George Michael's Symphonica

With almost three decades worth of touring expertise, Symphonica Tour Director, Ken Watts, has been part of George Michael’s production team since the hedonistic days of the singer’s chart dominating pop success as one half of the Wham! duo.
    “I actually did the very first Wham! tour,” Watts revealed, pointing to his backstage laminate at the Ahoy production office in Rotterdam. The laminate shows a fresh-faced headshot from the ‘80s. “I did his first tour as Stage Manager and have done nearly all of his tours since,” he explained.
    Joined by Production Manager (and sometime Lighting Designer) Dennis Gardner, Watts and his crew have a lengthy working relationship with Michael. Said Gardner: “Prior to this tour, I was an LD for Take That’s Progress tour, but I’d also helped Ken on 25 Live [Michael’s 06 tour] in Australia and worked on his Prince’s Trust show in the ‘90s.”
    Initial discussions for Symphonica began in January 2011 with work starting in May before live shows commenced in August. Referring to Gardner, Watts continued: “We’ve worked together a lot, it was a natural progression really; he’s often worked with me as the LD and so consequently has worked with me a lot in the production office.
    “The production design literally evolved with George sitting around his kitchen table. It was a simple briefing, one where he wanted a set that made the orchestra look like an orchestra, and featured them in a complimentary manner. It’s fairly classical except they’re pointing the other way, laid out in the opposite direction.
    “The idea was to surround him with the orchestra but at the same time, they’re staged; the orchestra are on a sub-deck, actually below stage level and I did that so they’d appear to be slightly underneath him and present them a little bit better. The whole concept was done very early on when putting this idea together, then we met with Total Fabrications.”
    Total Fabrications created bespoke elements to its standard Arena Stage for Symphonica. Many of Watts and Gardner’s suppliers for this production have been involved from good past experiences. “When it comes to key suppliers,” said Watts, “the choices are to do with long-term relationships.”
    Gardner agreed: “Same with the crew, they’ve either done previous George Michael tours or something that Ken has worked on like Jamariquai at the start of the year. We wanted to roll as many staff from that tour to this. We had a team that worked really well and they’ve all been with us since the beginning of the year.”
    The original production build took place in London’s LH2 for 10 days, where the set came together for the first time with lighting and video. Band and orchestra rehearsals took place at Air Studios. All programming was completed at LH2 before the crew packaged and took the show to Herning, Denmark, for 12 days including four live shows.  
    Combining a mixture of venues including arenas, opera houses and outdoor settings, as an arena show, Watts is pleased that the Symphonica design loads in and out well, which he noted as a credit to the crew. “It loads out in about three hours so for this environment, it’s not be too hard but we also have to work in opera houses and that’s been the challenge. Extracting parts of this show and putting them into an opera house can be challenging. But, the opera houses are great and they look amazing,” the Director highlighted.
    This constantly adapting tour means life on the road for Symphonica is never dull. “If we were just touring theatres and opera houses, it would be a very different production to what we have here, but it works,” said Watts. “The shows we’ve done in the opera houses have looked amazing because of the show’s intimacy. George has absolutely had a lot of input in that.”
    The Albert Hall shows will take the team more planning than any other dates on the tour. As a building, stated Watts, it wasn’t exactly designed for the kind of shows that tour there these days. “The good thing,” he continued, “is that the venue staff are excellent and very willing.”
    Watts and Gardner are joined by Holly Sanderman, Production Coordinator for the tour, with a total of 125 people on the road including 48 crew and 11 trucks worth of year. The latter being an essential part of efficiency.
    Said Watts: “We were aiming for eight trucks, but really we needed 10. The only reason I added the eleventh truck was to improve our timing. The load outs were taking too much time and we have a lot of over night load outs. Adding another truck improved our timing by 45 minutes.”

