KATY PERRY
“Another paintbrush is the 78 TMB Solaris Flare Q+ LRs in the fascia, which are super bright and allow us to do a lot of fun stuff with programming and a couple with bitmap effects in the disguise media servers. We also have Chroma-Q Colour Force II 48’s and 72 lining the front edge of the stage, the thrust, and the B-stage, and some GLP impression X4 Bar 20’s on the floor. The bi-part video wall opens and closes to reveal a circle truss behind it, loaded with 24 Claypaky Mythos 2’s, and a torm wall behind that with over 100 GLP X4’s.” Gnagey said: “The Scenius Unicos and Flare LRs are the brightest fixtures of their type I’ve ever seen - I can’t say enough great things about them. We do a lot of aggressive programming where everything is master-planned, so it’s nice to have fixtures you can rely on to handle what we’re slamming out of the console.” The tour also made use of RC4 Wireless’ new RC4Magic Series 3 SX software, which controlled the LEDs in Perry’s props and some of her costumes with 19-bit per colour wireless dimming. In particular, an RC4Magic S3 2.4SX DMXio-HG transceiver and an RC4 S3 2.4SX DMX4dim was used to illuminate the massive inflatable lion head fabricated by Landmark Creations that dominates the stage for the song, Roar. According to the manufacturer, ease of use is one of the hallmarks of the RC4 Wireless system, where all of the products work in a similar manner known as ‘Harmonized Design’. “The beauty of the RC4 Harmonized Design is that new concepts, techniques, and methods introduced for one product or project can seamlessly transfer to all our other products. Thus, overcoming the 16-bit barrier and delivering 19-bit per colour LED dimming in our DMX4dim results in higher resolution dimming in our LumenDim and W-DIM lines as well. The same is true when new dimmer curves and other features are added. Everything advances together, is debugged and tested together, and is released together,” said James David Smith, President and Chief Developer at RC4 Wireless.
“The RC4 equipment has been working flawlessly; technically, there have been no issues at all. The learning curve with the RC4 equipment was pretty seamless and it all made sense to us,” said Lighting Crew Chief, Thomas Walls. The crew spent 7 weeks in rehearsals at Pennsylvania’s Rock Lititz campus, which allowed them the time to integrate elements of the show, such as lighting, automation and video, and control it all from the MA Lighting grandMA2 manned by Gnagey at FOH. He explained: “We definitely took the MA2 to the next level on this one. We fully use and integrate the XYZ positioning system within the console, which makes it extremely efficient. We get a lot of information from the TAIT guys in the automation department - they send us ArtNet triggers so we can see what’s moving and when, which ensures that all of the spotlight cues are hit perfectly. “We also use a lot of position-based focus information in regards to Katy, the props and the dancers, as they’re all over the stage constantly during the show. Everything was recorded with XYZ values vs. pan / tilt values, and we calibrate the rig every day to make sure it’s correct. No matter where truss hangs and where the stage ends up in the venue, we can be sure the lighting focuses are in the same place every night.” He continued: “This integration allows us very tight control of all the PSN (PosiStageNet) stuff we’re doing. Overall, it’s a great system for us and has been rock solid since day one.” Walls gave further detail: “There’s one fibre line for 4 networks and we use managed switches to control everything. The whole show is timecoded, and I have 8 lighting guys on headsets in the rare case that something happens. Despite the synergy created by this holistic approach to the show’s visuals - more on this later - Gnagey’s mixed duties also meant that he had to be on top for to keep every aspect as consistent as possible from city to city. He said: “There’s a lot of moving parts on a show this size, so you have 64
