CONCERTS Copyright Lighting&Sound America October 2017 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.

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62 • October 2017 • Lighting&Sound America

 Halos, Robots, and
Death Stars The design team for Queen + Adam Lambert
uses new technology to bring back
that old-time glitter
By: Sharon Stancavage

“T
he band is very, very interested in the show and, became the “Halo.” “A lot of the time, it’s used as a single
for this tour, they wanted to do something differ- thing, so it’s a single source made up of 92 Sharpy
ent,” explains lighting designer Rob Sinclair. The Washes,” Sinclair says. “There are times where we make
band is Queen + Adam Lambert; Sinclair has been shapes out of it, using bits of it. Each Sharpy Wash sits
involved with it since their initial tour in 2012. inside a mirrored cell, and there’s a red mirror surround
The team at London-based Stufish around the outer Halo edge, so we can also fire lights from
Entertainment Architects, headed by Ric Lipson, the floor up onto the Halo and it reflects down.” The Halo
has been involved with Queen in one form or another for became the nexus of the design.
almost 15 years. “The nature of the Queen show means Working with the Halo are two automated Glux Carbon
there are no new songs—apart from, in this show, Adam’s 10 screens, provided by the London office of Creative
‘Two Fux’—so you’re trying to find different ways to dis- Technology: a curved screen downstage that surrounds
play the music,” Lipson says. the perimeter of the Halo and an upstage 58'-wide by 16'-
This meant taking the band—and Lambert, via video high rectangular screen. “Originally, we thought of the Halo
conference—to the Neg Earth rehearsal studio for a mas- as a big PAR bulb that would lift up over the stage and
sive technology demo that included lighting, video, and would reveal the band,” Lipson says. “We would have a
special effects. “The band was very involved; we had front screen that wrapped around and a back screen.
meetings at least once a month for the last six months, Between the front screen and the back screen and the
maybe more,” Lipson says. “Rob and I went to see Adam Halo, you can have some amazing looks.”
in LA, we saw the band in London a lot, and we went to The Halo’s movement is controlled by a Navigator sys-
band rehearsals before we went to Rock Lititz [located in tem [provided by the show’s scenic vendor, TAIT, [also
Lititz, Pennsylvania] for technical programming.” located in Lititz], and can move up and down as well as
During the Freddie Mercury era, Queen was famous for tilt. “During ‘I Want it All,’ we do what we call the penny
its use of pods filled with PAR cans; the design team roll; that’s where the Halo does its most spectacular
All photos: Courtesy of Stufish

wanted to put a 21st-century spin on that concept. “We effects,” Lipson says. “In the middle of the song, the whole
decided we wanted a piece that was essentially a huge grid comes down and twists and rolls in all directions.
PAR can,” Sinclair says, “I did an arrangement of lights in There’s a three-minute sequence in which Rob flashes
an enormous ellipse, and Ric decided that they needed to more lights than you’ve ever seen. It’s quite fabulous.” For
be mirrored cells.” The giant ellipse is filled with a multi- the finale [“We Will Rock You”/“We Are the Champions”]
tude of Claypaky Sharpy 330 Washes, and officially the Halo starts off at an extremely low trim, blasting white

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Above: The show opens with robotic hands clutching the curved Glux Carbon 10 screen in low trim position. RIght: As the hands lift the
curved screen, Frank the robot is revealed upstage, as is the lighting Halo.

