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One Direction:The Where We Are Tour

Copyright Lighting&Sound America October 2014 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html

84 • October 2014 • Lighting&Sound America

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his is about creating a spectacle with the biggestpop band in the world right now. We wanted togo to town. It’s the biggest screen you’re going to

see this summer and we’ll give you the biggest pyro showthis summer.” So says Lee Lodge, creative director of OneDirection’s Where We Are Tour.

Lodge realized the need for spectacle early on inthe design process. “It’s always an event wheneverthese boys turn up. They bring such a sense of energy,both as a band and from their fans, and we wanted topresent the band in a way that felt sincere to them,”he says.

The band was part of the creative process from dayone, Lodge notes: “The boys see a lot of shows. They’revery aware of what tours are out there. They understandwhat it means to be in the audience, watching a show.There were a lot of conversations about what they like andwhat they don’t like.”

Putting the right design team together was ofparamount importance. “Paul Normandale is one of thebest lighting designers out there; we had Strictly FXbringing pyro and lasers. We’ve got Richard Turner drivingscreens, as well as the fantastic combination of RayWinkler and Ric Lipson at Stufish,” he says.

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • October 2014 • 85

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The One Direction boys atop Tait scissor lifts clad in a Radiant Linx-18 LED wall.

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One Direction’s Where We Are Tour unfolds a spectacle in a skate park

By: Sharon Stancavage

StagingPre-production for the 1D stadium tour began about a yearand a half ago, when Lodge called Stufish productiondesigner Ray Winkler. “We started off with pretty much ablank page; at the time, we were thinking about ideas thatwould rely heavily on a custom-made stage structure,”explains Winkler.

This concept changed when it was determined that thetour would need to use a festival stage. Winkler says, “Asa studio, we understand the two ends of the same stick—the one that deals with the image, the branding, and lookof the stage, and the other that deals with the technicalside of production and understanding the productionmanager’s needs—getting things in and out quickly, howmuch of this gear we have to fly versus a ship or a truck.All of these factors eventually become a criterion thatforms parts of the unwritten brief that then evolves into thefinal design.”

Thus the design brief was written to include a festival

stage in a stadium. “The stadium requires something to beof a certain scale, and therefore pushes you to provide theaudience with that video experience of their favorite artist,”Winkler says. “Once you’ve accepted the fact that youneed to deal with a festival stage, the geometry is set, andthere’s not much you can do with that—it’s a box with aroof on it.”

Lodge provided the early concept, Winkler says: “Leehad the idea that it was going to be a skate park of somesort, and that would denote the urban-cool-streetwise vibethat the boys were going to bring to their new album, andthe fact that they are young and hip.”

The skate park concept was also utilitarian, says Lodge:“It was really there to create a sense of flow andmovement for the boys to naturally navigate the stage, andto have places to stop and sit down.”

To solve the puzzle of a custom design that worked ona standard festival stage, Winkler turned to geometry. “Youhave a stage box in the center, with the band performing in


The scenic design provides several points for the band to sit down and perform; this one is on the thrust.

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it, and you have the video wings in the left and right tiltedback so that, in plan view, it looks a bit like a flying ‘V’,” hesays. “This allowed us to create a strong perspective thatwas augmented by the fact that in the stage box area youhave a forced perspective that leads to a single vanishingpoint. The ramps lead up to it, the lighting grid leads downto it, and the video panels lead towards it, and that’swhere we really worked hard to create that very stronggeometry.”

The Stufish scenic geometry almost completelyconceals the festival stage, provided by Colorado Springs-based Stageco Staging Group. “When you look at theproduction, the only thing you can see of the Stagecostructure is the roof itself. You don’t see anything else—you don’t see the towers at the sides, it’s all completelyhidden,” says production manager Wob Roberts. Whatfans see is a stylized skate park, which was custom-fabri-cated by UK-based Brilliant Stages.

The set includes various ramps and levels, which createother issues. Winkler says, “You want to make it all lookreally dangerous and edgy, but the last thing you want isto have your artists fall off the edge. Consequently, we dida lot of extensive tests on angles, slipperiness, and grip,and, in the end, it was like walking on sandpaper becausethere was so many crushed walnut shells in the paint.”