MIXING IN MONITOR WORLD
For the sound department at Symphonica HQ, there’s a huge task at hand. Headed by Andy ‘Baggy’ Robinson on George Michael’s monitors, the team is completed by Simon Hall monitoring the band, George ‘The Prof’ Hogan manning Radio Frequency, Gary Bradshaw at FOH and Don Parks as System Tech from Wigwam.
    Baggy got his start in music production at the keen age of 15 in local theatre before attending drama school in the hope of becoming an Lighting Designer. He left education 1993 as a Sound Engineer and secured his first job at the Open Air Theatre Regents Park.
    His touring experience started with The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Tribute to the Blues Brothers before he started working with Wigwam on Lord of the Dance. After a decade as the Sound Designer for LOTD and its sequel, Celtic Tiger, he moved from theatre to live music productions and transferred his skills to MTV and The Brits.
    Having mixed for the likes of Elton John and Bryan Ferry, his current role is Monitor Engineer and Head of Sound for Symphonica after joining Michael’s sound department in 2004. With his previous favourite being the DiGiCo D5 console, Baggy has now moved on to the SD7, although he loves the SD8 for smaller shows.
    Said Baggy: “The SD range from DiGiCo sound great, plug it in and you are just about done! The features in the desk are brilliant, the EQ and dynamics work well. “When working with analogue you would have a 901 dynamic EQ for your main vocal in the rack, the SD7 has one on every channel; spoilt for choice. The new racks allow sharing of outputs, which the old system didn’t, so we can now have less racks to build a bigger system.
    Baggy continued, “And we are all sharing one set of racks for this tour, not something that usually happens, but we decided we could make it work and we have, without compromise.”
    Baggy also requires a Midas XL3 as Michael’s monitoring is set up to keep his radio mic analogue to his IEMs. “This is because in digital desks there is latency when the signal is converted from analogue to digital and back again. When singing with IEMs, if it has been slightly delayed, it arrives later than the head voice within your ear canal, which creates a slight chorus effect and it’s harder to EQ. It is worth the extra equipment and effort to make this work to deliver the best IEM sound.”
    There are no wedges on stage in a deliberate move to keep the stage noise to a minimum. The band have wired IEMs while the orchestra has headphones running powered by power amps with volume boxes on each individual chairs to control the level.
    All 26 of the wireless IEMS are from the Sennhesier 2000 Series. For mics, Sennheiser again take the lead with 10 hand held devices. Michael uses the 5200 Series with Neuman 105 capsules, the four backing vocalists also use the 5200 Series with the new Sennheiser 5235 capsule.
    “Sennheiser are the best in the industry,” Baggy insisted. “Easy to talk to, full of technical support and the gear sounds great. RF wise, this show is full on with about 40 channels and a huge LED screen, making it harder. LED screens and some lights give off stray RF noise, which in turn lifts the noise floor, George Hogan spends his time tuning around these things and careful placement of aerials helps.”
    Baggy generates one stereo mix for Michael which then feeds the IEMS from the XL3 and analogue mics go straight into the XL3. The level is controlled on a custom built VCA fader. Band and vocal effects are generated in the SD7, which then feeds stereo music and the stereo effects into the XL3 to join the vocal.
    The biggest achievement for Baggy and his crew is some mean feat. They have created the biggest DiGiCo rig to date with a total of four SD7’s in operation on an Optocore loop. A further console will be added for the Royal Albert Hall shows the following week and the fifth desk will be on madi splits to produce the broadcast mix for the TV shoot at the Royal Opera House. With all of the desks, the sound dept is running an incredible 1250 audio paths.
    “As an engineer, we’re always learning,” concluded Baggy. “When you have the opportunities to push the boundaries for the perfect sound system it is always a learning curve for both us and the suppliers, because we push them to give us the most equipment. I only work to learn, if I knew it all there would be no challenge.”
    While Baggy mans Michael’s monitors, the band and orchestra desks are operated by Simon Hall. “I’ve got a lot of mixes going on,” said Hall. “For the majority of the tour, our own symphony orchestra travels with us. This is made up of around 11 musicians from the UK with the rest from the Czech National Symphony Orchestra.
