Take That: The Circus Live

The overwhelming critical success of Take That’s The Circus Live tour is a perfect mirror for the current stratospheric popularity of the band, especially amongst an increasingly mature audience.

    Since their reunion in 2005 after nearly a decade apart, they have scored three UK No.1 singles to add to the eight accumulated during their original ’90s ‘boy band’ phase — and this latest tour broke all records for the fastest-selling of all-time.

    Drawing on what appeared to be Cirque du Soleil and Broadway musical influences, the excitement of the circus-themed extravaganza began as balloons filled the centre B-stage and Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Jason Orange and Howard Donald appeared in sharp suits to kick off with ‘Greatest Day’.

    With tricks a-plenty up its sleeve, the performance shuffled off a series of spectacular gags. Wearing circusmaster jackets, the boys later rode in on a giant ‘elephant’ which took them to the main stage, brilliantly designed like a section of a Big Top. A masterful illusion, the elephant was made from silk panels with dancers hanging from its various parts.

    Around 50 circus performers and dancers flew from trapezes and made up a human Ferris Wheel, a tightrope walker towered over the crowd, death-defying leaps through fiery hoops, and Take That themselves braved gravity on unicycles. This was a show that had everything!

    A complete sell-out at every venue up to the final date at Wembley Stadium on July 5 — The Circus Live played to around one million people over 20 shows.

    Before its launch, the set construction and lighting programming took place in Hangar 1 at Bedford’s Cardington Airfield (famous for housing the R100 and R101 airships, and the filming of ‘Batman Begins’) whilst performer rehearsals occured simultaneously on the George Lucas Stage at Elstree Studios.

    Full rehearsals then took place at Cardington before moving to Sunderland’s City of Light Stadium where the tour began on June 5.

    The production benefitted from several of Take That’s long-time suppliers, including Capital Sound Hire, who had to negotiate the design theme’s obstacles in order to deliver the acclaimed audio quality.

    For Cap Sound’s technical director Ian Colville and system technician Al Woods, the presence of trapeze artists, contortionists, high-wire walkers and clowns streaming on to the main stage — with the B-stage festooned in balloons and mammoth-sized human ‘elephants’ — was not about to compromise their carefully-worked Martin Audio sound reinforcement system.

    In collaboration with TT’s long-time FOH engineer Gary Bradshaw, they knew that the Big Top appearance would give no scope for flying their Martin subs, so they set up a horizontal bass array tucked neatly along the stage front.

    XTA is Capital’s default processing choice for its Martin system. A total of 16 XTA units were used. Four DP448s with 12 DP226s making up the full compliment, all networked via XTA’s proprietary AudioCore software.

    Said Colville: “We tried the 4 Series for this tour and used them exclusively as crossovers for the delay towers and they worked exceptionally well, performing faultlessly.

    “I had a chat with Andy Pardoe at Martin Audio and decided to use a 12-cell horizontal sub bass array each side of the stage and electronically ‘bend’ it to produce the required dispersion,” recalled Colville.

    “This is something we hadn’t done on this scale before and it worked very well. We used an XTA DP226 to progressively delay the feed to the subs from the centre to the outside of the arrays. Considering we only had 24 subs on the stage, they produced tight, even coverage. Gary and Al were both very happy with the design and, for me, that’s good enough.”

    Woods continued: “By putting the subs on the ground we managed to get some coupling with the turf itself. We were able to curve the sound with time and physically move it electronically using one input and six outputs on the DP226.”

    They also added a cardioid three WS218X sub array to the 14-hang delay towers. Where four (rather than three) points were used the delay towers were arranged in an arc, the outer towers measuring 65m from the stage and the two centre positions set 70m back.

    The main PA consisted of the Martin Audio W8L Longbow with two main and two side hangs — each comprising 14 W8L Longbow enclosures and two W8LD downfills — with XTA processing on system management.

    As with previous Take That tours there was a B-stage situated some 40m from downstage, however, there were two major differences this time — firstly, the Circus show began on the B-stage this time; secondly, the B-stage could not be served by its own PA system.

    “It’s simply that there was nowhere to put the secondary PA,” said Colville, “so we used the main system to provide coverage.”

