SPICE GIRLS
The team from Brilliant Stages; FOH Engineer, Jim Ebdon & Producer, David Odlum Monitor Engineer, Neal Allen; Choreographer and Stage Director, Paul Roberts & Creative Director, Lee Lodge.
sufficient rigging capacity to suspend the video ring and other core elements. When heavy-duty hoists were needed to suspend the IMAG and Ring safely, Star Events supplied two packages of five tonne LoadGuard hoists and control from its inventory to meet requirements. At the top of the structure, a bespoke, cantilevered curved header truss linked to custom straight sections across the wings, providing a seamless video train. Star Events also designed, built and rigged identical aluminium header systems for each touring stage with over 300 custom suspension brackets to allow the screen modules to be quickly installed across the full width of the stage header. With Star Event’s head of structures Pete Holdich overseeing the whole project, the Thurleigh company’s 13 crew were boosted by up to 48 locals while one project manager was allocated to each system, namely Sarah Howlett, Phil Addyman and Rachel King. Holdich commented: “It was a tight schedule that had to interface with the advance production so we had three complete touring stage systems with three customised header arrangements to support the video header which itself ran to a different load-in schedule. We worked closely with Universal Pixels to develop the ladder frame system that supported the video header and then created a custom bracket that would fit to the video panels to allow smooth and rapid interface on to the stage during the advance scheduling. “We were on a three in, one out schedule. After day two of our build, we had to be ready for the advance production to come in and hang the video, lights and hoist pre-rigging, so that the full production could be handed over on day three.” A further challenge came when the teams loaded in at Wembley, where
Stageco was fulfilling a residential contract with Live Nation that demanded a Super Roof system formed of 280 tonnes of materials designed to cover all bases. Roel Voeten managed the project alongside Jelte Smets and Gert Hulsmans from Stageco’s R&D department, and Mario Dockx who created the drawings, incorporating “endless” changes to match the headlining acts’ configurations and rigging plots. “Moving everything over to a Stageco stage for Wembley required a lot of work because the show wasn’t designed for it, even though we were considering a certain amount of flexibility early on,” remarked Gittins. “The touring systems were designed to deal with specific weight loads, so there was some to-ing and fro-ing involved in matching Star Event’s elements with Stageco’s structure. Holdich added: “The header was our system. We took the truss that was effectively part of the regional shows’ main stage and turned it into a mother grid system, applied the same header and came up with a rigging solution to get it all suspended within the Stageco stage.” SPICE UP YOUR LIGHTS Lighting Designer, Tim Routledge’s priority was to accentuate the glamour of the four female icons and their cast both onstage and on screen, whilst ensuring that kicking off in daylight would not be an obstacle to delivering a powerful introduction. “It’s a full visual assault with Spice Up Your Life right from the top of the show,” he said. “Where some stadium shows lack punch until it gets dark but here there’s no holding back!” The tour’s lighting systems were provided by PRG, headed by Rich Gorrod and Aidan McCabe. Working closely with programmer and Tour Lighting Director, Tom Young, Routledge commented: “This was never 46