light onto the stage as it rises and tilts above the band. Queen,” when Frank makes an appearance, thanks to
“The Halo is really the cornerstone of the look and it does David Mendoza, of Show FX, based in Santa Fe Springs,
a lot of work for us—from small things, like picking up California. “In previous shows, Adam would sit on a chaise
Brian at the top of the lift, to really big moments in ‘We Will lounges or a throne during ‘Killer Queen,’ and we just felt
Rock You’,” Sinclair notes. that another furniture object would be boring,” Lipson
While the team was working on the production design, says. “In this show we have lifts, and that means we can
another factor came into play: It is the 40th anniversary of bring things up.” Instead of a simple prop, Frank’s head
Queen’s album News of the World, which features a huge appears from the depths of the stage. “The robot head is
robot. “The robot on the front of the album—we call it 8' high, and the stage is only 5' 6", so the head is created
Frank, because the original artist was named Frank [Kelly in two pieces, and it has a scissor lift inside it,” Lipson
Freas]—became a theme in the production,” Lipson says. says. The head is assembled underneath Lambert at the
Sam Pattinson and Third Company handled all of the beginning of the song and, when ready, ascends to its full
content creation for the production. Video—featuring Frank height.
the robot and the curved screen—opens the show. “We “We decided to make the eyes in the head animate, and
have always done a show with what I would call an instant wanted them to open and wink and look at Adam and
reveal; we’ve simply dropped the kabuki and the band is Brian,” Lipson explains. The original idea was to make the
there,” Lipson says. “What we wanted to do with this eyes out of LED screens and run a pre-made video.
show was reveal the band slowly, which is difficult, However, he says, “We eventually realized that there was
because none of the songs really suit that, except ‘We Will no way Brian May was going to do the same thing in every
Rock You’.” show. In the end, we figured out we could build the eye-
As the unmistakable notes of “We Will Rock You” fill the balls in Notch [a real-time work flow for production of
arena, the front screen, which starts the show on the floor, video content used within the d3 Technologies D3 media
comes to life. “There is the sound of robot footsteps com- server],” explains Lipson. The eyes are controlled via the
ing towards you and then, suddenly, Frank the robot MA Lighting grandMA2 light console that is dedicated to
smashes through the curved LED screen,” Lipson says. video. “Neil [Holloway, the d3 operator at the front of
“You see his face on the upstage video wall. He lifts the house], basically follows Brian with the faders; he has one
curved screen up and we reveal the band in a slow way.” fader that makes the eyes look left to right, one fader that
The interplay between the downstage and upstage video makes them look up and down, and a function that makes
walls is something not seen very often, especially during a them blink. So it’s live, created through Notch, and is live-
show opening. rendered.” The eyes are 3-D, and look not only dimension-
One unexpected moment happens during “Killer al, but mechanical. “You would never think that they’re flat.

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It’s very high-resolution video [3mm] and it’s done very “Two are standard Tait prop lifts; one of them goes in the
well,” Lipson adds. Notch, used with two of the new d3 4.5' B stage and the other is in the 5.5' main stage portions
Technologies gx 2 media servers, is also used with the of the catwalk. The one in the 4.5' stage brings up the bike
IMAG during the show. [for “Bicycle”] and the drum set. On the main stage, we
have the 5.5' lift, which brings up Brian in ‘Bohemian
Staging Rhapsody,’ and takes Adam down in ‘Who Wants to Live
The stage is 70' wide by 50' deep and includes a 70'-long, Forever.’ Upstage on the main stage, there are two Tait
8'-wide thrust. “It’s probably one of the longest, if not the scissor lifts, with a 6m-wide, 2m-deep custom bridge
longest, thrust they’ve ever had,” Lipson says. “It leads to between them that’s shaped to fit the curve of the screen,
the B stage, which is shaped like a guitar head. It has three so that Brian can ride up 4m for the guitar solo.”
pegs each side, which have lights on them [six Philips Vari- The stage fascia, band riser, and parts of the stage floor
Lite VL6000s], which represent the guitar string pegs.” He are unapologetically, boldly chrome and glittery red.
adds, “The majority of the stage is rental decks and any- “Originally, the colors were going to be gold and black;
thing to create the guitar edge is custom. We got away we’ve done gold for the past few years,” Lipson says. “But
with maybe 25% custom, maybe less. The band never had because we were now in the world of the guitar, we would
a Tait stage, and they were amazed by it.” go red, since it was based on Brian May’s iconic red guitar.
The stage also includes numerous lifts. Lipson explains: The edge of the Halo is red chrome, there is a red chrome

