INDOCHINE

An immense in-the-round production provides a unique live experience to stadium audiences to mark the French band’s 40th anniversary.

Words: Stew Hume Photos: PRG

Among the myriad images from productions around the world this summer, the enormous water tower-esque, video-clad structure that popped up in the centre of some of France’s most famed stadiums – including Stade de France – for Indochine’s Central Tour 2022 certainly garnered its fair share of attention.

With a stage design inspired by a sketch from the French pop rock band’s frontman, Nicola Sirkis, the resulting show design proved to be an inspiring challenge for the technical teams to bring this vision to life. “Nicola wanted to offer an unforgettable experience to all the fans. Building a 360° tower in the middle of the stadium with the audio and lighting inside would allow everyone to see better and be immersed in the pure musical performance and the artistic presence,” explained Stéphane Desch, Director of Production. “He sent me multiple sketches of what he had imagined about two years ago and we started from that. In fact, the result is very close to his original concept.” To bring this concept to life, the Production collaborated closely with PRG, which provided lighting, video and rigging for this project. Also involved were suppliers Stageco, providing the staging, while MPM Audiolight supplied all audio requirements.

STAGING BACKBONE Having worked with the band for the Stade de France performances in 2014 and 2010, Stageco was the natural choice to take on the responsibility of building the ambitious stage design, which aimed to keep as much of the staging infrastructure as possible hidden from view, including both the rigging and the PA.

“The main brief of the show was that everything had to be contained within the towers and under the deck,” began Stageco’s Operations Manager, Tom Bilsen. “The structure had to take 110 tonnes of rigging loads and the deck sub scaffold was opened as much as possible to accommodate six ‘caves’ for artists, dressing rooms and production items.” The nature of the show meant that all departments – from staging, to audio, lighting, and video – had to work extremely closely with one another to turn this show into a reality. “It was intense,” confirmed Bilsen, who added that having so many “known faces” in other departments meant at least he and his team knew what to expect.

For each date of the tour, the build took a total of 48 hours, with 17 supervisors split over two shifts. The tear down on the other hand took 20 hours. “Being able to do a full test build and rehearsals at our premises helped all of us to learn a lot and get a clearer view on task split, schedule and expectations,” stated Bilsen. “During the rehearsals, lots of open issues and change requests from the band were resolved during that build and we all got familiar with the intense build and tear down touring schedule. We also did a partial technical test build back in October 2021 in Belgium, Tildonk,

where PRG and Stageco are both located, to test the impact of hiding the PA system behind the video screen.”

A TOWER OF LED The lighting and the video packages were handled by two branches under the PRG umbrella – namely PRG France and PRG Projects. The video tower was made of specially manufactured Titan-X LED along with PRG’s latest innovation, the SoundBlast Solution. While part of the PRG team started drawing up technical plans and diagrams of the tower, PRG Projects started developing and manufacturing the Titan-X LED product with INFiLED that would make this endeavour possible. In response to Nicola Sirkis’ vision, the 360° tower was fitted with a customised LED screen, developed and manufactured specifically for the tour, providing a solution that integrated the sound system, lighting and all the cabling within the tower behind the LED screen, to be as streamlined as imagined.

“When we saw Nicola’s drawings, we saw that there were some challenges. Firstly, we had to find a solution to place the sound behind the video screen and there was no solution to that at the time,” stated Frederic Opsomer, General Manager of PRG Projects. “Secondly, the height of the screen meant that we had to create a new, very light product that had all the features of the PRG Spaceframe, including wind bracing, built into it. At the same time, we needed a product with a transparency of over 70% to allow the sound to penetrate from the back of the screen into the stadium. This meant that we needed to develop a new product.”

The PRG Spaceframe product range was developed by PRG Projects in 2017 and, according to Opsomer, it was essential for the tour. “Spaceframe gives the rental panel structural strength without adding trussing,” he explained. “It allows the rental panels to take care of the wind loads. This is the real differentiator when it comes to strength. Also since Spaceframe does not require any additional trussing, it saves a lot of time during installation and reduces transport costs.”

INFiLED and PRG worked together closely to develop the TITAN-X. From the first drawing to a 1,850 sq m setup, the collaboration and the combination of PRG’s knowhow and INFiLED’s agile developing capability played a major role. R&D teams from Belgium, the UK and China worked tirelessly during more than nine months on this project and created a robust, mesh rental and touring solution with the foldable X-frame structure for a new level of stability.

“We’re delighted to have collaborated with such a long-term and strong partner like PRG on this impressive project,” stated INFiLED CEO, Michael Hao.

Opsomer added: “INFiLED is a very capable manufacturer that understands the quality needs of the concert touring market. By adding our market expertise, we were able to jointly bring a unique solution to the market.”

Driving all the content to the Titan-X screen as well as the ROE Visual CB5 central screen were seven disguise gx 2 media servers. PRG Technical Director, Romuald Beaufour, who drew up the plans and initial diagrams of the tower, added: “The installation of our Titan-X in stadiums was sometimes complex because the tower protruded from certain stadiums in height, which posed problems for the municipalities. To comply with the relevant legislations, the tower had to withstand a 72kmh wind speed for three seconds.”

