpys along with 10 x Robe 600 LED washes. Two of the new LED versions of the Nova Flowers were used to accentuate certain numbers. A further seven Sharpys were placed in two fingers either side of the front of the stage. The final touch was four rows of 5 x LTW 5W RGB battens, with 2 x Unique 2.1 Hazers.
Front of House lighting consisted of 30 x 10° Source 4s, 18 x 19° Source 4s, and four Robert Juliat HMI Follow Spots for key lighting. The Phantom set prevented any side lighting being used, so Jones