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On lead vocals, Lambert is on a Shure Axient transmitter with a Telefunken M81 capsule.

edge all around the stage that delineates the guitar, and all four straight trusses behind the screen, mixing Unicos and
the band risers are painted red chrome or red glitter. It’s Mythos units.
really powerful as a visual; it doesn’t look like any other This is Sinclair’s first time on tour with Scenius Unicos;
stage.” there are 56 on the show. “I thought it would take a lot to
tempt me away from the [Martin by Harman] MAC Viper,
Lighting which has been my choice for the last few years, but I
“Brian and Roger [Taylor] are fairly old-fashioned; they really love the Unicos,” he says. “It’s a nice, bright, precise
want to be seen and they want the lights to be exciting,” profile spot, and there’s no green in the beam, which
Sinclair says. “Overall, their opinions regarding lighting are makes them ideal for use as key light.”
fairly consistent; they like what they like, and we just have In addition, 19 Philips Vari*Lite VL6000 Beam luminaires
to think about presenting that to them in different ways. are placed overhead and on the stage. Sinclair says: “I just
They like specific colors, they like warm colors, and they love the beams; they don’t look like anything else and the
like the lights to go on the stage.” Audience illumination guys from Queen love them. Originally, we were going to
happens only at very specific moments. use them as effects lights, but I love their wide apertures
Sinclair reports the rig is comprised of “two front truss- and thought they’d make really good truss spots, which
es [located over the audience, near the B stage] and a rear they do. They look fantastic as backlight followspots. It
truss that we use for [Claypaky Scenius] Unicos. We also was a eureka moment, and was a bit of a risk.” Also used
have a big wall of Unicos behind the rear screen, and a are 10 VL3500 Wash luminaires, located in the mother grid
bunch of [Claypaky] Mythos in the rear as well.” There are above the Halo [listed on the lighting plot as the God light],

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as well as 26 Martin by Harman Atomic 3000 LED strobes, the show better. This show is never, ever done. There’s
23 eight-light DWE moles, 12 four-light DWE moles, and always something we can try, and, quite often, we try
18 two-light DWE moles, all fabricated by James Thomas things and they don’t work and we change them back. But
Engineering. The entire lighting package is being provided there’s always a timing of a cue that I can change by .1 of
by Upstaging, located in DeKalb, Illinois. a second, to make it better.”
Nine VL6000s and 48 Scenius Unicos are linked to a “‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is the only part of the show that
CAST BlackTrax system. “The last time we toured, we had runs to time code,” Sinclair notes. The song is complex
14 spotlights that I called every night. Now have none, and cue-intensive; it mixes lighting, laser punches, and, at
because we’ve replaced them with a BlackTrax system,” one point, there’s a clever visual duel between angelic
Sinclair says, “The guys wear transmitters [infrared units steel blues and devilish reds that takes place using the
also called BTBeacons], we have trusses out in the house, Halo, the floor lights, and lasers. “In the past,” the design-
and they are entirely followed by key light from the Unicos, er says, “I ran it manually, but there’s something like 80
which are all metered to specific levels. When we want to cues in two minutes, and if I ever got behind, it would fall
have very specific IMAG key light, it comes in from specific apart. That’s why we time-coded it. It also means I can put
angles.” more cues in it if I want.”
Sinclair adds, “Using BlackTrax, we have a much more Queen likes bold colors and Sinclair certainly delivers.
precise show, and we’re not standing around all afternoon The show is awash in deep reds (“Fat Bottomed Girls,”
trying to optimize house spotlights to get the colors right. “Somebody to Love”), interspersed with occasional laven-
We can do really fast cues between the guys that you ders (“Killer Queen,” “I Want to Break Free”) and blues
could never call and that spot operators could never get. (“Under Pressure,” “Don’t Stop Me Now”). “The whole
There’s a point in Brian’s solo in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ point of Queen is that it’s big blocks of solid color,”
where he’s being followed by 35 moving lights as he Sinclair says. “I feel very much that this is a continuation
walks, which is something we could never do with conven- of the enormous productions they did in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
tional spotlights.” The one thing they couldn’t do back in the day was to
Sinclair says the BlackTrax system has enabled him to make everything go red the same time, because it was
shift his focus: “I have a lot more time to look at the stage before color-changers. The fact that we can do that now is
and make judgments regarding what we’re doing. I’m look- something they really appreciate.”
ing at video, I’m looking at the lasers, I’m looking at light- At the front of house, Sinclair is running a Jands Vista
ing, and working out how we can make it better next L5 console; he also has a spare. “It does a lot of things I
time.” This allows time for changes, he adds: “A lot of my want, and I’m very fast with it,” he says. “I’ve never found
job on the road to make sure that we’re constantly making the time to become quick enough on another console.

