Singer, composer, music producer and instrumentalist, Arijit Singh, and his touring crew recently treated crowds at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to a spectacle which featured close to 1,000 lighting fixtures, around 1,000sqm of LED, a 78m long thrust, and pyrotechnics, fireworks and special effects provided by three different technical specialists. TPi goes behind the scenes to retrace the visual elements of the project.
Siyan’s Tom Grant assumed the unique role of ‘production wrangler’ for this special show – working alongside show promoter TCO’s Production Director Anthony Tang and Production Coordinator Sophia Livett, to take Arijit’s production team technical requirements and concepts and deliver them as a technical reality for this huge standalone production.
To do this, Grant and Tang enlisted the technical support of Creative Technology (video), All Access Staging & Productions (risers and staging), H2H Rigging (rigging), BPM SFX (lasers) MistFX (SFX and pyrotechnics), Explosive SFX (fireworks) and, not forgetting, Siyan (automation, lighting and rigging).
“I’m honoured to be involved in such a huge show in Arijit’s career; it is special,” Grant said. “From Siyan’s perspective too, we’re proud to be involved alongside all of the other suppliers, and it is rewarding seeing all of the crew come together to create a truly brilliant show.”
With a day job as Business Director at Siyan, Grant isn’t shy to accept field work while also ensuring the smooth running of the business. “I juggle many balls of responsibility, and jumping onto gigs like this to deliver solutions to people is quite fun,” Grant said. “It also shows how dynamic the industry is. There are many people in the industry who work on both sides of it, which just proves there are tons of transferable skills in this world, so when opportunities come up you rarely turn them down.”
Siyan provided 228 ACME LIGHTING PIXEL LINE IP; 150 GLP JDC Burst 1; 112 CHAUVET Professional COLORado PXL Bar 16; 98 Robe Robin FORTE, 90 Robin iFORTEs, 28 Robin iFORTE LTX WB, four Robin iFORTE LTX F; 78 SGM Lighting Q-8; 48 Ayrton Cobra and 32 Claypaky HY B-Eye K25 / TEATRO lighting solutions with 12 MA Lighting grandMA3 processing unit Ms, two grandMA3 desks, and three grandMA3 light consoles chosen for control. “It’s certainly big,” Grant laughed. “With the number of lighting fixtures and special effects, I believe it is the right combination of big and bold.”
Collaboration was the foundation of Siyan’s approach. “It was enjoyable and especially rewarding seeing all of the crews come together to help create this truly brilliant show,” Grant added. “We’re proud to be involved and working alongside all of these other great suppliers, this was a step up, taking on a lighting and rigging project of this scale.”
MistFX were brought on in the beginning stages of the show, with the company having worked with Arijit for the past three years and brought on BPM SFX and Explosive SFX for the task. MistFX provided 28 Magic FX ECO2Jets, 14 Stadium Shots, 18 positions of Galaxis Pyro, and 12 Explo X2 Wave Flames. MistFX Director, Amrit Natt, commented: “It feels like an amazing achievement to be a part of such a large show, this is our fourth year working with Arijit and his team so it’s great to be a part of his return to the UK, and for his biggest show yet!”
BPM SFX provided 16 Kvant Lasers Atom 58s which were deployed on the downstage edge, in the wings, and on the downstage Kinesys truss; the company also provided 10 Look Solutions Viper deLuxe for atmospherics. Overseeing the feat in real time was Head Laser Technician and Programmer, Olly Yates; Laser Technician, James Manning, and Laser Systems Technician, Harry Snell.
“It’s always a pleasure to work with Tom and the team at Siyan, as well as our colleagues in other departments, we have a great working relationship with Amrit from MistFX and Myles from Explosive SFX,” Matt Heap, Director of Projects, commented. “The great thing about working together is that we were all striving to give the audience the best show possible.”
Taking care of the high-altitude pyrotechnics element on the show was Explosive SFX, who enlisted 17 crew members that worked tirelessly to ensure the roof fireworks, which featured over 1,500 shots of pyro, went off without a hitch. The vendor utilised a FireCTRL G3 System with 30 slave modules, and for the finale sequence a Galaxis firing system.
“Inevitably, a one-off show will always feature curveballs, but it was generally straightforward for us,” said Myles Wynne-Pedder, Director at Explosive SFX. “The team at Siyan were fantastic and provided us with everything we requested for this show. Additionally, George from Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was integral in allowing us to shoot such a large quantity of pyrotechnics from the roof of the stadium.”
Carbon offsetting was important to Explosive SFX, with the vendor supporting the Just One Tree Project, which sees them planting a tree for every 10kg of CO2 produced, with the aim to be net carbon zero by the end of the year. “So far, we have planted 3,000 trees! We’re proud to support the project and ensure all our used pyro is stripped and recycled after the show,” Wynne-Pedder said.
Creative Technology were drafted in for the video element of the show. “For a one-off show there was an enormous amount of screen used for the show, it was a huge wrap around set, and the pixel count was through the roof,” Tom Walsh, Music & Touring at Creative Technology, said. CT supplied an enormous amount of ROE Visual CB5 LED panels. “It was great to be a part of a project that is out of the mainstream; you could tell that it meant a lot to the audience that we put on a good show,” Walsh added. “The whole crew put in a huge effort to pull it off in time and left no stone unturned.”
All Access Staging & Production provided five carpenters for the production and looked after three 45ft truck worths of equipment for a 250ft long stage, Martyn Drew, Senior Project Manager, took up the story: “It was a privilege to be involved in such an incredible event with such a great artist, we used our Versa staging walk through framing system to allow Arijit to move around without any trip hazards – aiding his walk to get to the two scissor lifts and stair lift that we had installed.”
Despite working across different departments, Grant doesn’t forget to mention the expertise of Clair Global and Team Audio. “Andy Walker and Mark Isbister were crucial to ensuring we had a show,” Grant said. “We could not have done it without their help and flexibility.”
Words: Alicia Pollitt
Photos: Siyan
