Lighting
Lighting designer Stan Crocker went for a highly flexible mix of powerful fixtures and short moving trusses. "I gave up lighting instruments to get the ChainMaster Vario-Lift motors in the budget," recalls Crocker, "and I don't regret it!" His rig consists of four Coemar SuperCycs, 33 Martin MAC 2000 Profiles, 32 MAC 2000 Wash fixtures and 11 MAC 300s - all run from a Martin Maxxyz console, programmed and operated by lighting director Seth Robinson. Each of the five moving trusses has two MAC 2000 Profiles and two MAC 2000 Wash fixtures on them, used both for repositioning and live dynamic moves.
The show is a collection of diametrically-opposed numbers. 'Walking on the Moon' has a smoky, Jazz club intimacy and features Sting on a stand-up bass accompanied by just a piano. In comparison, 'Synchronicity 2' has big truss moves with the trusses alternately forming pyramids and Vs. "I use a lot of shadow in this show," remarks Crocker. "I key Sting and everybody else on stage from a multiple of various angles, playing with shadow and sculpting faces."
With a stage so dominated by video, Crocker's job is made more complex by having to marry the lighting and video into a single overall look: "More often than not, projection designer Jim Gable's images were my guide for colour choices," says Crocker.
"If I felt strongly about a dominant colour for a particular part of the show, Jim would take that into consideration as he was shooting or animating his images."
Sound
Sting's front-of-house engineer for the Sacred Love tour is Jim Ebdon, who has worked with him on various one-off shows over the past 10 years. Ebdon's system consists of six to eight Clair Brothers i4s a side, with i4Bs, if the space allows. In addition, Ebdon has two S4s a side "for the punch," he says. "We put the S4s wherever we can, particularly when we don't have the i4Bs. Some spaces are bigger than others, so we have to scratch our heads every day to see what's going to work."
Ebdon is mixing on a DiGiCo D5 Live, which he previously used on Annie Lennox and Aerosmith: "I loved it so much I bought one!" he says. "Using a D5 in these theatres, they take up so little space. The production manager and the promoter loves it as we're not tearing up seats."
The dynamic nature of the Sacred Love show is such that control of the level and quiet moments is imperative. "I think [Sting] wanted a pop vibe, but he didn't want the show to be very loud," said Ebdon, "and he likes that real controlled quiet. There are some really quiet parts in this show." Although a bass player, Sting as an artist is sensitive to bass frequencies. "We have to be very careful that what comes back from the room doesn't affect him on stage. Really fine-tuning the low end of the system is what we concentrate on every day."
Video
Video concept designers and directors Jim Gable and Ann Kim, of Graying & Balding Inc, are more used to taking a live show and transferring it to the small screen: with Sting, they are taking three enormous screens and creating a live show. "Sting was very interested in adding a dramatic element to his tour," said Gable. "We decided that we should become more 'foreground' on the newer songs from Sacred Love and try to take the audience on a bit of a journey."
Gable and Kim worked with Vello Virkhaus, of V Squared Labs, on the content creation. Coming up with ideas, concepts and sometimes shooting footage: they would then turn them over to Virkhaus' animators. "We really did create
