The English electronic music group Disclosure, whose second album, Caracal, was nominated for Best Dance/Electronica Album at this year’s Grammy Awards, consists of brothers Guy Lawrence and Howard Lawrence. The show design, lighting and production for the Caracal 2016 tour is being done by Will Potts and Okulus (James Scott and Louis Oliver). Potts, who is also directing the tour on the road, programmed the show with Scott. After performing in Europe in February, the tour headed for a series of shows in the U.S. and Mexico from March through May. The Lawrence brothers will be performing in the U.K. and Europe again this summer.
Will Potts: “The Disclosure Caracal tour design was my first collaboration together with James and Louis from Okulus. I met James whilst touring years ago and we’ve been in contact ever since. When Disclosure’s second album and initial touring schedules came through, I saw the need to extend the design team to achieve an overall perspective of the show. James and Louis were well set up for this.”
James Scott: “After first working with Will on a small project in 2010, we kept in touch when our career paths took different directions. By the time we reconnected, in early 2014, Louis and myself had formed Okulus. We were thrilled that Will had approached us to collaborate on the Caracal show design. It was a perfect platform for three creative designers to experiment and create a fresh production design for Disclosure.”
Will Potts: “Generally, the band and management are very trusting with me, so I had a fairly vague brief on the overall aesthetic and feel that the show should have. We came up with some very ambitious ideas and took feedback until we got to version 14 of the production concept. Using a combination of WYSIWYG, Cinema4D and Photoshop, we were able to storyboard the design and get feedback and approval on as much of the show as possible before the pre-programming period began. Over the past year of touring, parts of the production, the lighting design, programming, set list, automation and video content have all changed massively while the show has evolved. It’s a different show now, however the core concept itself hasn’t really changed; it’s just grown up.”
For the Disclosure set, Litestructures was brought in to build the custom tables, which was no easy task, says Potts, as he had to be very insistent on the design to keep it looking slick.
Will Potts: “The shape and cantilevered design made the stability of the tables a challenge, and it would have been easy to simply add a few more legs! The construction is all about the look and being able to see the guys playing and actively working their instruments during the show. The tables and the positioning within the floor package also thrust them out into the crowd and make them the centerpoint for the whole production.”
PRG XL Video is the vendor for the tour, and for video content, Studio Moross was brought in.
Will Potts: “Working with Kate Moross and her team at Studio Moross has been great for this show. In our initial pre-production time, we set up our programming suite in a space next to her studio specifically so we could collaborate easily and involve ourselves in the processes of her team fully. The content is mostly graphical animation work, which works well on our low-resolution screen and most of the texture in the show is achieved through lighting. Each track has a bespoke look, but they are linked together in the studio’s style. With Kate working as art director for the band’s media and publicity work outside of the live show, there is great consistency in the campaign as a whole.”
James Scott led the programming for the first shows, done in a two-week period before a week-long production rehearsal.
James Scott: “We had a two-week time frame allocated in the studio to produce a fully programmed show that could roll into rehearsals, to be refined and tweaked with real work equipment. The way we found it best to work was for Will to be the creative driving force, with storyboards and content screen shots in hand; and for me to be the number-cruncher on the console. This gave me the opportunity to craft a show file that would be the basis for the entire touring campaign. Both myself and Louis Oliver were at production rehearsals, which gave us a broad scope of creative eyes. From the first few shows onwards, Will took over the programming, as the show evolved on the road, what we had started in the studio was built on and has resulted in the fantastic production that’s on the road today.”
Will Potts: “James is a talented programmer, and combined with his design input, [he] really allowed me to focus on bringing all the other parts of the production together. From there, it was simple enough to make changes, add tracks and really tune the show reacting to each performance. It really has been changing and improving on a monthly basis and is probably the main reason why Disclosure insist me being on the road with the show.
The tour’s lighting and video components are being supplied by PRG and PRG/XL Video, respectively, with Litestructures providing the staging elements.
Will Potts: “When it comes to the fixtures on the show, I think I would highlight the Philips Nitro 510C here, as it’s really turned into a part of the set in many ways. I haven’t found anything that I can sub it with to create that high power bar of LED yet. I’m still loving the old Atomic 3Ks and, although feeling a little environmental guilt at the power consumption, 52 of these in the rig is truly electrifying in a way that an LED will never manage.”
Crew
- Lighting / Production/Show Design: Will Potts and Okulus (James Scott and Louis Oliver)
- Lighting Director: Will Potts
- Lighting Programmers: Will Potts, James Scott
- Lighting Co: PRG
- Lighting Crew Chief: James “Jam” Such
- Lighting Techs: Dennis “Bear” Brown, Chris Titman, Sudip Shrestha
- Video Content/Creator: Studio Moross
- Video Director: Will Potts
- D3 Programmer/Operator: Icarus Wilson-Wright
- Video Co: PRG/XL Video
- Video Techs: Connor Canwell, Rod Martin, Richie Stembridge
- Tour Manager: Tobias Iddison
- Production Manager: Philip Murphy
- Stage Manager: David Murphy
- Staging Co: Litestructures
- Automation: Robert Simoneaux
- Carpenter: Darren Clarke
- Head Rigger: John Williamson
- Trucking Co: Janco
Gear
- 3 grandMA2 Light consoles
- 38 Clay Paky Mythos
- 24 Clay Paky Sharpys
- 4 Clay Paky Sharpy Wash
- 42 PRG Best Boy Spot HP
- 2 PRG Best Boy Wash
- 4 Philips ColorBlasts
- 24 Molefay 4-Cell Linear
- 52 Martin Atomic strobes
- 35 Philips SL Nitro 510C
- 22 Ayrton MagicBlades
- 4 DF50 hazers
- 2 Jem ZR33 foggers
For more Disclosure 2016 ‘Caracal’ tour photos by Steve Jennings, go to www.plsn.me/PLSN-Disclosure-2016.