    “However, due to logistics and special guest appearances, we change our orchestras at various points, whilst always keeping the UK 11 for consistency. To account for this, the orchestra receives mixes per section.
    “The band and backing vocalists all have their own mixes. I also do all the sub mixes for the strings, plus sub mixes between my two SD7s, because the band sub mixes to the orchestra desk and vice versa. We couldn’t fit everything on one console because when you start adding the outputs, although you have 256 channels that you can use, we’ve got so many mixes that none of the desks can fit it all on in one go. That’s why I have two.”
    In fact, Hall handles over 60 mixes. “I have 35 on the orchestra desk and 30 or so on the band desk, which is a lot to go wrong,” he smiled. “I have my two SD7’s set up in an L-shape with an additional screen sitting between the two for the orchestra desk so that I can easily pick up if one of the violin mics or an orchestra mic starts failing, so that we can instantly stop the bangs that you get from the phantom power.”
    This mighty monitor set up formed what is currently the biggest SD7 rig on a single optical loop on any touring production in the world.

RADICAL RADIO
Radio Frequency Manager George Hogan ensures all the wireless systems perform perfectly during Michael’s set, also hanging some PA. “Wireless takes around an hour or so to rig, then an hour or two to calculate and check the frequencies” said Hogan.
    His IEM systems are again all Sennheiser, the SR2000, EK2000 and G2 models with AC3200 combiners. The high power amplifier systems in place are Hogan’s own design, combined with a HP / Agilent analysis package.
    Radio mics are EM3732 and EM3532 and SKM5200 handhelds. Instrument systems on the rider are EW500 receivers and SK500 transmitters.
    Said Hogan: “Ease of setting frequencies with the Sennheiser kit is particularly good with the Apple Mac software and infra red sync facility. My amplifier systems have dynamically adjustable power, controlled via software so I can trim the level across the stage appropriately. I have custom software I have written which allows easy custom frequency sets to be built and modified iteratively.
    “Sennheiser has a simple radio design which does exactly what it says on the tin, the receivers have very good front end dynamic range which eases intermodulation control,” he added.
    Like many large scale, modern and visually aesthetic productions, the biggest challenge for the RF management is the high level of EMC noise on the stage radiated from various other systems (lights / video / LEDs / consoles). “I have to check every frequency I use, every day, for EMC before I use it and build the plans individually. This can make licensing a little long-winded as it’s not as simple as booking some frequencies in advance,” Hogan explained.
    “To help with the EMC issue I have flown antennae systems as well as ground mounted elements. The trick is to think three dimensionally when figuring out where to place them. Even with all the test kit it is still essential to walk the stage with every IEM - I do a lot of walking!” laughed Hogan.

AUDIO APPROVAL
At FOH, a familiar face to TPi is Gary Bradshaw who recently finished Take That’s Progress Live. Bradshaw has also has a history working for Watts’ productions. “I was asked in 2006 to do the 25 Live Tour by Ken Watts, it lasted quite a while and he asked me back.
    “Last time around we used DiGiCo on the 25 Live tour, but it was three D5’s. Because we knew this tour was going to be bigger, we needed a desk that could handle more inputs and outputs and the SD7 does. Everyone was used to the SD Series so the SD7 was a natural choice.”
    “There’s a little bit of outboards, mainly for the reverbs. In the studio we set up a Lexicon 224 with a TC600 and TCD2 delay unit which does delays for Georges voice. There’s more within the desk but the 224 is specific to him, that’s his sound,” said Bradshaw who is personally handling 118 inputs.
    For this tour, pre-production was seemingly quite short by George’s standards. For 25 Live, pre-production time was much lengthier, including 10 days in Wembley Arena. This time, Bradshaw spent four days at Wigwam assembling, programming and testing the difficult set up. This was partly due to the fact that Michael was in the process of having the music for his new album recorded.
