Rotherham rock band The Reytons headlined their biggest ever gig outside Yorkshire when they played OVO Arena Wembley. Bringing South Yorkshire to the capital was a labour of love for the band and their production team.
Doncaster-based Infinity Production Group was the lead technology supplier, with Insert Productions’ Connor Hill fulfilling the role of Production Manager – continuing a long-standing relationship, stretching back over several years from when Hill’s former band The Novus played in a pub which The Reytons used to regularly drink at.
The creative brief was to produce a football-themed stage set, with lighting and video design complimenting the onstage aesthetic.
Central to the design as a 15m by 3m LED screen, supplied and installed by Insert Productions. Downstage, sat a 5m tall plexiglass model of the FA Cup trophy. Football goals and a 7m by 1m LED banner mimicking a football stadium’s advertising boards completed the onstage design.
Infinity Production Group’s Matt Mason took on the role of Lighting Designer, creating an atmospheric visual experience which made full use of the arena’s space.
Discussing the gig, Matt said: “Infinity Production Group partnered with Insert Productions to bring the design to life. Most of the lighting was supplied by Insert Productions, with additional equipment provided by PRG – including rehearsal facilities. Prior to shipping all the equipment to Wembley, we built and tested the entire rig in PRG’s Loxngbridge warehouse.”
The lighting rig consisted of exclusively LED fixtures, using Ayrton Rivale, CHAUVET Professional Strike M and Rogue R3X washes, ACME Lighting PIXEL LINE IP, Robe Pointe, and ROXX Lighting Cluster B2 blinder lights.
Commenting on the choice of lighting fixtures, Mason said: “The budget on the production had modest limits, so we wanted to make the biggest impact we could for the money we spent. We used two over-stage trusses, with a front truss, floor lights and two pods imitating football stadium floodlights either side of the stage. We lined each truss with ACME Pixel Line LED battens, creating three bold lines of light above the stage. Moving lights and effects lights around the rig added to the atmosphere, heightened by two MDG low foggers creating a misty vibe.”
Jack Timmins, Lighting Programmer and Operator, added: “The lighting design did a great job of highlighting the band on stage and lighting the audience too when we turned the blinders up. One of the key elements I loved was the two banks of 16 CHAUVET Professional Strike Ms, hung diagonally stage left and right which looked like football floodlights.
“For a thoroughly independent band, who put their fans front and centre – this was a perfect setup for The Reytons. Whether through bringing the lights up when lead singer Jonny Yerrell chatted to the audience, or when we kicked huge inflatable footballs into the audience, the crowd were as much a part of the show as the band on stage.”
Independence is very important to The Reytons; they self-release all their records and enlisted another independent, Communion One, as the promoter for their Wembley gig.
The Reytons believe passionately about supporting up and coming young professionals and are undeterred by inexperience. Many of the team who brought the Wembley gig to life were given their first major role in the industry by The Reytons.
The budget for Wembley was carefully managed. Not because the band wanted to make a big profit, but so they could keep ticket prices low. £37.50 for an arena show in 2025 is unheard of, yet the band knew most of their fans would be travelling down from Yorkshire and wanted neither to price them out of being able to come, nor make a profit at their expense.
As the song title, and rallying call between fans goes: “We’re all Reytons, ain’t we?”
Their big night out in London didn’t just need to look good, it had to sound good, too. Audio equipment was supplied by Solotech, with Chris Sherwin as FOH Engineer and Alex Walters as Monitor Engineer.
The PA design utilised d&b audiotechnik KSL array boxes, with two main hangs, with additional side hangs and front fills creating an immersive spatial audio experience. d&b SL GSUBs provided low frequency playback.
Support acts Youth Killed It and Pigeon Detectives were mixed on a Yamaha CL5, with an Allen & Heath dLive 128 channel digital mixing console being used for The Reytons.
The audio package included microphones, with a monitor system including in-ear monitors. Insert Productions’ Ryan Staplehurst fulfilled the role of Media Server Engineer, operating a Resolume system which combined pre-rendered content with live camera feeds.
Discussing the video system, Staplehurst said: “We chose Absen 2.5mm LED panels for all the screens due to its superior brightness and definition over lower pixel pitch products. Content was fed to the screens via a Pixelhue P20 switcher and NovaStar MX30 LED processors from a Resolume media server. The show content was a combination of pre-rendered footage integrated with live camera feeds supplied by Surdevan Creative.
“All the content was timecoded, including live segments, which we manually manipulated in realtime using Resolume video effects tools. We specified Resolume over other media servers due to its combination of high performance and ease of use. Surdevan did a fantastic job of providing us with a program feed from manned cameras at front of house, roaming cameras onstage and remote PTZ cameras positioned around the stage.”
Special effects, a key part of the show, were designed and operated by Insert Productions’ Connor Hill, who brings six years of SFX experience to the role: “The band really wanted to give the fans an epic show to remember; a massive visual ingredient was SFX features like confetti canons, flame and CO2 jets. Mist FX supplied all the products, one of their team was onsite to install them in Wembley and I triggered the effects during the show. The result of which was hopefully a stunning event in the lives of Reytons fans, with thousands and thousands of pictures and videos shared on social media and in group chats.”
Discussing the overall experience from his position as Production Manager, Connor Hill added: “We’re proud of what we achieved with limited time and money for the one-off show. Being a singular event, there was the potential for costs to spiral out of control, or timeframes stretched, which could have resulted in compromises being made. Thanks to the commitment, creativity and professionalism of the entire production team, we produced a show within all budget and creative requirements.”
Words and photos: Matt Rakowski
