LONDON – JLS, the U.K. boy band first thrust into the limelight as finalists on The X-Factor talent show in 2008, have since sold 1.3 million albums worldwide and are now performing before screaming fans in support their second release, Outta This World. The artistic director for the band's second major tour is Beth Honan with a set and stage design by Peter Barnes. Production North, led by production manager Karen Ringland, is coordinating technical production for the tour.
One of the key elements in the show is a U-shaped catwalk that measures about 120 feet long. It flies in from the roof and hangs above the audience for a whole section of the show, allowing the band to get closer to their fans.
To safely suspend the catwalk over the audience, Over The Top Rigging (OTT)'s Mark Wade specified 1 tonne LoadGuard hoists from Lift-Turn-Move (LTM). Thirty-five of the 40 hoists joining the tour are used to suspend the catwalk.
To light the catwalk, LD Dave Lee is using some of the first Robe Robin LEDWash 600 LED Wash fixtures to roll off the assembly line. In all, 40 of the new units are used for the show. The rig also includes 22 of Robe's ColorWash 2500s, 30 ColorBeam 700E ATs and eight Robin 300 Beams, controlled via a WholeHog III console.
Lee specified the LEDWash 600s after HSL project manager Mike Oates provided a demo. Their advantages, he said, start with their combination of bright output and light weight.
Both came in handy as Lee worked through the options in lighting the U-shaped catwalk. The best way to lighting this suspended staging element, he figured, was to rig the gear on a 50-foot truss that is used to lower and track a car in from the roof and out into the audience at the start of the show.
This truss is already heavily loaded with the car (the adapted chassis of a Ford Mustang) and all the flying and rigging equipment, so the aggregate weight of 20 LEDWash 600s, rigged in two lines to the underside of the tracking truss, was a key consideration.
This tracking truss is trimmed at 55 feet, so the lights also needed to be powerful enough to reach right to the end of the catwalk and ensure the band members could be seen clearly while performing there.
In addition to their ability to cover that distance, Lee was impressed with the zoom characteristics. The fixtures on the tracking truss are zoomed from wide at one end of the line to a fine beam at the other. As a result, they appear to fan out neatly and evenly down the walkway from above.
The other 20 LEDWash 600s in use are positioned on ladder trusses, with 10 per side flanking an 80-by-30-foot (1140 active tiles) Stealth video screen. They are used for framing the screen, color chases and other effects.
Lee also credited the LEDWash 600s for their color range – including pinks, turquoises, magentas and lavenders that are traditionally difficult for LEDs to generate. The white, he added, is "a real, proper white" – and an improvement over the white produced by other LED fixtures, and he voiced satisfaction with the dimming curve, too.
For more information, please visit www.robe.cz and www.liftturnmove.co.uk.