    “We do virtual soundcheck,” Bradshaw continued. “We have a way of recording everything and playing it back.”
    The new album will be produced by Phil Ramone and is set to be a classy pop delivery with heavy influences from the artists who inspire Michael.
    “George has asked for the sound to be as close to the CD sound as possible,” Bradshaw elaborated. “So the easy bit is knowing what he wants, the tricky bit is getting there!”
    The 41-piece orchestra combines strings, woodwind and brass so the challenges for FOH is recording a flat vocal over an orchestra which Michael hasn’t done before. Said Bradshaw: “He’s got a great voice, it’s amazing so I don’t have to do a lot to it; it always sounds really good and the older he gets, the richer his voice gets as well, which makes it easier.
    “It was a bit daunting having an orchestra, but it sounded great form the word go, they’re great musicians,” Bradshaw confirmed. “George is a great singer but you never know how it’s going to sound until the first show. Phil Ramone was at that first show, and he came up and said it sounded really good.
    “That was such a huge pat on the back. Learning from him was great, because he’s done a lot of orchestral work before with Paul Simon and Barbra Streisand, so to have a comment like that from the horse’s mouth was just fantastic - you don’t get those opportunities too much.”

ANOLOGUE ATTIRE
Wigwam Acoustics were brought on tour at Baggy’s request after he and System Tech Don Parks worked together in 2006. The sound system Parks has chosen for Symphonica is a d&b J Series Line Array.
    Said Parks: “In 2006 it was the system to have. We didn’t know what to expect and it turned out brilliant! Now, it suits us and George down to the ground. We’ve had it for years now and it works so well, we want to keep using it.
    “It’s a very manageable system, just a 60kg box so it’s easy to move around. It flies very easily and from a user POV, it goes up well and sounds really good. It’s a very easy system to rig because it’s straightforward. If you do happen to get it wrong, it still performs very well which is great. As a sound system it’s just fantastic.”
    The main PA comprises 14 J8’s with four J12’s per side. Subs are flown behind the main system, totalling four JSubs. Each side hang held 10 J8’s and four J12’s with a third PA hang detailing eight d&b Q1 speakers. Ground stacks were made up of two JSubs and two Q7 speakers. Front fils comprised seven d&b E8 speakers with four J8’s for delays. A total of 36 D12 amps (per side) were used for delays.
    “The system is driven automatically from the stage racks to XTA and the sound goes down into the amps rather than digitally,” explained Parks. “We prefer using analogue here because if there is a fault, it’s very hard to locate digitally. Analogue is better suited for this tour.”

CLEAN LINES AND CLASSICAL CURVES
On every one of his tours, Michael has been heavily involved in all aspects of the production, with his input determining the way the stage is illuminated. When Benoit Richard joined the Symphonica production crew as Lighting Director, he was already familiar with Michael’s preference for lighting to follow rhythms and highlight instruments, having worked as Co-Lighting Designer and Lighting Director on the 25 Live tour.
Richard took up the reigns from one of the lighting industry’s brightest stars Barry ‘Baz’ Halpin, who created the initial lighting design for Symphonica and programmed the show alongside Production Manager and lighting professional Dennis Gardner. Halpin, who has worked with artists such as Tina Turner, Def Leppard and Mariah Carey, was responsible for the dramatic and powerful lighting that has delighted audiences throughout the tour. Said Gardner: “Baz did a fantastic job with the lighting concepts that form the basis of the tour. His relationship with George was great and they were constantly discussing ideas so we were handed a really well-designed, time-coded show over to Benoit.”
When lighting the orchestral tour, the aim was to further enhance the mood created by pitch perfect vocals and supporting musicians. Halpin also wanted to reflect the show’s elegance through its lighting design, producing clean lines and creating curved areas to make the audience feel like they were at a classical concert.