The lighting Halo harkens back to the days when Queen tours had massive PAR can rigs.

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Each of the 92 Claypaky Sharpy Wash 330s in the Halo is placed in an individual mirrored box.

68 • October 2017 • Lighting&Sound America

Claypaky Scenius Unicos and Mythos luminaires are located
behind the upstage LED wall.

Production rehearsals are extremely expensive, and

they’re not the time to be looking at the manual.”
He adds, “For me, I do a lot of shows with program-
mers running [MA Lighting’s] grandMA, and there are
things you can’t do easily on the grandMA that you can do
on a Jands, like copy and paste between fixtures. I can
take whatever my Sharpy Washes are doing and
copy/paste that to my Mythos, and it does a good job with
it.”
The Jands also offers alias cues. “If I change one of my
choruses on the Jands, it changes all the choruses,”
Sinclair says, “If I change one of my verses, it will change
them all, so the cues mix together. I know you can’t do that
on a grandMA, which is a source of great frustration to me.
I find it’s very easy to do very simple things very quickly
with the Jands. The grandMA is incredibly capable but also
incredibly complex. The Jands is perhaps less capable, but
is simpler and I find that suits my brain better.”

Effects
“Who Wants to Live Forever,” “Radio Gaga,” “Bohemian
Rhapsody” and Brian May’s guitar solo all make extensive
use of lasers; they’re from UK-based ER Productions.
Sinclair notes, “We have very specific laser moments; we

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The top of the Halo, showing rigging and construction details. The view from the stage when the curved screen is lowered;
note the custom red stage floor.

give them a lot of space and they look great.” and director at ER Productions adds, “The biggest chal-
Six Phaenon 30 full-color lasers, fabricated by Laser lenge was where the lasers were going to go, and it was
Animations, are located upstage. Four are placed behind difficult to find the right position. Putting those four lasers
the drum kit and downstage of the square video wall, on on the ribbon lift was a really good solution.”
what’s termed “The Death Star.” The others are offstage Also featured are 16 full-color proprietary BB3
left and right. According to Lipson, the conversation during [Beamburst] audience exposure lasers from ER, located
rehearsals at Rock Lititz went something like this: upstage on stands. “It’s not audience-scanning in the tra-
Sinclair: “We need lasers in the middle of the screen.” ditional sense of a laser scanning a flat line over the audi-
Lipson: “You can’t put lasers in the middle of the ence,” Webber says. “It’s a diffracted effect which is much
screen.” punchier and actually ideal for Queen for the Brian May
Sinclair: “Damn! Why can’t we have a lift that brings solo.” The lasers are positioned in clusters. “It’s unusual to
them up?” cluster lasers together like that; you find yourself wanting
Tait Representative: “We have a lift from Bon Jovi that to spread them apart, but it does work really well for
we can use to bring the lasers up.” Queen.”
Lipson concludes: “So Tait dug up one of their old Bon May, an astrophysicist, loves space, and, for his solo,
Jovi lifts and put a truss on top of it, hung four lasers, and Frank appears on the video screen, raises his hand, and
suddenly we have a Death Star.” Marc Webber, partner takes the guitarist into space. “When we got the robot as

The Halo is controlled via a Navigator system from TAIT. Each band member is on the CAST BlackTrax spotlight tracking system.