From the skate park, the boys can move down to the164' thrust, which leads to the 48'-wide x 24'-deep Bstage. Roberts explains, “Ray wanted to have a hugegreat tower that lifts up in the center of the field, and Isaid, ‘We should talk to TAIT about that, because I thinkthey have something in stock.’ In 2012, I did the Europeanleg of Watch the Throne, with Kanye and Jay-Z, and thethrones were custom-built by Tait—they were four scissorlifts in a square that rose up 20' with a Radiant Linx-18LED wall on each side. It was exactly what we needed.”The thrones were available, and when put side by side,became the B stage.

At the opening of the show, the band appears at theapex of the perspective-driven set at upstage center.Roberts notes, “The guys appear 20' in the air. It doesn’tlook like it, because of the way that the stage goes back,but right behind the video is nothing, so they are standingin a cradle that, at the start of the show, gets lifted upbehind the screen. They stand there, the screen lifts up,they walk forward, and the lift behind them drops out ofthe way.” There are also five toaster lifts that the banduses to disappear at the end of the show.

Key to making the project work was technicaldirector/coordinator Nick Evans. Winkler explains, “Hetakes every detail and works it through with all of thedepartments; without somebody like Nick, this thing wouldonly remain as a nice picture on a piece of paper.”

Making the stage work in reality both in Europe and inthe US was a challenge, Roberts says: “In order to achieve

the design, we’ve had to push the stage set rightdownstage, so 40% of it is in front of the roof line. Theentire lighting rig is virtually in the cantilever itself, whichmeans that the downstage posts are close to limits ontheir weight. In order to achieve the fact that we’ve riggedit, we had to narrow the stage by 1.5m (4.9'); losing thatgave me the extra capacity on the center point, whichmeant that we could do the show.”

As expected, IMAG had to be a big part of the design.Lodge explains, “We wanted a very large screen andwanted to use it in a number of ways. Its primary use wasIMAG, to literally flood the space and create an immediateconnection with the band.”

IMAG is a requirement for all stadium shows, but thatdoesn’t mean it has to be ordinary. Lodge explains, “Wehave what looks like a series of container panels thatborder the video surfaces.” The container panels providean interesting frame in the daylight, and provide a surpriseonce night arrives. “The base is always red,” Winkler says.“But within the framework is a lip that allowed us toconceal a strip LED on all four sides of each panel. Whichmeans that when it is dark, you can change the color ofthese containers.”

LightingThe staging directly affected the lighting design. Lodgesays, “Paul had a number of challenges in the beginningbecause of the configuration of the screen in the upstagediamond. The nature of the stage was very different, aswell. Anybody who knows Paul knows that he’s one ofthe most creative guys around, so he was certainly up for


The band in front of the visual vanishing point of Ray Winkler’sforced-perspective set.

the challenge.”Normandale solved the problem in part by putting a

slightly different requirement on his lighting package. “Ineeded to get maximum output and diversity from as fewinstruments as possible, and those instruments had to beas lightweight as possible due to the weight restrictions,”he says.

The lighting rig ensconced in the roof is comprised offour chevrons on Kinesys motors. Normandale explains,“Adding Kinesys meant that in the final quarter of the showI could add some dynamics and change the visualstructure of the lighting to tie into the rockier songs.” TheKinesys motors transform the lighting rig during “LittleThings” and “Moments.”

Under the roof are Clay Paky Sharpys, SGM X-5strobes, and Martin Professional MAC Auras. On theupstage truss are spotlights, Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 FXunits and more X-5 strobes. When asked about hisworkhorses, Normandale cites, “The Auras, Sharpys, andVL3500 FX’s—they’re all bright, versatile, and within a lowweight ratio.”

Normandale has a few surprises in the rig. “The [i-Pix]BB4s on the roof line do a lot of the flash work,” heexplains. Then there’s the band’s entrance at the top of theshow. “[Ayrton] MagicPanel 602s are used for the opening,when the LED door at the rear of the stage forms areveal,” the lighting designer says. The stage itself is thelocation of more Mac Auras and a handful of Super Novasfrom the Italian manufacturer Novalight. “The Super Novahas more gobos than the Nova Flower, and is quite bright,”he comments.