CONSOLES
With Capital Sound’s stock of first-choice DiGiCo SD7 consoles already out on The Killers, Plan B was for three DiGiCo D5 consoles to be utilised — one for Bradshaw at FOH, one for Steve Lutley at the monitor position and a further D5 for support band monitors.

    “The show started with the boys out on the B-stage,” explained Colville. “Steve felt too cut off 50m away in his bunker so he decided to remotely control his D5 from the FOH mix tower for that section of the show.”

    “An RC unit was networked to Steve’s D5 and everything was mirrored,” added Woods. “We also had someone on standby just in case, but it wasn’t necessary to bring him into play. There were 56 separate inputs and a mini rack for each console, split passively. Gary used most of the internal effects on the console and kept things simple, which is his trademark.

    “Steve used quite a lot of output gear, because he had so many mixes and the band wanted specific reverbs. He had so many inputs that he either had to sacrifice either effects or processing as far as the D5 was concerned, so he chose to sacrifice effects.”

    Take That have long been Sennheiser users and this tour was no different. The four members of the band all used SKM 5200 mics with MD 5235 heads while they and their backing band were all fitted out with ew 300 G2 in-ear systems. In addition, ew 500 series radio guitar systems were used for all the member of the backing band with moving instruments.

    Lutley sent mixes to both the IEM systems and six Martin LE700 floor monitors, as well as WS2A subs for the drummer and bassist.

    Al Woods was delighted that the time spent on getting the bass array right had reaped such dividends. He was also pleased that the delay configurations had worked so well.

    He explained that the main PA coverage had been designed to extend across 70m of flat floor — making the angles tight — and 15m up to the bleachers; he knew the side hangs would cover the upper tiers and the delays at the rear of the stadium and upper bowl... and the results added up to an unqualified success.

    “There were 1.2 million tickets sold and not one audio complaint!” he said. “In fact we were the first [production] to go through Wembley Stadium without a single complaint — and that’s official.”

    Said Colville: “Al’s personal standards are well beyond those of any other system tech that I know — the results speak for themselves.”

LIGHTING
The Circus Live witnessed the début of Patrick Woodroffe as TT’s lighting designer, after Simon Tutchener had held the position for many years.

    A dedicated grandMA user since 2007, Dave Hill joined Woodroffe’s creative team and programmed the show, seeing this as an ideal opportunity to use the new grandMA2 console.

    “The best and most sensible thing that MA Lighting have done is to introduce the grandMA2 so it can still run the grandMA ‘series 1’ software,” Hill commented.

    “This means you can get to know the console first with a familiar operating system, and then move to the new system when you’re ready.”

    Speaking at the start of the tour, he added: “The thinking behind the console has moved on enormously with the grandMA2. The layout is excellent, and I am really looking forward to using it with the new software.”

    Dennis Gardner also joined the programming process and toured as lighting director/operator, covering for Hill who was busy LD’ing The Eagles’ European tour.

    This was the first time that Gardner had used a grandMA for a full-on light show, although he did work with one whilst he was head media server programmer at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He’s now unashamedly fallen in love with it!

    “It looks very sexy!” smiled Gardner. “It’s extremely easy to learn and use, and it networks beautifully.”

    A grandMA2 light was reserved for back-up with another grandMA2 light onstage as a technical desk, along with five MA NSPs — four active and a spare.

    All lighting kit was supplied by Neg Earth with the grandMA2 controlling nearly 300 moving lights —  a mix of Robe, Clay Paky, Coemar, Martin, High End and Zap Technologies fixtures — together with PARs, Moles, i-Pix Satellite LED bricks, 27 strobes and fog machines.

    Many of the moving lights were rigged on the 18m diameter circular truss that started the set as a part of the onstage scenic circus tent, before being lifted into a vertical position where it framed the central onstage LED screen.

STAGING
Stageco supplied a custom designed and manufactured stage — the result of three months of planning by Stageco’s CAD department and communication between project manager Dirk De Decker, his colleague Tom Frederickx and Chris Vaughan at The Production Office.

    Said Vaughan: “The main stage is the essential skeleton of the production. Stageco are masters at interpreting ideas and turning them into workable engineering and logistically practical solutions.”