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Quantum Special Effects provided confetti cannons for the finale, "We Are the Champions.”

part of the show, lifting him into space became the obvi- Mylar confetti drop. The cryojets are from Quantum
ous thing. It’s a very clever, amazing visual moment,” Special Effects, located in North Las Vegas. Lipson
Lipson notes. During May’s solo—which can last ten min- explains: “The band isn’t interested in a fireball for the hell
utes or more—the BB3 lasers are activated, enveloping the of having a fireball; the brief from them is about what is
room. “The guitar solo is quite fluid, because it can vary in needed and why. It has to be there to highlight a moment.”
time each night; it all depends on where Brian goes with it. ER Productions also provided atmospheric effects,
It’s quite beautiful,” Webber adds. including six Look Solutions VIPER deLuxe smoke
Laser programming was done by Lawrence Wright, machines and two Look Solutions Unique 2.1 hazers,
general manager of the US office of ER Productions in Las divided between the stage, B stage, and front of house.
Vegas. The Phaenons were programmed using Pangolin “We also have five [Reel FX] DF-50 [hazers] and eight [High
Beyond software, while the BB3s were programmed on a End Systems] FQ-100 [fog generators] from Upstaging. We
High End Systems Road Hog console. “When we went like smoke,” Sinclair says with a smile.
down the Hog road, MA didn’t do a desk small enough,”
Webber says. “We’re only running some smoke machines Sound
and a couple of lasers. An MA is a big desk to lug around. This time out, front-of-house sound engineer Tom New is
At the time, High End did a really nice, small Road Hog— wrangling a Clair Global i-5D PA with a total of eight
it’s really compact, really powerful, and really reliable.” On hangs. “We have 28 total i-5D cabinets for the main hang,”
the road, control is via a High End Road Hog as well. he says. “In addition to that, we have 36 standard i-5 cabi-
“I Want It All” features 14 cryojets and the finale, the nets that we’re using for our side and rear hangs.” The i-
epic “We are the Champions,” features a stunning gold 5D is a part of the popular Clair i-5 series. New says: “It’s