Another visual element consists of 307 linear LEDs.Normandale explains, “We use Catalyst to run the VERLED Blade 1260s that define the set.”

In the stadium proper, Normandale has more lightingpositions on the delay towers, which he fills with numerousDWEs and BB4s. These positions are there “just to furtherinteract with the crowd and to add scale,” he adds.

On the road, this cue-intensive show is being run byDave Lee, using a High End Systems Hog 4 consoleprovided by Upstaging, of Sycamore, Illinois, the tour’s USlighting vendor. Lee also programmed the show. “Overall,the lighting design is based on scale and broad brushstrokes,” Normandale confides.

LasersNormandale had another tool in the form of six lasersprovided by Chicago-based Strictly FX. “There was carefulthought as to the overall impact of all the visual elements,”he says.

The color palettes of lighting, video, and effects werealways in the forefront. “In rehearsals, I worked closelywith Paul, tweaking the programming and getting thecolors and cueing to match the lighting, the video, and themoods for those songs,” explains laser programmerLauren Nelson.

From the beginning, it was determined that laserswould be part of the jaw-dropping encore, which consistsof “You and I,” “Story of My Life,” and “Little White Lies.”“They didn’t initially ask for lasers in ‘Best Song Ever,’ but Ihad already programmed it, and when we showed it tothem, they liked it,” Nelson adds.

The lasers are integrated in the stage, with two on thefar ends at stage left and right, and the others inside theskate park. “All of the lasers are on the stage, tucked intocustom platforms within risers—they’re all evenly spaced,but they are all at different heights,” Nelson explains.

According to Nelson, “Paul specifically requested an

The roof of the festival stage provides a limited area for lighting designer Paul Normandale to hang his lighting rig.


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amber color in the lasers, so we’re using our RGBY Arctosunits to get the brightest ambers possible.” The amberand straw hues from the lasers can be found during “BestSong Ever,” while “Little White Lies” uses green. Nelsonadds, “The color green definitely punches a lot, but noteveryone wants to see green all the time. I enjoy greenlasers, because it has an old-school feel.” Sheprogrammed the show using Pangolin’s Beyond software.

Lasers are also a part of the ballad “You and I,” the firstsong of the encore. Lodge notes, “It’s a very beautifulsong, and it was about creating a moment that offered asense of intimacy.”

One of Nelson’s favorite programming momentshappens during “Story of My Life.” “During the chorus, it’ssomething really simple—it’s a bunch of circles connectedby a line, and they write in and out creating this reallybouncy image,” she says. “The effect is an interesting littlesnippet that just fits perfectly with the music.”

Video and screensTo manage the technical requirements of the screens,Lodge knew who to call. “Richard Turner was one of thefirst people I engaged on the tour,” he says. “I wantedGeodezik [of Montreal] for content, and Raury Macphie asscreens director. I wanted to ensure that the operatingstandards of the show were second to none.”

At the outset of the project, weight was a significantconcern. Turner, of the Bedfordshire, UK-based companyLucky Frog, explains, “There are some significant weightrestrictions on the touring roof system from Stageco, andwe looked at a number of alternatives for putting up thescreen in Ray’s design.”

Initially, Turner considered a solution that involved usingproducts with different resolutions. “As we looked at it, werealized that it needed to be one big continuous canvas,and there was a desire from management for high-resolution upstage screens,” he says.


Various types of pyro explode over the stage in spectacular fashion to create drama and excitement during the show.

About a year ago, rumors of a new lightweight, high-resolution WinVision screen were circulating. NDAs weresigned and the new WinAir became an essential part of thedesign. “It is fundamentally the same as their regularWinVision 9, but in a ridiculously lightweight frame,” Turnersays. WinAir proved to be the perfect solution for theproject: It is high-resolution and fits the weight parametersperfectly. The screens, as well as the rest of the videoequipment, are provided by VER’s Los Angeles office.

