It's in Their

CONCERTS Copyright Lighting &Sound America October 2019 complete issue: http://plasa.me/a4a92

It’s in their DNA The Backstreet Boys’ design team builds a show around the group’s singular identity

By: Sharon Stancavage Photos: Ralph Larmann

62 • October 2019 • Lighting &Sound America

The V-shaped video screen and upstage video wall are both automated using TAIT’s Navigator system and Nav-Hoists.

his can rival any pop market tour going on right 40'-deep diamond-shaped thrust surrounding a central VIP now,” says Backstreet Boys production pit. The thrust has a scissor-lift elevator in its front, which designer/production manager Dan Mercer. He’s rises to 12' above stage level, almost 20' above the floor. been with the band for the past five years, begin - It’s like having a B stage.” A 17'-wide x 4'-deep lift in the ning as a production manager before moving into main stage is used for entrances. The stage and accompa - design. “The Vegas residency started a huge revival nying automation have been provided by TAIT. “Tfor the guys over the last three years that has taken them Mercer continues, “I call the stage riser design, inspired from ‘90s boy band to a sold-out world touring act,” he by that diamond shape Brian came up with, the wedding adds. cake. It has a [Martin by Harman] Sceptron [linear batten] Lighting designer Graham Anderson notes, “The band outline and it has [GLP impression] X4 Bar 10s, under - didn’t want it to look like all the other tours out there, so neath the stairs, that shine through. We don’t have a band we needed a design that had a unique identity.” To achieve onstage, so the risers give some height and staging this goal, the Backstreet Boys worked alongside the cre - dynamics to the boys dancing during the show.” ative team. “It was Brian [Littrell] who, in an early creative meeting, drew a diamond-shaped thrust on a piece of Video paper,” Mercer says. “He’s a big sports guy and he wanted “We have a 60'-wide x 24'-high video wall, as well as a a big, five-way baseball diamond. We took the idea and V screen in front that matches the shape of the front of ran with it. It’s the shape of the thrust, the risers, and sub - the thrust 32' x 12' high,” Mercer explains. Both are tly appears in other aspects of the design.” automated using Tait’s Navigator system and Nav- The stage, Mercer notes, “is 60' wide x 40' deep with a Hoists. The video walls, provided by PRG, consist of

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • October 2019 • 63 CONCERTS

Above: The Vortex, made up of 400 Martin by Harman Sceptrons in custom frames made by TAIT. Opposite: Pyro, courtesy of ER Productions, adds another layer of excitement to the production.

Winvision Air 9 panels. The answer was providing it with a mother grid truss and Video is delivered using two disguise [formerly d3 working with Tait to figure out the best way to tour this Technologies] gx 2 media servers with Notch, the real-time complex design, night after night,” notes Curry Grant, vice workflow for production of video content. Mercer explains, president, sales at PRG, the show’s lighting vendor. “The video content is from Core Creative Labs; it was “Nestled between each Vortex truss are six automated supervised by the creative directors, Rich +Tone.” Four lighting trusses to give the show even more dynamics,” cameras, directed by Randall Garriott, provide IMAG: two Anderson explains. Mercer adds, “We have seven lighting long lenses at the front of house and two handhelds in the pods full of Ayrton MagicBlade-R units; there are 63.” pit. A fleet of robo cams provides reference and safety Anderson confides, “I would say almost all of the fix - monitoring. tures are new to me. Dan Mercer and I wanted to move away from fixtures we’d used for years, so we definitely Lighting went looking for the latest and greatest in each area. I did Anderson notes, “I started as [the group’s] lighting director try each new fixture individually on various television per - towards the end of their In A World Like This Tour in 2015, formances with the Boys leading up to the tour. I had the continued as lighting director on their Las Vegas Larger [GLP] JDC1s, which are magnificent, on Ellen , and the Than Life residency, and am the lighting designer for all [Vari-Lite] VL4000 BeamWash on Jimmy Fallon . I sort of their festival and television appearances. The residency test-drove them before settling on exactly what I wanted [See LSA , December 2017] set the bar pretty high, so to us.” There are 41 VL4000s and 37 GLP JDC1 strobes in there was definitely a desire to give the fans something the rig. even bigger.” “The PRG Icon Edge [66 in all] is the workhorse of the To frame the stage, Anderson and Mercer created The show,” Anderson says. “Its versatility lends itself to being Vortex. “It is part of that unique visual identity that I utilized in every song. It doesn’t matter if you need a noted,” Anderon says. “It’s made up of over 400 Sceptrons super-bright beam look or a wide spot with a subtle fitted in custom frames made by TAIT, hanging from eight breakup; it can do it for you. I’m really loving that fixture.” trusses.” Fabricating it wasn’t easy. “The biggest challenge For followspots, Anderson is using a PRG was the rigging puzzle of the Sceptron Vortex structure. GroundControl system with PRG Bad Boys. “This is the