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an extremely large PA cabinet, and it has an extra 18" low some processing for my two-track mix.” New is also using
driver in the same cabinet, which is absolutely fantastic. a Waves dbx 160 compressor/limiter for Taylor’s drums.
The i-5D is, without a doubt, my favorite PA.” New has his Waves monitor on his left; on his right is a
The PA also includes 12 Clair CP-218s, which, New UAD Real Time rack. He explains: “I’ve used a split-risk
says, “are Clair’s active double-eighteen subs.” He adds, strategy with these two different sets of plug-ins. It makes
“On this tour, we’re using them in a cardioid configuration me feel like I have a more reliable system when I don’t
for steerage. Normally with cardioid, you have two facing have to rely on one computer for all of the process. The
forward and one facing rear.” All the speakers are powered Realtime is more for dynamic processing; I really like their
by lab.gruppen PLM 20000Q powered loud speaker man- [Textronix] LA-3A compressor and the 1176 [Classic
agement system. He adds, “My system tech is Ben Limiter Collection] emulation. I’m using also the Lexicon
Rothstein; he’s a very experienced Clair technician. He’s 224 for one of Adam’s vocal reverbs.”
absolutely fantastic.” “I have a couple of bits of outboard; I have an Empirical
New adds: “We also have a 70'-long thrust going down Labs EL 8 Distressor that I use on the vocal, and a dbx
to the B stage, so we have an extra pair of hangs of 160sl, which is a dual compressor. The only other thing I
Cohesion CO-8s. We have six CO-8s pointing directly off- have outboard wise is the [lab.gruppen] Lake Mesa [LM
stage left and six facing directly offstage right, hung direct- 44] EQ, and that’s on Adam’s vocal as well. That means
ly above the B stage. This enables us to fill the audience that I have an EQ that I can always see if I wish, on a sep-
area on either side of the thrust with sound, without point- arate screen, for Adam’s vocal, and should I want to take
ing the main PA at it. The CO-8s are more compact and out a little thing here or there, I can do it with a pen on a
were a better aesthetic choice for space over the B stage.” touch screen.”
Speaking about the stage’s configuration, New says, Even though New has numerous plug-ins available, as
“That thrust is a considerable challenge in terms of making well as outboard gear, he has a less-is-more philosophy:
sure that we don’t get issues not only with feedback “I’ve always used processing sparingly and where neces-
potential, but getting over the fact that they can hear a sary. It’s live sound, so it’s all about being able to fix prob-
delayed version of what they’re playing. It’s a very tricky lems if one does come up, and you want to be able to do
balancing act for the monitor engineer, in terms of helping that fairly quickly and easily. The last thing I want to do is
the band to overcome the volume of the PA that’s behind to paint myself into a corner by giving myself a 25-plug-in
them.” long chain on every instrument. It’s more about things
“Previously, we had a 30' thrust, which gave them half where they’re required.”
the delay time. Personally, I still can’t believe they can play As for microphones, New reveals, “We have a fairly
in front of it, because it’s such an unnatural thing to hear standard [Shure] Beta 91 and an Audix D6 for the bass
yourself with a short delay. Having spoken to the band drum; we also have a not-so-standard Audix i5 for the
about it, they seem quite able to overcome it through snare top and an Audio-Technica AE3000 for the snare
years of experience.” bottom. On toms, we have a mixture of Telefunken M80
New runs the show on a DiGiCo SD5 console: “I’ve short handle microphones on the higher toms, and the
been a fan of DiGiCo for quite a while now; you can pretty floor toms have Audix D6s.” He adds: “We also have a
much do anything you want, with a button or a fader or a percussion rig, which uses AKG 414s that are strategically
snapshot, that you can possibly think of. I used the SD7 placed. He does have a snare drum on that rig which is an
until two tours ago; I moved onto the SD5 because I like Audix i5.”
the fact that there is an extra row of buttons, instead of an For the bass, New has an Audix D6 on the cabinet and
extra row of faders. Rather than using snapshots to run my on the DI. “Brian’s guitars are on Sennheiser MD4s; we
show, I run my cues and triggered effects off of macro but- also use the [Voodoo] VR2 ribbon mics from SE
tons, which you can do very easily on an SD5.” Electronics on the second cabinets,” explains New. SE
He’s also using Waves. “I use Waves externally, rather gave them a few microphones to try, and New liked the
than within the console. It’s running on a separate Mac VR2. “We do take a little more care with those than the
Mini, connected to a touch screen, to my left. I like the fact rest of the touring mics, which are a bit more robust,” he
that I can use the Waves system more like a regular set of confides.
outboard gear. My Waves multi-rack is always visible, and For vocals, “The band is all on Telefunken M80s and
I can go in and check effects as I need to, rather than be Adam has a Shure Axient transmitter with an M81 capsule
tied to where I am on the SD5.” He adds, “H-verb [H- which we favor for him. I think we [New, monitor engineer
Reverb] is probably the plug-in I use the most, for all kinds Gary Stokes, and Lambert] all felt that the M81 felt like the
of things like vocal effects and drum effects. I use the right mic to use,” he says.
Waves Abbey Road Reel ADT chorus for an acoustic guitar Queen’s 2017 tour wrapped up its US dates in August;
that Brian plays, and l use Waves L2 [Ultramaximizer] for the band moves into Europe next month.

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