The show is a superlative example of high production values, with Chris Vaughan’s CV Productions team featuring many who made the first Pop Idol tour gel. With 12 trucks and 24 sold-out UK arena dates, this is some achievement in these politically jittery times.
With Vaughan himself in the States for American Idol, the UK tour is production managed by Kenny Underwood and Debbie Bray, with tour management by Bill Barclay. XL Video UK is once again the live video equipment supplier, working in conjunction with Blink TV - the latter hiring the gear to the band in return for using the side screens during the pre-show and interval ‘down’ times. Blink’s in-house production department, headed by Marcus Viner, prepared the specially-tailored programmes, carefully calculated to bring audience excitement to a crescendo just before the stars take the stage.
The pre-show programme is geared towards Zoë (another Pop Idol product), who plays the opening slot. The changeover Blink programme is full-on Will & Gareth, giving the young audience a chance to prepare their lungs for the impending hormonal meltdown! Live video director is Blue Leach, who worked closely with LD Peter Barnes, the show’s artistic director Kim Gavin, and choreographer Gary Lloyd.
XL supplied five cameras: four Sony D35s - two in the pit with Cartoni Dutch heads for jaunty angles, one hand-held onstage and the fourth at FOH with a 70:1 lens). They also bought a new Polecam crane device, complete with remote Mini Cam on the end for the tour. This is operated by crew-member Rob Wick and allows Leach to access the higher reaches of the set - which elevates more than 8 metres. He mixes using a Grass Valley GVG 4000 mixer/switcher, and in addition to the live sources, there’s a RADLite video effects generator and pre-recorded footage produced by Fishpot Productions.
The RADLite - a relatively new concept in easy, intuitive graphics manipulation - was specified for the tour by Barnes. Having seen a demo at Avolites, he’s using it for specific centre screen effects, worked up by Leach and himself for Gareth’s set. RADlite can be controlled by any DMX lighting desk, and Barnes is using an Icon Show Controller console with which he’s also running the lighting. The RADlite system itself is supplied by XL Video UK, and sits in the video rack backstage. Barnes mixes the patterns and effects at the lighting desk end, and sends DMX back to the video rack, where it’s output to screen by Leach.
XL also supplied a Unitek 17mm LED Megascreen that splits into 8 x 4-panel sections. Jon Bray from Summit Steel, the tour’s rigging co-ordinators, custom designed and built the automation system that glides these screens into four distinct ‘looks’. Bray created an affordable and versatile solution based on four sets of master/slave tracking units, two sets per side of stage, moved by one winch per side of stage.
Summit has worked regularly with Chris Vaughan and CV Productions over the years, ever since Take That took the pop world by storm in the early nineties. Vaughan’s shows have a reputation for being demanding, idiosyncratic and ambitious for the rigging department, especially when it comes to large set pieces requiring movement and automation. Will & Gareth is no exception. Thus Summit’s Jon Bray came onboard early in the tour’s planning stages to co-ordinate and consult on all the pre-production rigging.
The set, a co-design between Barnes and Hattie Spice, constructed by Total Fabrications, includes a satellite stage at FOH, used for the final three numbers, accessed via a 30m walkway - supplied by Summit - which descends fr