Said Richard: “It’s not your typical heavy metal or rock show set-up, even though it has some of the same elements. There’s a gentleness to the whole thing because most of the trusses and even the video screen are curved.” However, Richard, who has toured with acts such as Metallica back in the mid-‘90s, highlighted one particular similarity between Symphonica and rock concerts. “Like Metallica, George always gives back to the crowd and is a real joy to work with,” commented Richard.
When programming the show, Gardner selected a pair of full-size MA Lighting grandMA2 consoles to control the lighting, with the second desk acting as a back up. “This type of system was chosen for its reliability. It’s well laid out, stable in its networking capabilities and the spare console is always tracking and can take over instantly if anything was to happen to the main desk,” said Richard.
Lighting - like other elements - was driven by time code; something Michael wanted to implement on 25 Live. “The music on that tour was very upbeat so there were a lot of triggers to create really tight timing. I’m doing it on this tour too, but in a more subtle way. Everything is well detailed with George and he controls visual elements such as this. Basically, everything you see in the show is based on his direction,” said Richard.
To produce the desired stage lighting, Neg Earth supplied 66 Vari-Lite VL3000 Spot Luminaires, which were positioned in the air on Upstaging’s Hud truss. A total of 45 Martin Professional MAC 301’s were then placed on the back in a custom ring arrangement to form flower petal shapes that could be moved up and down via a Kinesys system. “They are used more as effects lighting than stage lighting because George is not a huge fan of top light,” said Richard.
On the floor, a further six Vari-Lite VL3000’s were positioned; three per side, along with 14 Sharpys and 11 MAC 700 spots. On stage left and right, four side trusses comprising 24 Sharpys were used to create cross light, with 60 Philips ColorBlast TRX LED fixtures placed on the header and 48 standard ColorBlast 12’s on the floor to uplight the drape, which was created in America by Back2Front.
All LED lights on the floor and in the VersaTubes were fed through a Catalyst, meaning some content from the video screen was reproduced as a low-res mirror image on the built-in LED strips the set. Halpin came up with the concept of inlaying the LED lighting into the floor of the stage, along with the show’s stunning overall lighting design.
“At the Royal Opera House in London we will also add a set of Philips Colour Kinetics TRX ColorBlast in the orchestra as uplight to complement the music stands. Right now, the music stand’s standard tungsten fixtures just light their upper body, but the concept for future dates is for every musician to have a foot light to uplight them,” explained Richard.
With video being as integral to the show as it was on 25 Live, it was necessary to prevent lighting from interfering with the screen and to make sure the colour palette followed video content. “Lighting needed to follow video colours in order for the audience’s eye to be led to the centre and not be distracted by clashing colours,” said Richard.
The lighting crew also had to be mindful of the amount of aerial lights used because Michael prefers most of the illumination to come from the ground or the sides to further help direct attention towards the central video screen. To achieve this goal, Richard used an ESP Vision lighting pre-visualisation system, enabling him to see the full system in a virtual environment, play the tracks with time code to find when the video colours changed and programme complimentary lighting colour schemes at specific moments.
Said Richard: “It was important to get a model of this lighting system and video screen drawn up in Autodesk’s 3D Studio Max. Once you’re on tour, you have very little time to catch up, so while the real system was being set up every day, ESP Vision helped me programme complex lighting cues and rhythm chases and really push the time code triggering capabilities of the grandMA2.”
 
A VISUAL REACTION TO SOUND
One of the focal points of the stage design on Michael’s last tour, 25 Live, was an LED video screen in a ski-slope form that flowed across the stage, on which Michael performed. Said Watts: “This time around, George wanted something just as unique and new, so the decision was made to use a giant screen that curves at the sides to wrap around the set. George was directly involved with the video team throughout and the content was very much his baby.”
Video Director Richie Shipman, who was also part of the 25 Live team, has noticed the benefits of Michael’s hands-on approach to the visual side of his tours. Commented Shipman: “He notices everything and the ideas for content have come from him directly.”