64 • October 2019 • Lighting &Sound America first time I’ve been able to get these for the Backstreet overnight programming that Joey absolutely smashed,” Boys and they are a real game-changer,” he says. Anderson says, adding, “There are layers upon layers of “Obviously, it’s great to have so much control over the fix - time code. I’m also calling the five followspots, which is tures from the desk but the best part is being able to have always a handful, so the more I can time-code the better.” five spots in a perfect position night after night. I’m sure David Commisso, onboard as the show caller, says, “We any LD with more than one principal has had to deal with have a team of about 20 people who run the production ‘Where are the spots going today?’ when you walk into the and I am the center point for the communication. It’s my arena, so I’m happy to be avoiding that.” responsibility to ensure that each team member knows Anderson notes, “We’ve worked closely with Curry Grant exactly what’s coming up in the show and where they need and Eamonn McCullagh at PRG through the residency and to be. The nature of the show is that things change, and no festival dates, so it was fantastic to have the opportunity to two nights are the same. I am in constant communication collaborate with them again. They’ve given me one of the amongst all departments, allowing us to quickly and seam - best lighting crews in the business—headed up by John lessly adapt to whatever situation may arise. There is also a Flynn—so I couldn’t be happier with them.” PRG also pro - lot of automation on the show; trusses move, the Boys vided a global solution for the tour. “PRG’s worldwide sup - come up and down on lifts, and the giant video wall flies in port made it possible to duplicate the exact same package and out. My direction as show caller allows for consistency overseas instead of shipping gear. This was especially of the original design.” important for this tour, which had rehearsals in Lititz and Commisso uses Shoflo event production software. “The then their first show in Lisbon, Portugal,” Grant says. best feature with this system is that the production crew Anderson operates the show on an MA Lighting can track the cue-to-cue progression of the show in real grandMA2 console, programmed by Joey Troup. “With so time,” he says. “We have all the different elements of the many pixel-based fixtures, there was a lot of tedious show split up in columns, and each of the rows broken up

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • October 2019 • 65 CONCERTS