The screens look amazing in part because of the videocontent provided by the Geodezik team, headed up byGabriel Coutu-Dumont. Turner says, “The video contentstayed pretty much uncompressed as QuickTime ProRes4444 all the way through, never touching a conven-tional media server, never scaling it; the quality shinesthrough when you stick to old-school values.”

It was Coutu-Dumont who suggested another of theold-school solutions that enabled Turner to keep thevideo quality so high. “In rehearsals, Gab wondered if wecould use an Alpha channel, which is a transparencychannel in the ProRes 4444 movies,” Turner explains. The

Alpha channel is a way of cutting a video key in a videoimage—the separate key and fill signals for each screenarea are sent to the Barco Encore processors for thatscreen. “It basically cuts a hole in the content, so youcan see the layer behind. In this case, the layer behind islive video. That effectively meant that Gab [Coutu-Dumont] could program through all of the screen-switching decisions, about whether the screen wascontent, live, or a combination.”

One of the first steps in Turner’s process involvedcreating a pixel map for the 194'-wide x 31.5'-high/6304 x1024 pixel screen. “We draw that up, including the maskthat describes the unique screen surround, give that gridto Gab, and the Geodezik team makes a lot of lovelymovies,” he says. Those movies, in Pro Res 444, then goback to Turner. “You can’t play all of the pixels from onesource, so we have to split it up into four 1920 x 1080 HDsources, which then synch together with Roger WatersWall-style Mac Mini/AJA Io XT combos and a bit ofsoftware called VVTR, which simply locks the movies totime code. Those four-key-plus-fill sources get sent to the


High-powered Arctos lasers, provided by Strictly FX and placed on different levels of the set, are part of the effects-laden finale.

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four Encore screen processing gates and, at that point, ourscreens playback operator Ellie Clement programs theEncore to either be just content, or just live.” When thescreens are comprised of pre-produced content thatincludes the Alpha channel-keyed holes, the live content isautomatically placed into the holes. “We use those AJAhardware interfaces to get genlock into the system—basically, it’s a tick that locks all of the video signals in thesystem perfectly in time. It means that all four screens cutat exactly the same time and display as one signal ratherthan the slightly disturbing non-synch cuts you would getwith a non-timed system,” explains Turner.

Time code is also part of the control picture. Turnersays, “Time code then gets sent to us from the backline;we jam all four main and four backup Mac Mini/AJA Io XTcombos together with that time code, and the genlockthen makes sure that those four video sources stay insynch with themselves.” The Encores are also used tostitch the four pictures together on the five screens. “TheWinAir processor demands a progressive input, so weneed to do a scan conversion from the 1080icamera/playback at some stage, and we decided thatEncore was the best solution for doing that, as it gives usall the flexibility of a six-input processor/switcher and thescan conversion to 1080p in one stage with less than twoframes delay.”

Overall, control of the system is provided by aMedialon Manager Pro system. “Medialon reads the timecode and controls the playback Mac Minis/AJA Io XTcombos and the Encore system. It’s a remarkably powerfuland very reliable bit of software, which is why we use it.That’s what ran The Wall, and what has run almost everyshow I’ve done in the past ten years.”

Effects“Go big or go home” is an adage that can be very appro-priately applied to the special effects portion of the show,provided by Strictly FX. “With every cue we do, we try toget bigger and bigger, and that can mean more hits, widerproduct, or taller product as well,” explains effectsdesigner and pyro shooter Ron Bleggi. Setting the righttone for the production translated into a collaborationbetween Bleggi and Lodge. “I’ve worked with a lot ofcreative directors over the years, but never somebody thattrusted me enough to give me the creative freedom thatLee has—it’s been an unbelievable experience workingwith him,” Bleggi says.

Lodge had very definite ideas regarding the pyro at thebeginning of the show, which in Europe took place duringthe daylight hours. Lodge explains, “We needed somethingthat would really have a sense that the show is about tostart—it is crucial that if we’re going to do pyro, the pyrohas to be the best, it has to be the biggest, and it has tobe a sense of this is a real show-awakening moment.”