At almost twice HD and with over two million pixels in the display, the video screen supplied by Chaos Visual Productions treated the audience to a visual extravaganza. Seven hi-def Sony HXC-100 cameras filmed the show, with the footage upstreamed and reconfigured by UVA’s D3 media server to be displayed on the LED screen, comprising 494 9mm WinVision tiles.
“The budget determines how much resolution you have on a show and all the material we play on Symphonica has been created at a double video rate and is run at almost twice HD. It’s a new concept we’re testing out here really and the screen looks amazing, but it’s not video; it’s data effectively,” said Shipman.
The 9mm WinVision display panels were chosen to make up the screen because they could be formed into a curved shape. Their light weight was another advantage, allowing the screen to be easily hung on the purpose-built VideoTech truss developed by Chaos and Total Solutions. The PLASA Innovation Award-winning truss system enables the crew to access the screen using mini motors. Explained Shipman: “This means we can climb up the back of the screen if we need to adjust it. For us, the whole video package is a lot smaller with less cases, so it can fit onto one truck.”
The visual element of Symphonica is far from your standard concert, utlising a programme that uses an algorithm to produce moving coloured patterns, complex shapes and 3D environments in reaction to live instruments or vocals. Although live footage and pre-recorded video of stars such as Dita Von Teese and John Lennon appear on the giant screen, graphics produced by US-based SoundSpectrum’s Aeon programme are displayed for the majority of the performance.
“It looks simply stunning and fits in with George’s desire for everything to be in time with the music,” said Shipman, who has worked with artists such as Take That and Faithless during his 20-year career.
Aeon is a recent creation of SoundSpectrum’s Head Developer Andy O’Meara and Michael Figarelli who have created custom content for world-class artists Aerosmith. “George Michael used one of our software titles in his 25 Live tour and thought of us again when preparing for Symphonica,” said SoundSpectrum’s Paul Brower.
“Some visuals have more of a serene and ambient aesthetic, while others provide a very hard-edged, machine-like look and feel. Because of the variety, we are able to match the wide array of songs George performs, from the slow ballads to the driving rock and pop songs.”
In some ways, the show designer of visual content was Michael himself, explained Brower. Some of the visuals incorporated into the show were customised versions of software visuals SoundSpectrum already provides in the Aeon visualiser, while others were original creations prompted by direct feedback from Michael, who was specific about the type of visual aesthetic he was looking for in each song from the beginning. “While a certain amount of trust and leeway is given to us, George is very familiar with our software at this point and, together with the lighting designer, we have all worked together to create a unified and exciting concert experience,” said Brower.
Given the size of the video screen and the fact the visuals respond with movement and colour, Bower and Figarelli tried to stay away from visuals that move too quickly across the screen and colours that were too bright. Brower added: “Our job is to complement George and the orchestra’s performance, and although some of our visuals are very complex and sometimes futuristic-looking, the effect must be balanced so as not to distract from the music and musicians on stage. That being said, this tour provides a very unique marriage between a more classical approach with the use and spread of the orchestra members and a more modern aesthetic with our visuals and the lighting design.”
Continued Brower: “With any live performance like this one, the look and feel of the stage, lighting and video play almost an equal role to the music that is being performed. Some performers stick with the more traditional method of using broad lighting rigs without the use of video content. In this case, there is interplay between our video content and the overall lighting design, and both are choreographed to the music being performed.”
 
ADAPTING THE SHOW DESIGN TO THE VENUE
Freelance Head Rigger Steve Walsh, who had previously worked with Watts on Jamiroquai’s last tour, began preparing the stage plans for Symphonica in March. “We have just shy of 100 points for video, lighting and sound and going into both large arenas and small opera houses has made it interesting for a show this size because we have to rescale it to fit into each venue,” said Walsh.