into verse/chorus and so on. As part of each row, the thing, but they are great to work with and here I am.” columns include sections of song, time code, lyrics, block - The Backstreet Boys perform without a band. “Other ing chart, wardrobe looks, screen content looks, plus all of artists are using tracks that are processed, mastered, and the cues for each department. Shoflo allows crew to track done in a professional studio,” McCullagh says. “They’re myself calling the show live and can be accessed by mixed perfectly, and you put it through the PA. The prob - Internet for people to track, whether they’re inside the lem with those tracks is that they are not live and dynamic, building or not. The amount of information I have stored on and it’s obvious to the audience that they are not real. The Shoflo means that, throughout each section, we have a way around it was to re-record everything and have the clear picture of every aspect, allowing me or any crew dynamics; if the drummer hits softly, it’s soft; if he hits member to see what else is going on at any given time.” hard, it’s hard.” McCullagh adds, “Financially and creatively, it made Special effects more sense not to have a live band onstage—there was no Special effects are provided by ER Productions. “We have space to fit them—but all the tracks are separated like a big laser package,” Mercer says. “There are six ER there is a live one. In essence, there is a live band; the Storms—high power scanning lasers—and 18 BB4s— kick, the snare, the hat, the toms, and all of the pro - small, compact lasers with audience-diffraction optics. grammed drums were replayed, all the percussion was Four ER Storms are integrated into the rear lighting pods redone, the brass was redone, and they brought in an behind the screen, with two additional units placed far orchestra and they redid all the string parts. You really feel downstage left and downstage right. The BB4 units are that when you hear the show. It feels like there’s a band; spread over three automated trusses,” states Lawrence you just can’t see them. Wright, general manager of ER Productions in the US. The “The version we have of the recorded tracks is pretty lasers appear during “Everybody,” “Backstreet’s Back,” elaborate and different [than the Vegas residency]. The “All I Have to Give” and “The Call.” tracks are probably closer to the record on some versions “We have two different types of confetti,” Mercer says. and some are completely rearranged to provide a new “For ‘Shape of My Heart,’ we do a small confetti drop of experience. They take the record and elaborate on it; it’s white hearts in the VIP area; it looks like snow. We also all arranged specifically for a live performance—to interact have a big confetti effect in the finale [“Larger Than Life”], with the lights, the video, the choreography, and the stag - where you would expect it.” Nine MagicFX Swirl Fan XLs ing. There are 22 songs there were also used in Vegas, but are “mounted on a truss flown just past the downstage this show is longer, and a lot of songs are medleyed edge and are trigged remotely from a High End Systems together.” HedgeHog 4 to vary the outputs dependent on the venue,” Monitor engineer Austin Schroeder adds, “We have Wright says. “Streamers come from four MagicFX Stadium 120-plus individual, raw, unprocessed tracks straight from Shot IIs, firing from the downstage edge in the pit out to the studio that get bussed down to 64 channels and sent cover the audience.” to our mixing consoles via MADI—separated drum chan - As for pyro, Mercer says, “We have it in the opening [“I nels, individual guitars and keyboards, etc. This gives us Wanna Be with You”] and in the closing, ‘Larger Than Life.’ ultimate control and creative freedom on how we’re able to We’re doing some stadium and outdoor dates, and for make the mix sound and create a very live-sounding those shows we do a lot more in terms of pyro.” In terms show.” of specifics, Wright notes, “The pyrotechnics consist of According to Schroeder, “We spent two to three months gerbs, multi-shot mines, and mines with tails, all fired from getting all the tracks dialed in, using as much automation the Galaxis wireless pyro control system.” as possible. The advantage is never having to worry about Of Wright’s team (lead SFX Dan Pecora, laser lead Matt a badly tuned floor tom, or a bass guitar DI that is buzzing. McCoy, and pyro tech Stu Wickens), he says, “One of the This consistency also enables us to get very precise, really biggest challenges was ensuring that the lasers can be dig in, and get detailed with fine-tuning each individual used safely in conjunction with the automation and moving track and instrument.” trusses, keeping the effects safe for not only the audience In terms of mixing at the front of house, McCullagh but performers and working personnel.” notes, “It’s different than doing a live band, and it is fun. What makes mixing a live band—or doing anything live— Audio fun is that you don’t know what you’re going to get. As Front-of-house sound engineer James McCullagh says, much as you plan, when you put it up, there’s always the “When I started with the Boys [in 2013], it was a last- ability for something to go wrong because it’s live, and minute call; I was asked if I want to go to China to mix the that creates an element of excitement.” On the Backstreet Backstreet Boys. I said ‘Sure, when?’ They said, Boys show, “We have consistency; the excitement comes ‘Tomorrow.’ So I left and I didn’t expect it to be a long-term from each audience’s unique energy and the boys feed off

66 • October 2019 • Lighting &Sound America The lighting rig includes Vari-Lite VL4000 BeamWash and GLP JDC1 units, but the workhorse unit, Anderson says, is the PRG Icon Edge.

that, which, in turn, creates its own unique experience.” the more exciting features; [the console has] a transient McCullagh runs the show on an SSL L550 console. shaper and a bunch of onboard effects and variable har - “One of the core artistic ideas for this tour was to go back, monic distortion that are awesome. The way everything take bits of the Boys’ DNA, and think about what makes goes together is really musical: You don’t have to work so them the Backstreet Boys,” he says. “What is their DNA hard to get a good mix; it’s going to do it for you. I like the made up of? From an audio perspective, we sat down and way it does snapshots, too; it accepts time code, which is tried to look at the core DNA of the Backstreet Boys great. There are a lot of orchestral transitions in this show, sound. At the heart was SSL. Most of their records were and the ability to run time code and the ability to repeat recorded and mixed on SSL consoles; that ‘90s sound and be consistent is amazing.” was the quintessential pop sound, so it made sense to go He is using a variety of Waves plug-ins: “I’m using the with that console and recreate it as true to the Boys’ DNA C6 [multiband compressor] on the main PA left and right, from an audience perspective.” He adds, “We wouldn’t F6 [Floating-Band Dynamic EQ], and J37 [Abbey Road have gone there if the console didn’t sound like an SSL. It tape saturation] for the tape on the instruments/band mix was imperative the console had the sonic signature.” group. I also have the F6 and PSE [Primary Source Interestingly, McCullagh says, “Of all the digital con - Enhancer] on each vocal. On the vocal group, I’m using soles I’ve used, [the L550] feels and mixes like an analog CLA-2A [compressor limiter], C6, an L3 limiter, console. A lot of people would say the main difference and RS56 [passive EQ plug-in] on the vocal group. Not a between console formats is that analog sounds good, but lot of plug-ins, but only a few essentials.” you have to work to get digital to sound good. With the Along with the console at the front of house, McCullagh SSL, I don’t have to do a lot of work to make it sound says, “I have an analog outboard rack, running through an good. The SSL has been so easy to use and the support SSL G Series bus comp; I like that. That goes into an SSL from the company has been amazing.” Fusion [stereo outboard processor], which is my secret He notes, “What I found most surprising was some of weapon. With our setup, everything is in the box; I

