ON THE ROAD: Britney Spears
Opposite: Britney Spears in the spotlight; The Femme Fatale album cover. Below: The production involved 16 dancers and various props and scene changes; Production Manager, Lawrence ‘Filet’ Mignogna; Lighting Director, Marty Postma; Video Director, Kevin Carswell, Video Crew Chief, Adam Dragonsin, and Video Engineer, Jason Lipton.
control everything from the software back stage, making it almost seamless,” said Froggy. “The product is ‘A Plus’, it’s smaller than the previous model and has a rechargeable battery pack. Size is very important for a female artist, because it should fit nicely into the wardrobe outfits. We’ve had zero issues with the product in any of the arenas, anywhere in the world,” he assured. Spears used a Crown C311 customised
headset, which Froggy told us has “the best rejection and on-stage volume.” Primarily, Spears used the C-311 but switches to a Sennheiser 5200 with a 5235 capsule for a section on a swing, creating a more intimate performance for her audience. For IEMs, eight Sennheiser G3’s were
used. A total of eight wedge mixes were generated, powered by
Lab.gruppen. The wedges comprised 12 Clair 12AMs, which were grounded with four Clair R-4’s for side fill, finishing with two Clair ML-18’s for the band’s low-end accompaniment for ear mixes. RF and Wireless Tech, Luis Espinal, was using
the Shure Axient Wireless Manager to keep the Femme Fatale tour on cue and running smoothly. Spears’ used the Shure SKM 5200 microphone with an MD 5235 capsule. For Systems Engineer, David Coyle, working
for pop princess Britney Spears in 2011 has seen almost a decade go by since they first toured together, with the audio pro first becoming acquainted with Spears’ live sound on her North American Dream Within A Dream tour. Spears tours remain a Clair Brothers audio
account, utilising the i3 sound system. A massive 96 boxes of i3’s are used via three hang points, on the side, main and delay areas on the stage. The i3 PA system is configured by 20 boxes on
each of the main hangs, 16 flown on each side hang, complemented by 12 deep on the delay system towards the back of the arena. The subs comprise 24 Clair BT218’s (16 flown and eight ground stacked), with a further eight P2’s used for front fill. Said Coyle, “I’ve worked for Clair
independently for 10 years, but the best thing is that it’s an international network system, so it’s easy to get support on any tour, no matter where you are in the world. “The hardest part of my job,” continued
Coyle, “Is making sure that the system is in one piece and fully working at each venue. And the loading in and out of small buildings!” A further advantage of using this PA system
is that it rigs very quickly (in around three hours - about an hour once the motors are flown), before the i3’s are powered by
Lab.gruppen PLM 20,000 Q amps (72 in total), processed via Dolby Lake.
A SOLID LIGHTING VISION Collaboration between multiple members of the production crew was instrumental in the successful development of Femme Fatale’s visual concepts. When Marty Postma became Lighting Director on Spears’ touring team, he worked closely with Lighting Designer Tom Beck and Lighting Programmer Dan Boland during the rehearsal period at Sony Studios, Los Angeles. “The design was completed by Tom and then
my role was to run lighting on a day-to-day basis and implement his vision. Before we came to Europe, we scaled the tour back somewhat. In the US, the show featured a long runway thrust on the secondary B stage and a whole other lighting system went along with that,” explained Postma.
“Tom didn’t want anything to overstep what
was happening on stage. There had to be a solid lighting presence, but not something that was going to distract attention away. We also worked with the video team to pick colours that balanced so the show looked more unified.” Discussions also took place between the
lighting and laser team early on in the rehearsal stage to ensure lighting was pulled back at appropriate times to allow the lasers to become more visible. MA Lighting’s grandMA 1 was the preferred
console for the show, fitting in perfectly with the way in the lighting crew work. The desk was a natural choice for Programmer Boland, who uses it regularly and finds it easiest to build cues with. According to Postma, the grandMA, which ran 20 Universes of DMX during the show, was a solid platform throughout the US and European legs of the tour. PRG Nocturne was vendor for both lighting
and video on the tour, supplying an extensive list of lighting equipment including the company’s 30-inch tall BAT truss. “The whole lighting system is fairly straightforward - it snaps together really fast because everything is in the pre-rig truss. This means the lights live in the truss so they don’t have to come on and off and you don’t need a lot of truck space for them,” said Postma. A total of 40 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500
Washes were spread out evenly through the rig, along with 40 VL3000 Spots and 16 VL2500 Washes. This was complemented by 14 PRG Bad Boy units, which were selected due to the hard-edged spot fixture’s brightness. A further 28 Martin Professional Atomic strobes with colour scrollers featured in the lighting set-up, alongside 168 Chroma-Q Colour Force LEDs,
TPi JANUARY 2012 • 51
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