EMBRACING THE CHALLENGE One of the creatives working with the massive LED canvas was High Scream’s Romain Pissenem. Having worked with the band previously on their video for the song Nos Célébrations, Pissenem was excited to be on board for this live project.

“The whole experience was very personal for me,” he enthused. “I was dancing in my bedroom as a kid listening to Indochine and working with them 30 years later was surreal.”

With frontman, Nicola Sirkis taking on the role of Show Designer, Pissenem got to work closely with his childhood idol. “He had a very clear vision of what he wanted. It’s been an honour to work with such a talented artist with over 40 years of experience in this industry and still pushing the limits.”

The sheer scope of the stage show created an interesting challenge for Pissenem. “From building this massive structure to creating the content, the fact that it is 360° means that you must give the same emotion to everyone at the same time but showing different images,” he shared. “It’s been a dream come true to

be able to play with more than 2,500 sq m of LED.” Pissenem added that one of the main challenges was providing intimate moments during the show and not being overpowering. “When you have such a big structure, you have to be careful to use it subtly,” he noted.

LIGHTING THE WAY The PRG lighting rig comprised 1,360 fixtures, including LED Striplights and Floods, Martin by Harman MAC Viper Wash, GLP impression X4 Bars, LITECRAFT OutLED AT10.plus, Elation Professional Proteus Smarty Hybrid IP65, and PRG GroundControl Longthrow Followspots.

“There were a lot of challenges in terms of lighting, which is mainly due to the 360° configuration of the tower,” described Lighting Designer, Jean Christophe Aubrée.

“The idea was to be able to create some volume in all of this and to use the surfaces, seats and structures of the stadium a little differently.” To this end, the team positioned lighting in all directions, from both inside and outside of the tower. “We also had to carefully consider the size and weight of our fixtures, since they all had to fit into the tower. Working with a 3D model allowed us to visualise the project more effectively,” Aubrée explained.

AUDIO BEHIND THE SCREEN The lack of visible PA is a striking feature of the design, which allowed for the content displayed on the tower’s 360° LED to be enjoyed by everyone in the stadium without any obstructions. PRG Projects carried out numerous tests with several audio manufacturers and developed the SoundBlast Solution, which uses the weight of the audio as ballast behind the LED screen to support the weight and structure of the LED installation.

“The Titan-X and the PRG SoundBlast Solution will allow us to take a step forward in the development of large videos and video content design because being able to place the sound behind the video screen has been the dream of all designers,” stated Opsomer.

David Nulli, Technical Manager of MPM Audiolight, which has been providing sound for the company since 2015, talked through the audio deployment. “Nicola was very particular in that he didn’t want to have any clusters of speakers around the screen,” he began. “It was impossible for us to have the most powerful PA and a good sound image of the stage with PA flown under the screen. So, we decided with DV2 – Adamson’s France distributor – to design the PA configuration behind the screen.”

After numerous tests with PRG, the production ultimately engineered a behindscreen array, which incorporated four different PA cluster configurations. There were four clusters of 18 Adamson e15 and three e12, another four of 21 e15 and three e12, four of 12 e219 subs and then a final eight clusters of four s10. On the floor there were 32 e119 subs, 32 S7s, eight s7Ps and eight s10Ps. For the upper tiers of the stadium, 14 clusters of six e12 were then deployed for flown delays.

“The band have been fans of the Adamson brand for many years and it’s an integral part of their sound,” stated Nulli. “The group and their engineer, Olivier Lude, especially like the low mid of the Adamson speakers – particularly on the guitar.” Nulli went on to complement Adamson’s Energia System for the homogeneity of a large spectrum of frequencies in a large distance. “The Energia contributed especially well for a stadium tour to preserve a large spectrum frequency in seats,” he stated. On both ends of the optocore, DiGiCo Q7s looked after FOH and monitor duties with an additional SD12 that handled a premix. Monitor Engineer, Lionel Pelatan also made use of Klang Fabrik 3D immersive system for the artist on stage. “After a long break for our company due to COVID-19, it was so exciting to make a big show with a lot of Adamson equipment,” stated Nulli, adding that the largest challenge was that nothing like this had ever been designed before for a stadium concert.

FIN In total, 250 technicians were mobilised for the entire tour, and more than 950 shift workers were hired. The show was truly an international effort, with nine different

nationalities represented in the PRG touring crew alone. “Whether it was PRG Belgium, PRG Projects or PRG France, everyone got involved in this beautiful project,” enthused Laurent Boillot, Production Director, PRG France.

“We brought people together from all over the world to grow this team for the tour. It was wonderful to see the synergies and sharing of knowhow, but the success of this adventure is also a choice of companies with whom we collaborated. Everyone contributed to this. Whether it’s Stageco for the structure or MPM for the sound, all this is a big part of the success of the adventure.”

The tour certainly pushed the envelope even further in terms of what can be achieved with an in-the-round production and was another example of how ingenious engineers can open even more doors to show creative content while not in any way jeopardising the experience for the paying customer. www.indo.fr www.prg.com www.mpmgroup.fr www.stageco.com www.high-scream.com