That “show-awakening moment” happens during“Midnight Memories.” “Lee said, ‘Let’s start with so muchpyro in that first song that they’ll think there can’t possiblybe more,’” Bleggi says. The song starts with mines andcomets. “We don’t use the 350' aerials on those first shotsin ‘Midnight Memories,’ but it is how we end it. Just withinthat song alone, you’re thinking it can’t get any better, andthen, for those two or three hits at the end, we throw upthose big aerials.”

Mines and comets in various colors appear during“Rock Me,” “What Makes You Beautiful,” and “Alive.” For“Happily,” “the gerbs start upstage of the band, and whenthey fire, they fire from upstage, so they wrap around theband, come all the way downstage, and that’s whattriggers our streamer cue. It’s as if the gerbs chasearound the boys and then set off the streamers,” saysBleggi. Twenty-six streamer cannons shoot off 720sleeves of red and white streamers 125' into the air.Bleggi says, “The streamers are around the B stage andthey also surround the delay towers, so they involve thepeople farther away from the stage—it’s very interactiveand the crowd loves it.”

Lodge’s effects vision included a finale to end all finales.“There are really two effects finales that happen during‘Best Song Ever.’ The first one is a 40-second finale with aton of pyro. Then the boys walk down the thrust, they saygoodbye, and it’s great, because the fans think there couldnot possibly be any more pyro than that. After the boyssay goodbye and are walking back, we have a 20-secondfinale that doubles the effects we do for the first one,”Bleggi explains.

The production plays in a variety of venues that arevastly different; this has an impact on the effects portion ofthe show. Bleggi explains, “I designed this show based onthe perfect outdoor stadium, but that’s not always thecase. Normally, we have 17 positions straight across theback of the stage up in the seats, and we build platforms.But in a baseball field, we have to split the positions intofive and five and center, so it’s more of a B show.” The Bshow also happens in stadiums with roofs.

Dimensionality is key to Bleggi’s design philosophy.“I’ve seen a lot of shows where they just send up thebiggest stuff possible, and I don’t like to do that,” he says.“Not every effect needs to be breaking 350' in the air—youwant them layered—100', 200', 300'—so it’s not all on onesingle visual plane. For me, it’s not just throwing stuff up insky, it’s painting a picture.” Lodge comments, “You can dopyro, but it’s very hard to do good pyro. You get that fromthe choreography and the music part of it, and Ron cameup with some amazing routines; we’re really happy to haveRon and Strictly FX on board.”

The pyro consists of over 2,000 pieces of proximateproduct, which is close to what the firm used on the 2014Super Bowl halftime show. “In the end, you’re only as


strong as your crew and mine is the reason those effectshappen every night, rain or shine,” Bleggi concludes.

Sound The set, as well as the location of the show, has an impacton the audio aspects of the tour, especially the monitors.“Most of the time, they are in front of the PA,” explainsmonitor engineer Ant Carr, of UK-based smallbrownrobotProductions Ltd. “There is nowhere to put wedges or flyside fills and there’s nowhere they would be effective. Ifthis was a flat, 60' x 40' stage, I probably would have putside fills up, but there’s just no point in this scenario.”

The solution was, of course, to go wireless. “Ultimately,they wouldn’t be able to do the show without in-ears; thetiming issues caused by the length of the thrust and theheight of the B stage create a world of trouble,” he notes.

For monitors, Carr has the band on Sennheiser 2050IEM systems. “These units are fantastic. The audio qualityis the first concern—they sound great and, with thesupport software, it’s an easy-to-use and reliable system. Ihave all the boys and the musicians on Ultimate EarsUE11 monitors and the support Jeanette Coffey, atUltimate, has given me is first-class. I inherited this gigwith a lot of bad habits to sort out; having Sennheiser andUltimate in my corner has given me the tools to solve theproblems,” he says.

