PRG Announces New Concert Touring Innovations

Production Resource Group LLC, (PRG),a world provider of entertainment and event technology solutions, announces two product innovations -- PRG Infinity SPACEFRAME and PRG Ingest -- which are supporting Beyonce and Jay-Z's On the Run II tour. The new Infinity SPACEFRAME which serves as a kinetic backdrop on stage and Ingest, a new technology that archives camera images created on tour, are industry firsts.

PRG's SPACEFRAME is an innovative carbon fiber touring frame created by PRG Projects, a division of PRG which specializes in developing and integrating proprietary solutions to the rigors of the production and entertainment industry. It was launched on 2017's U2's Joshua Tree tour and On the Run II is the second concert tour to feature the product. For this tour, Stufish (the designers of both Joshua Tree and On the Run II tours) wanted to have a clean look, visually eliminating all support structures and rigging. To do that, PRG Projects came up with a solution called "Infinity SPACEFRAME" where the rigging and support structure are integrated on the back of the SPACEFRAME, invisible from audience view. Video content on the screen is now edge-to-edge without visual barriers as a classic screen would have. It gives it a monumental look and creates a new type of immersive viewing experience. The Infinity SPACEFRAME makes the most of the PRG SPACEFRAME concept by utilizing the structural capabilities of the video screen as part of the automated tracking support. It ultimately saves truckloads of additional support structure.

"Designing custom LED and video solutions for live events is a core part of what PRG Projects does. Beyond what we develop for PRG, we work directly with designers to create unique staging solutions that allow them and performers to be as creative as possible," said Frederic Opsomer, managing director, PRG Projects. "We are constantly thinking of what is next, how do we improve on what we've already done. The new Infinity SPACEFRAME allows for moveable LED screens in an operational effective set up which aids the dynamic energy Beyonce, Jay-Z, and other performers create during the show."

The stage design for On the Run II tour includes two LED screens with SPACEFRAME. The secondary -- or upstage -- screen is 55' x 35.4' (16.8m wide and 10.8m high) with ROE's CB8 LED. The bottom section of the upstage screen is automated with three SPACEFRAME panels that open like garage doors, enabling the musicians' rolling risers to enter and exit the main stage. The upstage screen stands behind a four-tiered opera box style performer platform. The main - or downstage - screen is divided into 12 automated sections. This allows for different dramatic scenes and settings and provides Beyonce and Jay-Z different entry and exit scenarios. The new Infinity SPACEFRAME screen, with GALAXIA's WV9 air transparent LED, measures 173.2' x 43.3' (52.8m wide and 13.2m high) when closed it hangs on motorized carts that move left and right on a track. The carbon fiber fabrication and built-in wind bracing provides the stability that structural engineers demand in order to have a screen of this size move around on a track.

"There is currently no other framing system that can do this, it's a perfect example of designers really pushing the product to the limits and having free reign for their ideas. A symbiosis rarely seen in our industry," said Opsomer.

On the Run II tour is also implementing PRG Ingest. Ingest is a new technology that allows the capture of concert footage in real time from up to 24 isolated camera feeds. Each camera feed -- or channel -- will be ingested in the server, processed, and via the network pushed to an external storage drive.

Traditionally, footage from a single camera is captured on a single recorder, then after a show, each file on the drive is copied over to a separate hard drive. This is an intensive process that can take many hours as the transfer can take up to one hour per camera.

"With the Ingest system, we can create a show record on an external drive of all channels in nearly real-time and still have a back-up copy on the server should anything go wrong," said Wolfgang Schram, director of video engineering, PRG. "The servers also get time coded, so all recordings have real time and can be used in an edit right away."

In order to handle the 6.2TB of data that On the Run II tour generates per night, PRG uses six media servers which make copies of what is recorded, transcode it to a pro res 422 file, and push it over a 10GigE network on an external NAS drive.