One man, one mic and one big mission-critical challenge to
get it perfect every night – and that’s what Adlib delivered daily for the
latest Russell Howard ‘in-the-round’ arena tour.
Adlib, the Liverpool based company, supplied audio and
lighting for the UK arena leg of the tour – the biggest to date for the
highly-acclaimed award winning stand-up comedian who delights audiences
worldwide with his intelligence, wit and hilarity.
Adlib’s audio team was led by George Puttock who worked
closely with Russell’s FOH engineer Simon Lawson.
George specified a Coda Audio AiRAY system for a number of
different reasons; its unrivalled light weight, its excellent sound quality and
projection, as well as the precise horizontal control. The fact it is quick and
easy to rig was an added bonus for the crew.
The core system comprised of eight hangs of 8 x AiRAY, with
8 x ViRAY downfills each. These were flown either side of four LED screens
rigged at cardinal points about the stage.
Each day a completely bespoke variation of this system was
rigged and optimised to suit the exact conditions and nuances of the room, to
deliver the punch lines to every seat in the house.
Coda Audio’s Linus 10 amplifiers were suspended from an inner
truss placed in a square behind the eight hangs, to facilitate neat cable
management and short speaker cable runs. In addition to Coda Audio’s Linus Live
control software, Adlib designed a bespoke power control and monitoring
solution providing individual control and monitoring of each amplifier from the
ground. “We couldn’t risk having any circuit breakers in the air, with the
inability to reset them mid-show,” said Puttock.
Audio was transported using Coda’s LINET signal distribution
system, primarily for its absolute zero latency and high resilience. LINET was
also perfect due to the long cable runs often encountered in getting to the
centre of the arena from the control position.
All the processing and control was managed in the flown
amplifiers; the signal being sent there from the DiGiCo SD9 FOH console. An
SD11 was provided as a backup console, with a tried and tested Spirit Folio
providing the ultimate backup for the completely discreet analogue backup
system!
Russel Howard doesn’t use IEMs, so six Coda TiRAY were flown
on the ‘East’ and ‘West’ sides of the stage for monitoring. Twelve more TiRAY
positioned around the lip of stage provided front-fill, their tiny form factor
being ideal for sight-lines and the cameras.
The artist specified his own mic which was a wireless Shure
Beta SM58.
George worked alongside a solid Adlib team of Tony Szabo,
Simon Lawson, Billy Bryson, Steph Fleming and Antonio Calvi. He engaged in a
serious amount of advance work beforehand, knowing that all the venues were
very different and the PA would have to change to suit day-to-day.
“Using this Coda AiRAY system was the best solution for this
scenario because it’s SO predictable” he commented, “it does exactly what the
software tells you it’s going to do and that makes for a very easy day on
site”.
With this reassurance, he could concentrate on his first
essential job each day; thoroughly checking the position of the rigging points
and adjusting the ‘plan’ to take into account any unforeseen eventualities
accordingly.
“Splendid and tremendous” commented Puttock, “It was a great
tour, extremely well organised with harmony from all departments. The crew and
the system delivered and there was lots of laughter throughout, both from the
audience and from the crew!”
Lighting
A production lighting design was created by Adlib’s Ian
Tomlinson which brought a clean, stylish, elegant look to the stage, and most
importantly, was focussed on lighting Russell Howard for the cameras and IMAG
relay. This was crucial as it allowed all of the audience to see the detail and
nuances of his facial expressions as he delivered his gags.
The lighting crew chief was Charlie Rushton who also worked
on the last Russell Howard tour, and not surprisingly, the challenge for
lighting was getting all the necessary cabling from the middle of the room to
the distros which involved anything from 20 metre to 80 metre runs and some
serious management.
Thirty-two sections of Prolyte pre-rigged trussing were used
in total, 16 x 10ft. sections of S36PRA and 16 x 8ft. sections of S46PRT. Twelve
of the 8fts formed a hexagonal shape with the addition of some custom spreader
bars to make the angles correct.
Offstage from the hexagon were four front trusses one
covering each of the four ‘sides’ of the stage, made up from four 10 ft. and an
8 ft. section in the middle.
The moving lights on each truss were four MAC Viper Profiles,
while four Chauvet STRIKE 4 LED blinders were pointed into the audience with a
large gap in the centre of the four front trusses to facilitate CT’s IMAG LED
screens.
On the six sides of the hexagon truss were four MAC Auras
and two more MAC Viper Profiles.
Eleven Chauvet Colorado Batten 72 Tours were utilised for
footlights around the edge of the stage ensconced in between each of the PA
front-fills to warm up his face and fill some small gaps in the overall spread
of lighting.
For follow spotting – an essential element in this set up –
four Robert Juliat Merlins were specified and positioned out in the house at
the quarter-points to the stage. One result of being in-the-round was the need
to pull back on the intensity so these did not blind the audience members
sitting on the opposite side to their throw path.
Lighting operator Tom Webber used a pair of Hog 4 Full Boars
spec’d by Ian for control.
The opening involved some flashing effect which was fired and
synched to timecode. There were two signature looks – one for the walk-in and
one for theshow which were carefully constructed to give contrast. The show
scene lighting was balanced to ensure that Russell Howard was well lit for all
camera angles – and Ian Tomlinson had to have his DoP head on when he designed
this as well as his LD one!
“We’ve had a lot of experience with lighting comedy shows”
commented Charlie, “which is a great asset in getting the perfect mix for each
different artist’s performance”.
Charlie and Tom worked with Adlib lighting technician Jon
Barlow and dimmer impresario Jeff Bond.
All the data distribution was over ArtNet using Luminex
nodes which were placed on the end of the cable bridge and broken out from
there to feed the lighting on the trusses above the stage.
A wireless multicore was run to stage using a pair of
Ubiquiti Bullets to create a 5 GHz WIFI network – one located on the cable
bridge with the Luminex nodes and one under the stage with another node. The
data comfortably travelled this height every day and the system proved very
reliable as well as saved at least 30 minutes a day on cabling.
A GreenGo wireless comms was run out to the four follow spot
positions, with the GreenGo antenna also sitting at the end of the cable bridge
which saved having to run out 400 plus metres of XLR daily!
A standard analogue TechPro comms system was used for the
show as the distances made it more efficient to run cables for this element of
the production.
Adlib’s Client Manager Phil Kielty commented, “We’ve had a
really busy 2017 so far with lots of comedy projects on tour. It’s always good
to push boundaries and we’ve also been thrilled with the results of the Coda PA
in-the-round on this one.
“We’re fortunate enough to have been involved with Russell
for nearly 10 years now! I first saw him performing at the Unity Theatre in
Liverpool around 2007 and I am still a massive fan. Adlib thrives in a comedy
environment and Russell and the team at Avalon all strive to be the best at
what they do – so it’s a great match! Our thanks to James Taylor and Bjorn
Wentlandt at Avalon and Tour Manager Kumar Kamalagharan for another excellent
arena tour.”
http://www.adlib.co.uk