On all dates of the tour, Walsh and Rigger Jules Grommers, use riggers that are local to the area and are familiar with the venue, normally working with 10 riggers in the air and six on the floor. “This venue is very easy, ever since they put the new roof on when Ahoy reopened last September. The old space frame roof it had before made rigging quite complicated and it wasn’t very high.
“The new roof is about six metres higher and the beams were designed in conjunction with the local rigging company. It’s all been designed for ease and speed of rigging and weight capacity because all the shows are getting heavier,” said Walsh.
Although venues such as Ahoy are a joy to work in for Walsh, Symphonica is different to previous shows he has been part of because there is not a straight piece of truss in the rig.
Said Walsh: “It’s all curves and it all has to fit in with everything else. On most tours you get a reasonable amount of movement and if you can’t get a point where you need it, you can shuffle it and it doesn’t have an effect on the show. On this tour there are lots of trusses very close together and not a lot of movement because of the corners in the truss. You can’t move the points very far and it has to be quite precise, making it tricky in certain venues.”
Stage Manager Rik Benbow is accustomed to working on productions of every scale at all types of venue; having toured with artists such a Take That, Coldplay and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The main priority on Symphonica, explained Benbow, is keeping clean lines with the physical shape of the stage.
“One of the biggest challenges is keeping it all looking tidy, not just what we bring in but the peripheral areas too. It’s not your standard rock ‘n’ roll show where you can have a pile of flight cases against a back wall, you have to keep the lines looking clean because it works around nice curves. This is why we purposefully had everything out of sight and there are no brightly lit monitor desks can be seen by the audience,” said Benbow.
According to Benbow, Ahoy is a fantastic venue due to its easy access and amount of storage space. However, the unusual shape of the rolling stage does present challenges in certain venues. Said Benbow: “If you’re rolling a block, you’ve got four points of access to aim at to put it into the right place. However, when you’re rolling something of this shape, you can only really work on three points of access to get it in so its quite complex to move.”
A combination of Upstaging’s Hud Truss and Thomas Supertruss were chosen for the tour, with all trussing supplied by Neg Earth with the exception of the purpose-built video truss. “Most of the truss is used for lighting and then on the PA side, it is mostly used for cable management to keep all drops and cables hidden and the stage looking tidy,” said Walsh.

A STAGE SENSATION
Owner and Group CEO of Total Fabrications, Chris Cronin, supplied Symphonica with his company’s main rolling stage product, the Arena Stage. Total Fabrications, a subsidiary of the Total Solutions Group, enabled the stage to become a fluid part of the tour, and it can be dismantled depending on the venue size and stage criteria required.
Cronin said of its main features: “The upper set is integrated into the rolling stage but can be separated for smaller venues where the rolling stage won’t fit, for instance in the Royal Albert Hall or in Verona. This means the look of the show is preserved in all cases.”
Typically, it takes around three hours with three set crew and eight stagehands to complete the build. When the 41 strong orchestra and band are in full swing, the stage weighs just under 20 tonnes. Michael is in good company; artists who have used this rolling stage for touring designs include Take That, Kylie, Phil Collins, Duran Duran, Peter Gabriel and Muse.
Said Cronin: “Many venues around the world own our Arena Stages and this has saved many touring productions from having to ship parts of their sets to other continents.” And for Symphonica? “The rolling sub-stage is mostly generic but all the upper risers and the horse shoe ramps are bespoke. Within and under the sub-stage there are dressing rooms and tech rooms.
“The set design was driven directly by George and Ken. We fine-tuned the design with Ken’s guidance to achieve the end result. The Smart LEDs, which were integrated into the horseshoe ramps, formed the final touch.”
By using Total Fabrication’s innovative design, this stage eases the rest of the production. “By using our rolling stage technology, the entire set (and underworld) are assembled out on the venue floor while the lighting, PA and the rest of the production is being rigged,” Cronin added. “Then the stage is finally rolled into position. This procedure allows a production of this magnitude to be up and running within a few hours of arriving at the venue.”