    The key elements of the stage were six 25m and two 12m conical towers, which represented the poles of a big top — except they were located on the outside of the tent on the stage that housed the support bands. The stage set went through numerous hydraulic moves during the performance and the structure was carefully conceived to carry extensive production elements.

    Brilliant Stages created five stages plus several pieces of staging wizardry for the 20 UK stadium dates. The main Performer stage, 18m wide x 17.8m deep with tech tunnels beneath and access steps on either side, incorporated six lifts: a piano lift, two double band lifts and a puppet lift for the show finale.

    Two satellite stages with weather-proof tech bunkers beneath were linked by ramps to the main stage and housed sound kit and instruments. A 6m-deep C-stage, also with tech bunkers, was located at the front of the performer stage and incorporated two flights of curved steps with a central split-reveal and parking for the motorised lozenge and its extendable track.

    Originally designed to be manually operated for a single use and incorporating a piano lift, the 3m x 6m lozenge became a real workhorse, adapted to be motorised so it could track under its own power to make no fewer than seven trips back and forth along the track between the main and B-stages.

    The lozenge was also required to carry props during set up and to break down into sections small enough to be lifted by lightweight forklift trucks. It also acted as a train to pull a 1.5m high x 2.4m wide raised walkway, designed to carry 40 performers, the 38m from the ‘A’ to the ‘B’ stage. The walkway was built understage in 1m sections by a six-strong team and linked together by means of pins and clips for rapid, silent deployment during a solo number.

    Brilliant also devised the 12m wide x 2m high, multi-tiered, B-stage complete with hydraulically operated ‘petal’ segments in the top which opened 260° to reveal one of the show’s centrepieces, a 7.8m high mechanical elephant which transported the band to the main stage as part of their entrance.

    Built by Mark Mason at south London-based Asylum Models, the elephant was a sight to behold, with its translucent skin of lightweight chain mail. Brilliant Stages assembled the substructure for the elephant around a purpose-built, two-level scissor-lift which was motorised to turn on a slew ring and track the length of the auditorium to the main stage.

    The elephant was placed on top of the substructure and automated by a total of 13 puppeteers inside the skin and another four at ground level, activating the head, trunk and legs, and with rods to move the ears and a tail formed by an inverted acrobat wearing a helmet with hair extensions!

    Brilliant supplied the 15m x 23m structure beneath the scarlet big top — with a full load of moving lights and cabling, it weighed in at eight tonnes — and devised a track system for the tent coverings enabling a quick ‘roman blind’ movement to partially reveal the set beneath.         A series of controlled reveals showed an inner frame of ‘cargo netting’, made of profile cut canvas to keep the weight to a minimum.

    The tent was then raised 90° to a vertical position, on two hinges weighing 2.5 tonnes each, to form a surround for the central screen.

    “When designing the hinge system for this lift, we had to calculate the wind load and devise a method of controlling the framework as it reached the point of zero resistance in the vertical position,” explained Brilliant’s project manager, Clay Brock. “This was a huge engineering point which we solved using a catcher arm to take the load.”

    As the show reached its finale, the giant Ringmaster Puppet  — which was also made by Asylum Models — rose from the back of the main stage out of a 2m deep pit. Constructed around a purpose built lift, the 10m wide, 4.5 tonne structure rose 11.5m high and tracked forward 2.7m, whilst the head and shoulders thrust forward a further 2.4m on a multi-axis hydraulic ram attached at the base of the neck.

    Twin hydraulics, operated by two puppeteers located in the chest cavity, turned the shoulders and enabled the 3m head/video screen to nod up and down and turn left and right.

    Said Brock: “The biggest challenge was that a set of this magnitude would be a four to five month build under normal circumstances. We had to condense it into 11 weeks!”

    Working in conjunction with Brilliant Stages, LiteStructures Live (LS Live) was asked to manufacture a custom ‘Big Top’ trussing structure measuring 6m high with a 15m diameter circle.

    The all-custom structure was a very challenging build and had to be able to rotate 90° up, making a total height of 30m when lifted. The structure included nine curved truss legs attached to a main truss ring. The rear of the structure was fastened to steel hinges and hydraulic catch arms allowing it to lift up.