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • October 2019 • 67 CONCERTS

Confetti effects are featured in two numbers: “Shape of My Heart” and the finale, “Larger Than Life.”

approached things as if I was mixing in the studio in the my mix, but all that is the cherry on top of a great-sound - box, and that’s really what the Fusion is designed for: It’s a ing console.” mastering outboard piece for people who mix in box. It McCullagh also has a Bettermaker Limiter. “It’s fantas - provides stereo width and depth, which is really handy tic-sounding,” he says. “With sound levels in a live envi - when creating space.” The Fusion also includes “a high- ronment, the ability to control these without changing your frequency de-esser, which I use to help tame some of the mix is important. If you can reduce 2 or 3dB by limiting brighter reflections in the different arenas. It has a vintage some of the large transients in a course of an hour and a drive circuit that is amazing; it really provides the glue for half, that can really help reduce the listener’s ear fatigue.

68 • October 2019 • Lighting &Sound America For vocals, McCullagh has the Boys on a Sennheiser Digital 6000 wireless system with hand-held SKM 6000 transmitters and MD 9235 capsules. “The system sounds amazing and is fantastic on the Boys’ vocals,” he com - ments. There are also LED-infused microphone stands that utilize Wireless Solution technology: specifically, the Pro TRX DMX/RDM triple-band MCX module with a BlackBox F-1 G5. The Pro TRX modules “are installed inside the mic stands and the BlackBox is transmitting on 5GHz to avoid any possible interference to those,” notes David Ferraz, international business development manager at Wireless Solution. Reinforcement is provided by an Adamson PA. McCullagh says, “We chose that PA because it has an amazing midrange. I don’t think anyone else has that. This is the right box, since the vocals are all midrange. The boxes have a natural tone.” The PA consists of 18 Adamson E15s per side for the mains, twelve E15s and six E12s per side, and twelve S10s per side for the rear hang. For subs, there are 12 E219s per side and S10ns and IS7ps for front fill. Cameron Whaley, systems engineer, says, “From my perspective, the biggest challenge with the PA design is very common to large, visually oriented tours: working around the other elements of the production to achieve the best results possible is our biggest challenge. The tri - angular thrust goes out almost 50' in front of the main stage; it also has an automated video wall that tracks up and down along the edge. This thrust also has audience in the center and it was a challenge to find the right combi - nation of speakers to fill that area and keep the location perspective correct when the artists are on the thrust instead of the stage.” To solve the issue, he says, “We have a main hang comprised solely of 90° boxes. The side hang is larger than normal, to provide the down fill along the edge of the thrust. Even though the pit area is relatively small, we use five speakers, so when the artist is on the thrust it helps create an image that seems to come from that position.” Audio gear is being provided by Sound Image. At monitors, Schroeder is on an SSL Live L550 as well. “My favorite part about SSL is their amazing support and the help they gave our audio team with making the switch. [The consoles] sound amazing and have some unique fea - tures, such as stems, that make doing monitors and using some complicated routing schemes much easier to do.” The Bettermaker does this really well; it’s completely trans - On the Boys, Schroeder uses “Shure PSM1000 IEM parent and has a two-stage limiter, thus reducing the likeli - [personal monitoring system] transmitters with JH Roxanne ness of adding distortion through over compression. Last IEMs; I love how reliable the PSM1000s are and they make in my outboard chain is the Burl [Audio] B2 Bomber RF much easier to manage.” In fact, he adds, “Funnily A2D, which I use to convert my signal from analog back to enough, maintaining and cleaning the IEMs seem to take digital to send to the amps. It’s just one more piece that up most of my time every day!” has a really analog flavor to it; it’s the only convertor I use The Backstreet Boys’ tour continues through the begin - these days.” ning of November.