LAS VEGAS — With 36 number one hits in 26 countries and album sales in excess of 22 million, Il Divo embarked on a major tour this year supporting their latest album, The Promise. Brilliant Stages is supporting the tour with a multi-level and flexible stage design. Brilliant Stages is using a “necklace” stage design, composed of two curved arms sweeping down from a back walkway to the main promoter’s stage and forward into the audience to a B stage. That provides several performance areas on different levels, with dimensions and a construction flexible enough for different configurations within each venue on the tour.
The tour’s production director, Mark Ward of Proper Productions, met with Brilliant Stages last December to discuss the tour’s staging requirements before construction of the set began in January in preparation for the tour’s first date in February.
Access to the main stage is via access stairs situated towards the rear. The four singers can use this to descend to a mid-air walkway level, and then through to the promoter’s stage beneath. Concealed technicians’ stairs are also positioned to either side of the walkway levels.
Sweeping from this back walkway, down to the B stage, 12 to 13 rows out into the audience, run the two curved arms that surround the front rows of seats, offering fans the chance to sit within the staging for a unique concert experience. These narrow sections of stage are supported from beneath with a series of legs and constructed to incorporate four lift-out decks allowing audiences access to the seating area within.
“It takes only two people to lift these sections in and out of place,” said Ward. “Road Rage, our show design team, designed them to be high enough at the stage end for people to duck out during the show if they need to, then they come out for the interval. They contain no mechanical parts so they are very easy to operate and work very well.”
It was also these sweeps, which Brilliant Stages needed to design to be adaptable to the different sized venues, creating and building a total of four different configurations for the tour.
“We can use the same stack of staging to fit any venue throughout the whole tour,” noted Ward. “The B stage and thrust can be taken out altogether for the smaller venues. We can shrink the remaining stage in both depth and width, and we even have the ‘Dublin Solution,’ where we can spin the B stage inside the walkways to compensate for the lack of space, while retaining the different performing areas and levels.”
The orchestra is housed on two levels behind black painted risers towards the back of the promoter’s stage. Each riser has a polycarbonate opal white fascia to diffuse the light from the LED strips from Schnick Schnack Systems, which Brilliant Stages used to edge each riser and the leading edges of the central staircase.
Finally, the tops of the “necklace” and B stage were given a gold finish, sourced by Brilliant Stages for its scratch resistant properties, to withstand the wear and tear from the performers’ feet and the rigors of touring.
“Brilliant Stages did a fantastic job,” said Ward. “They delivered on time and on budget and gave us exactly what we wanted. You couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Il Divo completed the European leg of their tour in April before embarking on a tour of North America, Australia and the Far East later this year.
For more information, please visit www.brilliantstages.com.
