When the curtain was raised for Lady Gaga’s opening show in Vancouver last month, the audience was awed by a spectacular set and visual concept masterminded by production and lighting designer, Seven Design Works’ LeRoy Bennett.
The inventory comprises over 500 GLP fixtures. This includes 294 of the new JDC1 hybrid strobes, 147 of the X4 Bar 20 and 38 GT1 hybrids.
The design is based around a massive back wall, measuring 21m x 3.5m and weighing 12 tonnes, which houses all the JDC1’s and X4 Bar 20 battens, while the GT-1’s are partly flown in the air above the stage and in a row on the floor at front of the stage.
“The main lighting for the show is that wall of strobes and X4 Bars,” the designer confirms, adding that the ability to run low-res video imagery with the added bonus of having strobes that are able to tilt alongside the X4 Bars, gives the wall enormous personality. Due to its size and power requirement, it takes three dedicated 400 amp supplies to run the wall at 60%, since production did not want to tour generators.
Designed into the set are three B stages spread out around the arena floor, and Lady Gaga performs on each, travelling via bridges which drop from ‘cocoon’ like structures — surfaces which are used for some inspired pixel mapping. All structures were fabricated by Tait Towers.
To help implement the concept, Bennett quickly visualised a major role for all the GLP fixtures; these were sourced from Solotech, who purchased them specifically for the tour from GLP’s Canadian distributor, AVL Media.
Explaining the thinking behind this, he confirms, “The JDC1 strobes were chosen because they had tilt functionality and because of the flexibility in what could be done with pixel mapping. They also formed an LED array that played within the strobe like an old school tube type strobe. It has a lot of personalities — including being very bright — and it needed to have as many effects as possible over the course of the show.”
The X4 Bar 20’s have been brought in to add a further texture and layer by introducing a different pixel size — either used alone or in conjunction with the JDC1. “What I like about the X4 Bars is that they can produce a sheet of light — sometimes it will look like low res video screen, sometimes just a wall of light.”
As for the GT-1 LeRoy readily specified them based on his first experience with Rammstein. “I found them to be a pretty awesome product and was impressed with the stability of the lamps, speed and brightness.”