For outdoor shows, Watts requested Stageco’s Super Roof to house audiences in Poland and Italy. Watts commented: “The most interesting show we’ve had so far was the brand new football stadium in Poland to 30,000 people. We were invited to play as part of the events opening it. It was amazing to see the Stageco roof in that kind of environment; it looked great. That was probably the best-looking show I’ve seen this tour.”
TOURING LOGISTICS
Visiting over 15 countries, Symphonica required firms in charge of logistics and travel to be efficient in order for the tour to run as smoothly as possible. Bussing was handled by Phoenix Bussing, with Redburn Transfer Limited providing all trucking services.
Freighting was handed over to Rock-it Cargo and travel responsibility was down to Media Travel. Meanwhile, backline rental services were provided by the two-time TPi Award winning Music Bank. Chapman Freebourne supplied charter planes. Catering played an equally important part of team moral on the road and according to Production Manager Gardner, who has enjoyed Popcorn’s catering services on both Jamiroquai (which began in March 2011) and Michael’s tour, he could think of no better company to feed such a hardworking crew.

SECURING A STAR
While Stagesafe provided the health and safety aspects of the tour, The Security Company provided arena security. Gerard VanDuykeren is the Chief Executive Officer of ICMS, a holding company for Showsec and The Security Company. VanDuykeren is well versed in the importance of live event security.
For this Dutch date, The Security Company (TSC), brought in Michel Noordeloos at the Ahoy venue as Head of Security for crowd safety. For the Rotterdam show at Ahoy, the 12000 fans required 65 security personal on site, headed by Noordeloos.
For VanDuykeren, the main challenges for his security staff at an event of this nature is Ingress speed (late arrival), and the evacuation protocol due to the seated nature of this orchestral performance (with seating additions added in the main standing area), there are more obstacles if a fast evacuation was necessary.
VanDuykeren explained the challenges TSC needed vital awareness of during the show: “Adjusting search policy to audience profile, risk assessment and sufficient staffing to handle late ingress.” Preshow meetings were held to determine adjusted evacuation protocol.
Yet it’s not a case of straightforward arena security with an artist like George Michael. The star’s personal head of Security is Darren Gilchrist of Celebrity Protection Ltd.
“This is my first time working for George as far as touring is concerned,” said Gilchrist. “But I’ve been in the business a long time and have worked for Taylor Swift, Pele and Mariah Carey. I have to admit, when George sings Russian Roulette, that’s a highlight every night.”
In the tour’s early stages, a show in Zagreb, Croatia, (Michael’s first show in the country), saw him greeted by 12,000 fans at a sold out arena. “One fan during this show became particularly excitable,” Gilchrist giggled. “He wanted everybody in the arena to see him so he got up and ran towards the stage but fell, uncomfortably. I had to cover him up as he was trying to protect his manhood! Thankfully on George’s tour that’s very rare; he has fans from all generations and whole families, because he creates a very intimate concert.”

SYMPHONICA SUCEEDING
Intimate is certainly a fitting way to describe Michael’s performance in Ahoy. The two sold out nights at the Rotterdam venue had a particularly emotional connection for the critically acclaimed singer.
He addressed his appreciative audience with the revelation that following the success of the first gig at Ahoy, his vision of Symphonica had finally come true. Under the spotlight, facing his fans, Michael stated: “I’ve never been more excited for a show in my whole career,” generating a standing ovation.
 As the live production clearly enabled a touring dream to become reality for Michael, Tour Director Ken Watts concluded with a comment on the personal atmosphere behind this unique, and somewhat spectacular production. “We’re very lucky in that we have a great crew. It’s probably the best touring crew I’ve ever been on the road with, across the board.
“And I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say that before. They’re very positive and pro-active people. We have HOD meetings and it’s not very rock n roll - people want to be involved in the whole process.”
TPi

Official photos:Caroline True
www.georgemichael.com