    It took the LS Live team six weeks from design to completion, and thanks to the on-site LS Live Studio, all the last minute tests were possible and a pre-build made sure it all fitted together before the first show.

    Brilliant’s Tony Bowern commented: “Given the size of the project and our time constraint we turned to LiteStructures to produce the ‘Big Top’ framework. The end result proved our confidence in using the LiteStructures production team, this allowed us to complete the rest of the set comfortably on time.”

GET THE MOTORS RUNNING
Summit Steel continued its association with Take That, supplying motors, rigging and a Kinesys K2 automation system. The company also provided specialist rigging consultancy, and custom designed and developed a lifting system for one of the show’s most spectacular movement cues that created a massive ‘wow’ factor near the top of the show, involving movement of a large set piece weighing 6.5 tonnes.

    Chris Walker of Summit worked closely with Chris Vaughan and head rigger Phil Broad. “This element was easily the biggest challenge for us,” said Walker, who was involved from the early design and concept stages.

    The band started the show on the B-stage, whilst a large circus tent set piece was in-situ on the main stage.

    An 18m diameter circular truss with fins reaching down formed the eaves of the tent. The back of the circle was attached to two giant hydraulic hinges, each weighing 2.5 tonnes, while the rest was supported by four 16mm steel wires run at 45° angles to four of the upstage Stageco towers.

    Each of the four wires was fed through a diverter pully rigged in the towers, all double purchased. Each wire was then pulled by a rocker-beam attached to the pulley. Beneath each rocker beam were two quad-reeved CM Lodestar model LL hoists, all wired for the Kinesys Elevation motion control system.

    At the cue point, the covering cloth was speedily removed from the tent structure. The eight hoists all pulled together to lift the circle (complete with integral lights rigged in the trussing) as it hinged out and up, transforming into a vertically orientated frame for the large upstage centre LED screen.

    This very elegant move took five minutes and the smoothness and pinpoint accuracy of the Kinesys system — used in “a somewhat idiosyncratic set-up”, according to Chris Walker — came into its own.

    The Kinesys K2 system was operated by Gareth Williams. Summit also used its new Kinesys Libra load cell system, linked directly to K2 to monitor the lifting operation. Additionally, Summit supplied over 100 Lodestar half-, one- and two-tonne hoists to the tour which were utilised for rigging the PA and video screens.

RIDING HIGH
The Rigging Partnership provided the automation and rigging for the performer sequences, as well as the health and safety package required for all of the aerial effects and circus effects.

    For the automation on the main stage, two of FTSI’s F series winches with Navigator software were used to make a 2D bridle 43m wide x 19m high.

    This rig allowed for multiple effects from one system — from trapeze acts to performers with flaming hoops around their waists. The rig could also split to allow for two jack in the box effects.

    Over on the B-stage, the show opened with a 9,000ft3 hot air balloon with a performer suspended in a basket below it. This was tethered via three Fisher Q winches. The winches are a compact zero fleet unit using Dyneema that sat at the base of the B-stage.

    Each winch has 30m of travel, a SWL of 250kg and speeds of up to 2m/s, and was in a self-contained frame that allowed it to be locked on to ballast cages which were independent of the B-stage structure. TRP opted for FTSI’s Navigator system to handle the sophisticated 3D moves required.

    As part of the health and safety package, TRP also advised on the show specific training and inductions required by the aerial performers during the rehearsal period.

    TRP then provided the performer safety equipment required for a wide variety of effects and set pieces throughout the show, this included everything from simple work restraints to full performer flying harnesses.

PARTNERS IN VIDEO
Not for the first time, XL Video and Creative Technology teamed up to supply the complete touring video solution. Both have enjoyed long relationships with Take That, with the former’s dating back to the ’90s when Des Fallon — now an XL director — worked as the boy band’s video crew chief.

    Fast-forwarding to the present, XL sourced and purchased 140m2 of PIX LED F-15, a new, 15mm resolution LED screen — also featured in our Johnny Hallyday story — that is both light in weight and super-bright (6000 NITS). This was framed by a circular truss which moved up from the stage and into position early in the show.

