HSL is Together Forever for Rick Astley tour
- Details
With many people unsure of what to expect, Astley delivered a diverse show, action-packed with the dynamics of soul, rock, R ‘n’ B, dance and more than a few hints of disco, backed by a talented band and a stage design by Andy Hurst.
HSL delivered the lighting equipment for this high-profile tour. The Blackburn based company was once again working with renowned production manager Tony Gittins, with Jordan Hanson project managing.
He commented, “It was fantastic to be on the road with Tony and his excellent team again, and we were all very impressed with the look and style that Andy’s design bought to the show”.
To emphasise the architectural parameters of the design, Andy spec’d Martin Sceptron LED battens to fill the spaces in the ‘roof’ section between the eight 6m lighting trusses making up the grid. This itself was outlined with GLP X4 Bar 10s and 20s which are also mappable LED strip products.
Out on the road as Andy’s lighting director was Mark Jones-Roberts who is also a well-known LD in his own right.
The main lighting fixtures on the grid were 48 x Martin Mac Viper profiles – six per truss.
In between each truss were nine Sceptrons in three banks of three which made up the grid lines and provided a bright, individually pixel mapped source which could be used for complex and fluid chases and flow effects. Andy remarks that the Sceptrons also took ambient up-light coming from the floor really well, creating a set effect when not in use.
There was no front lighting apart from two follow spots on Astley. Instead, Andy used side booms to get some very efficient cross lighting and rich colouration onto the band - positioned upstage on risers and the floor - from six MAC Auras a side on three booms a side, plus some Viper Performances at floor level.
There were 13 x MAC Viper performances in total, four each side and five along the back wall, and these were chosen for their power and accurate shuttering. Also upstage at the base of the screen, was a line of 15 x Claypaky SharBars for multibeam effects.
Nitro strobes were dotted around, with a line upstage on the deck and another dozen on the front truss where they lit the rig so it popped out ‘cartoon style’ into everyone’s consciousness, allowing the structural symmetry to be appreciated as part of the look.
Three Smoke Factory Tour Hazers were deployed upstage and offstage which ran for the entire show, augmented with a pair of Chauvet Cumulus low fog machines that use distilled water affected by an ultrasonic agitator to produce an authentic low lying mist for “Rise Up”, one of the encore numbers.
The video kit was all supplied by Universal Pixels and included disguise media server for the playback content and five cameras – two Hitachi SK-1200s stationed at FOH (with J40 lens) and in the pit (with HJ23 lens), and three Agile 360 Lite remote cams which were dotted around onstage.
Mark ran the lighting, including the pixel-mapped Sceptrons, the X4 Bars and the smoke and haze devices on a Whole Hog Full Boar console.
(Jim Evans)
