XL's project manager was Phil Mercer with Nilkanth Patel overseeing the technical aspects and, for the first time on a Robbie Williams tour, Jon Shrimpton was live camera director.
Once again the stage set and visuals took on a completely new and different dimension and the aesthetic was carefully crafted by show producers Lee Lodge and Willie Williams, both also involved in commissioning the video playback content, mostly created by Shop Studios in Bristol.
A large part of the look and feel of the show was established by the time Shrimpton joined the team, including an impressive 22.8m wide by 10.8m high upstage scenic LED wall made up from XL's Pixled F-12 product. They had also decided on portrait orientated side screens for IMAG which are made up from Radiant MC-7T. Both LED types were housed in XL's custom touring frames.
Three Barco 40K HD projectors were used to beam material onto a massive purple Austrian drape. This wrapped around the stage and flew in and out on a Kinesys automation system at various stages of the show to mask off different areas of the performance space. Judiciously used, it created dramatic scene changes, adding depth and dynamics and had the ability to completely transform the environment.
The projectors were flown at FOH and projected when the drape was fully in with Robbie Williams performing on the 'passerelle' catwalk at the front of the stage.
Content for the upstage wall was programmed and run via a Catalyst media server. The projection was fed via a d3 media server system, chosen for its specialist warping and highly flexible mapping facilities needed to deal with the eccentricities of the cloth surface. Both servers were operated by Phil Haynes via a Hog 4 console.
Shrimpton had nine cameras at his disposal - five operated Sony HXC-100s and four Bradley CamBall2s, all from XL Video.
Three of the five Sony's were stationed around the edges of the passerelle, two in fixed positions and one hand-held and roving at the end of the runway to capture the full Robbie live interactive experience - for which the artist is renowned. The other two were at FOH fitted with long-throw lenses.
The Bradleys were right above the drum kit, with one downstage centre and two near the stage left and stage right keyboard positions. Three of these were operated by Shrimpton and the centre one by XL crew member Joe Makein using a separate dedicated Bradley controller.
At the hub of the PPU was one of XL's new Grass Valley Karrera mixer / switchers.
Mix wise, it was an extremely clean show with the focus right on Robbie. Shrimpton gave the artist space onstage and presented big, bold, lingering beauty shots without over cutting - simple and effective.
Shrimpton comments, "It was a very grown-up tour with some serious talent and very experienced and well respected product industry names on-board which is great. Working with XL has, as always, been a great experience - nothing has been too much, all the kit is in great condition and the crew are just fabulous! What more can I ask for?"
(Jim Evans)