    XL designed custom metalwork for the PIX LED F-15 panels to maximise the rigging and de-rigging speeds, and enable it to dovetail elegantly with the rigging and set design elements. The fast screen assembly time was a great feat for such a large surface area.

    Driven by dual intelligent processors running in parallel for full redundancy, the screen is also IP65-rated — an essential requirement as the stage design had no roof. “It took a lot of research, but proved the perfect product that absolutely fulfilled all the design, creative and production criteria,” said Des Fallon.

    XL also invested in four new Hippotizer HD digital media servers for the playback side of the TT video equation. These were operated by Richard Shipman, running an array of special content produced by Onedotzero.

    A full camera and PPU package was also included in the XL specification, consisting of eight new HD-compatible Sony E30 cameras with an assortment of lenses, positioned around the stadiums for maximum coverage of both stages.

    The mix was cut by Matt Askem using a fully-loaded Grass Valley Kayak console. DVEs were used to deal with the different aspect ratios of all screens. XL’s crew chief was Stuart Heaney.

    Augmenting XL’s central screen, Creative Technology supplied Barco MiTrix for the back screen and two I-Mag panels for each side. The MiTrix screen used a total of 196 modules, delivered an overall screen size of more than 350m2 and used CT’s newly-developed cable system to overcome the installation issues that MiTrix has been known for in the past.

    CT also built custom dollies allowing equipment to be double-stacked hugely reducing load in time and optimising truck pack.

    The two towering I-Mag displays flanking the stage each measured almost 14m, and it was essential to utilise a module with sufficient structural integrity to withstand both the vertical loads and potential wind forces. Nonetheless the top four rows of Mitsubishi modules selected had to be specially modified to withstand the potential loads. As with the MiTrix, CT built custom dollies.

    CT’s Alex Leinster returned from the company’s Asia Pacific office to manage the project; he was supported by Rob Ricci and a touring crew of eight led by Richard Corns.

SPECIAL EFFECTS
When Take That performed their classic ‘Back For Good’ on the B-stage, a 7m high screen of water appears from jets concealed within the stage floor, which shielded the foursome from their screaming fans. This effect was designed by Water Sculptures.

    As they walked into and out of the water screen, the water disappeared and re-appeared as though by magic. Six tonnes of water were stored in tanks under the stage, which showered the nearby crowds during the song.

    Water Sculptures director Alasdair Elliot was there for several days to build and test the installation, and throughout the tour’s full dress rehearsal evening and opening night.

    Take That used umbrellas during the ‘Back For Good’ routine, preventing them — and their mics — from being completely drenched!

    As well as the traditional requirements for ‘Relight My Fire’ — six large flames with another six ‘beacon’ flames on top of each tower — Take That’s production demanded several large scale special effects designed and supplied by Shaun Barnett of Quantum Special Effects.

    These included XXL flash pots around the B-stage for the ‘Take That Medley’, four big confetti blasts in ‘Said It All’ and a pyro finale on ‘Rule The World’. “This final song is from the film ‘Stardust’ and Kim Gavin was very keen for the pyrotechnics to reflect this,” said Barnett.

    “The challenge for us was to provide effects that would be achievable in most venues and close proximity pyrotechnics were the answer as they require much shorter safety distances and produce much less fallout than conventional fireworks while maintaining the high visual impact and choice of effects.

    “Fired from either the stadium roof top or from behind the stage, the 1.11 minute display filled the air with comets and stars and ended in time for Gary Barlow to say farewell.”

    All effects were fired using the Galaxis wireless firing system. The Quantum team comprised of Barnett, who fired the roof top pyro display; Owain White fired the rest of the effects and Phil Maggs was present for load-in days. Edwin Samkin made a guest appearance for the Wembley DVD shoot to assist with the extra rigging.

    Other key production suppliers included Skypower/Cameron’s Balloons, Eat To The Beat, ET Travel, Phoenix Bussing, Stage Truck and Buffalo Power.

    Finally, it’s heavily rumoured that a certain former member of Take That is currently planning a return to the road. Watch this space!
TPi