Carr is on a DiGiCo SD7. “I’ve been a long-standingDiGiCo user from the day of the D5. They always havegreat backup, they sound fantastic, they are flexible andreliable. I can take the same sound from the top-of-the-budget SD7 all the way down to the rackmount SD11—Iuse DiGiCo products for all my acts for that reason, really.It’s the consistency that you don’t really get on other

brands when you go up and down the budget scale.” For the first time, Carr is using the Waves C6 multiband

compressor. He admits, “I’ve been very anti plug-in as faras my career has gone, but, due to a few recommenda-tions, I thought I’d give some Waves stuff a try on this. I’musing a C6 on each vocal and I’ve got to say it’s agodsend. It gives me a bit of stability out there and it reallyworks for me as a system, as I know I can take my systemto any MADI-compatible desk and have the desired vocaldynamics and FX.”

When the band gets on stage, Carr says, “It’s likeemptying a box of frogs that scatter in five different direc-tions. They are never all at the same place at the sametime and it’s never all the same noise down the mics at thesame time. I don’t have a line of sight to the stage so myonly visual is a duplicate of the video directors’ screen. Ican see nine cameras but I can rarely see all five boys, letalone the four musicians.”

Working with Carr to sort out the wireless situation isRF technician Ali Viles. “He’s doing the wizardry to makenearly 40 RF systems work around the video products thatwe have and the distances that we have to work with vsthe available RF spectrum,” Carr says. “It’s really not thatstraightforward. He’s running some amplification on theIEMs and splitting antennas across the stage set for themics to make it work for the distances we need.”

In America, the band is playing in both covered anduncovered stadiums, which affects Carr. “There is nowherefor the screams, which are incessant, to go when the roofis on, from the time they open the doors to the end of theshow.”

This phenomenon also affects the PA proper. “On astadium tour and especially on this one, because of the

The WinAir 9mm video screens are used for content by Geodezik, IMAG, or a combination of both.


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screaming crowds, the challenge is always to get to thefarthest corners of the rooms with enough level andbandwidth to be able to provide a good listeningexperience. With this system and particular setup, we’veobtained great results,” explains audio systems engineerEd “Verta” Vertanessian.

The PA also reacts to the venue. “A roofed stadium canbe, and usually is, extremely reverberant, but there is asmaller weather incidence, besides the warming up of theair and slight humidity changes. Outdoors can be lessreverberant, but there are usually big slap-backs from thecorners, and if you have a really windy night or drastichumidity changes, the sound gets very affected,” he adds.

At the front of house, sound engineer Mark Littlewoodis also on a DiGiCo SD7, which, like Carr’s console and

the patch system, is supplied by Wigwam Acoustics, ofHeywood, Lancashire, UK. Wigwam has also suppliedNick Mooney as audio crew chief and Ralph Smart wholooks after the stage setup. For the PA, “We are using d&b[audiotechnik] J-, V-, and Q-Series cabinets, provided byEighth Day Sound,” notes Vertanessian. The PA count isconsiderable, and includes—per side—twenty J8s for the

main PA, fourteen J8s and four J12s for the side PA,fourteen V8s and two V12s for the rear PA, and numeroussubs. Vertanessian adds, “We’re also carrying a delaysystem comprised of four hangs of twelve J8s each sideplus four stacks of two B2 subs.”

The tour also makes use of the new four-channel d&bD80 amplifiers. “They are all running on network, whichallows us to adjust the settings in a per two-speaker basis,plus monitoring the system’s response in real time,”explains Vertanessian. “This is really important when youwant to compensate for air absorption, longer throws,shorter throws, and so on.”

As for microphones, “The boys are using UHF BetaB58As” says the systems engineer. The band’s microphonesare a veritable alphabet soup of manufacturers, including

Audix, Shure, Beyer, Neumann, Sennheiser, and Milab.One Direction concludes the US portion of the tour

earlier this month; dates for 2015 have already beenscheduled. Lodge concludes, “The reason I wanted to dothis tour is that I love pop music—I love the energy of agreat pop show, and I really always wanted to do a greatpop stadium tour.”


The entire stage in render form, including the “flying V” that leads the eye to the vanishing point upstage center.

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one direction - digico · one direction’s where we are tour unfolds a spectacle in a skate park...

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