PRG Provides Gear for SSS4EU Drake Tour

	"Drake's music takes people on a journey, and we try to ensure that the lighting speaks to that," says Torres.

Award-winning, Canadian R&B and singer and rapper Drake hit the road in Europe this summer with lighting, video, and rigging supplied out of PRG's UK base in Longbridge, Birmingham, working closely with USA counterparts, PRG North America. The concept crafted by Matte Babel of two "bare" stages connected into a 360-degree environment by elevated transparent acrylic walkways running around both sides of the arena, with the audience on all sides and in the middle, gives the artist maximum proximity to his fans. Babel, who joined Adel "Future" Nur on Drake's management team in 2017 and oversees brand/marketing/creative, comments, "Working with an artist of Drake's calibre and stature is more collaborative in nature."

To keep the floor as clean as possible, all the gear had to be in the air, which meant an emphasis on lighting and audio, knowing there would be weight restrictions, with video approached differently. Babel was inspired by an installation by Japanese duo Nonotak, who had built custom versions of a lighting fixture very similar to what he had in mind.

"Their work was stunning," Babel says. "I actually reached out to see if they would be interested in collaborating, because the manufacturer of the fixture I wanted to use kept insisting it couldn't do what I envisioned!" He notes the substantial differences between creating a semi-permanent art installation for casual browsing, where all the variables can be controlled, versus designing a fixture for Drake that must be continuously evolving throughout a two-hour show.

Guy Pavelo, Drake's technical director, found a way of making spinning lighting bars happen. "We were off to the races," says Babel, delighted that his idea of 300 or more lights that all have to spin/reset and align within seconds, plus 16 automated trusses, could actually be replicated on tour.

John Torres, a New York-based lighting designer working across multiple genres and primarily theatre, dance, and opera, says, "Theatre teaches you that there is poetry within light, which is essential to help establish a narrative. Drake's music takes people on a journey, and we try to ensure that the lighting speaks to that." His role was to interpret how the lighting rig should move, energize, and relate to the setlist. Assisting him on lighting programming before the tour hit the road were Kelley Shih and Eric Christian; his associate for the project was Danielle Elegy.

Pavelo has worked with Drake's team for the last 15 years, and for the Some Special Songs for EU (SSS4EU) leg of the tour, worked closely with Babel on the show design.

"Guy is a genius at putting together the entire system technically and liaising with all of our valuable partners both on and off the road," Torre says, "We are working in lockstep throughout the pre-production and on-site rehearsal periods, with Guy supporting the creative vision from start to finish. His contribution is invaluable."

The design concept unlocks multiple classic positive psychological plays on light, as cavernous venues bathed in light and movement were transformed for the performance, which recreates that intimate, intense, and very subjective clubby atmosphere.

Hanging below a large 180' by 50' mothergrid comprising six 80' spans, three wide and two deep, the lighting rig over the arena was hung on sixteen 70' long pre-rigged trusses, which were specially modified by PRG.

Each of these was fitted with seven 10' sections of spinning truss attached to Claypaky Panify 2 motorized platforms, customized by PRG's workshop to be tourable. Each of these 112 spinners was rigged with two lengths of Martin VDO Sceptron linear strips and two GLP impression X5 Compact moving lights, giving 1,180 fixtures on this part of the rig.

The sixteen 70' trusses were each flown on three TAIT one-ton NAV hoists and moved in and out of the arena space in a variety of configurations; sometimes so that the lights were barely skimming heads.

Operating the TAIT Navigator system was Sydney Rush, with cues worked out and developed between her, Pavelo, Torrres, and Babel, and Navigator programming initially handled by TAIT's Doug Sager. The spinners were controlled together with all the lights via Pavelo's grandMA3 console.

Up in the mothergrid, 64 GLP JDC1 strobes were scattered around and, depending on the height and position of the 16 moving trusses, have very dramatically different looks and effects.

In addition to the above arena lighting were four audience trusses, one running along each side of the arena outside of the central grid area, two at 100' long and two at 70'. These were rigged with 68 Ayrton Veloce moving lights, alternated on each truss with 13 JDC1s.

Also in the mothergrid were two followspots, with another two positioned on the long side audience trusses, plus another four in the audience bleacher seating, all run via PRG's Ground Control remote followspotting solution, with the operators tucked away backstage.

The stages at either end of the arena directly mirrored each other. Both featured grilled surfaces with a sub-deck 1m below, loaded with 62JDC1 strobes. The balance of the lighting was ensconced in the floor level of both stages, with a bank of 25 JDC1 Bursts at the back, 22 GLP impression FR10 LED bars in two lines in front and to the rear, and with 10 Astera Titan Tubes around the front lip of the stage.

Illuminating the runway were approximately 200 Astera Titan Tubes, which were clamped into custom brackets below the special decking, built by TAIT.

Two hundred universes of lighting data were running back to Pavelo's grandMA3 full-size console, on which he ran the show in Europe. Lighting equipment and a crew of 14 were being coordinated and overseen on the road by lighting crew chief, Ronnie Beal from PRG North America, who was involved in some intensive pre-prepping for the various lighting elements at PRG UK's Longbridge HQ. He enjoyed "fantastic support from the UK team," which was project-managed by Yvonne Donnelly and her team at PRG Longbridge in conjunction with Jon Morrell from the LA base of PRG North America.

The six IMAG screens were designed and positioned to keep the sightlines clean. Camera director Colleen Wittenberg incorporated feeds from four operated Grass Valley LDX 135 cameras fitted with 99x zoom long lenses and positioned at the lower mezzanine levels on all four sides of the venue, plus an LDX 86c on a Steadicam rig fitted with a 24x zoom lens for extra depth.

In addition to these were four Panasonic PTZ 150 and two PTZ 130 robo cams. The 150s were set up in a zig-zag pattern downstage on both of the stages, while the 130s were used for the DJ section of the show, where Drake played a DJ setup located in the bleachers along one of the venue's long sides, for which a physically smaller camera setup was specified.

Wittenberg worked alongside her two engineers, Randy Ice and Braxton Carico, together with eight others on the video crew, including PRG UK's Colin Mudd.

For PRG UK's sales director for music, Yvonne Donnelly Smith, while building and co-ordinating the European tour was intense, the biggest challenge was duplicating the US tour lighting rig twice to achieve the 360 aesthetic needed for Wireless Festival, essentially the first gig of the SSS4EU leg. Keeping everything rolling smoothly on the road in Europe was production manager Joseph Lloyd. Audio was supplied by Clair Global.

Aaron Siebert was the production manager for the earlier Australian leg of the tour, for which all the lighting and video kit was flown from PRG North America, illustrating the global reach and capacity of its operation. Paul Lovell-Butt PM'd the previous North American leg, and also Australia, together with Siebert.