FLOYDIAN HOMAGE

FLOYDIAN HOMAGE posted: 27/01/2016

ENTEC is at the hub of The Australian Pink Floyd Show's new, 2016 tour design

It's 2pm on a cold and wet Saturday at Millennium Studios, and the unmistakable sound of Comfortably Numb' is gently wafting into the car park from an open door. Inside the cavernous A' Stage, the band in residence is The Australian Pink Floyd Show, the outfit that since the late '80s has been steadily progressing and refining its sonic and visual recreation of the rock icons' music to such a degree that even a die-hard fan of the originals could not fail to appreciate.

What began as a tribute band has gradually become a mega homage', bearing all the production values and technical prowess of a major arena attraction. And in 48 hours from now, the Aussie Floyd' (or TAPFS) will load out of the Bedfordshire rehearsal complex and head over the Channel to the Zenith in Dijon, to play its first show of the year.

TAPFS' lighting director and programmer Tom Mumby

For the last 13 years, Entec Sound & Light has remained at the epicentre of TAPFS' development, not only servicing the band's production needs but also offering guidance. The 2016 tour - spanning Europe all winter and spring, then landing in the UK towards the end of the year - is the latest to benefit from Entec's considerable lighting inventory and experienced crew, but the first to summon the talents of renowned production designer Rob Sinclair and lighting designer Louisa Smurthwaite who, together with TAPFS' lighting director and programmer, Tom Mumby, have created the band's first all-new show design since 2011.

Lighting designer Louisa Smurthwaite

We are now playing around 100 shows a year and our pattern is to change the show design every four to five years, explains Kevin Hopgood of the band's management company, Pull The Pin Out. Having always approached the design a certain way, we wanted to look at it with a fresh eye this time and the best way is usually to bring in new people whose work you admire. Some aspects are unavoidable, the circular projection screen being obvious because it's so iconic, but there are ways of doing it and that was our driving force. The way we deal with graphics is also an interesting part of what we do. It's all handled in-house by our multi-talented guitarist Dave Fowler who also creates the video content that will no doubt evolve throughout the year.

DELIVERING THAT SPACE CADET GLOW

Adele, Queen + Adam Lambert, Peter Gabriel, Miley Cyrus and Mumford & Sons are among the many leading acts featured on Rob Sinclair's enviable CV. Together with Louisa Smurthwaite, he has most recently worked on tours by Kylie Minogue and Florence And The Machine (with Entec) and the latest TAPFS production once again reunites the pair.

Rob and I work together often, and when he was asked to give Tom Mumby a hand with the new design, I was delighted to become a part of it, says Smurthwaite. Pink Floyd is one of the handful of bands whose tours have defined progression so it's a daunting task to start adhering to those values when you have a fraction of their budget, but it's equally an exciting prospect. I've watched old live videos for inspiration but, ultimately, you have to reply on your own interpretation of a particular cue in a song or you'll get very bogged down with the minutiae of everything.

With support from Entec's Noreen O'Riordan, Adam Stevenson, crew chief Tom Crosbie and lighting technician Klins Kanger, and tour/production manager Chris Gadd, the Sinclair-Smurthwaite-Mumby triumvirate sought to create a cleaner, more modern look from the lighting rig with Martin Mac Aura XB compact LED wash heads providing the backbone of the show.

Smurthwaite: The XBs introduce the audience to the circular truss and screen, and give us that Hello, we're Pink Floyd' look, making all the big statements within the show. We have them around the circle to give the video screen definition and in a big wall up top. These fixtures are very dominating - they give us a high level of colour and punch, and make us look large. They're positioned as such to give us that robotic, Floyd look. One gets used to a certain quality of light output that informs your choice of go to' fixtures, and Rob and I agree that the XB is a workhorse in that respect.

While the XB handles all the colour mixing and pushes of even light, the other main light source is Clay Paky's Mythos, a versatile, hybrid fixture offering profile and beam features. The Mythos live below our XBs at the back, says Smurthwaite. They're our wings', basically, and give us a big wall of light. In the process of taking the design back to scratch, we moved the existing Robe 600 LED fixtures from the front truss and put them at the back with Mythos on the floor, achieving our even spread from floor to ceiling. That helps us achieve our big Mythos look with our hard edges and gobos.

The front truss is now populated by Clay Paky Alpha Spot QWO 800s. These are used to light some of the fun parts of the show, such as the inflatable pig and kangaroo, and the dancing Teacher, picking out these elements to help drive some audience emotion.

Another key feature of the lighting rig is the Showtec Sunstrip LED bar. The Sunstrips give us really good definition along the edge of the stage and in our lighting ladders, and give us a good framework to work around the circle, Smurthwaite explains. They fill out the set with a modern yet tungsten vibe, leaving no gaps; it'll translate both in theatres and in arenas, and they'll look good on camera.

The band itself owns a few items of must-have' technology including a Hippotizer media server, the ChamSys Magic-Q lighting console and wing piloted by Tom

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