American Idol’s successful North American
tour commenced in July in Sunrise, FL and runs until September 23, when
the tour closes in Manchester, NH.
Lighting Designer Alex Reardon worked with Upstaging, Inc. to meet
the various artistic demands of the show. The tour features the TV show American Idol’s “Final 10” contestants with
the design process beginning, by necessity, long before the finalists
were chosen. Thus Reardon had to design the show based on themes rather
than personalities. Furthermore, without knowing who the performers
were, a certain “talent contingency” existed, placing even
greater demands on the tour’s production aspects. Reardon specified
a Kinesys motor control system to move the show’s lighting rig
during the show, providing added design flexibility and also some unique
effects.
“With a limited budget and high production value expectations,”
says Reardon, “I decided that in order to give each theme of the
show its own identifying section, I'd adapt the architecture of the
show. Having used Kinesys on a number of different tours (including
Duran Duran and the Dixie Chicks), I had a chance to use their new K2
software and went for it.”
Reardon adds, “I've previously been thrilled by the simplicity,
speed of programming, accuracy, and reliability of the Vector software,
but K2 is an even more intuitive platform. The graphic interface makes
it so much easier to quickly get the exact look desired. We even used
the effects engine to create the ‘spinning coin coming to rest’
effect – very impressive when you seen a ‘tumbling’
circular truss moving from its high trim down over the stage! Tommy
Green (Crew Chief) had not used it before, and was very quickly up to
speed, so much so that within a few shows, he'd taken on the additional
task of calling spots. Dave Weatherhead of Kinesys came over from the
UK to help all those at Upstaging get their heads into the new software,
but everyone took to it so rapidly that he and I spent more time discussing
the virtues of Aston Martins! All in all, another tour perfectly handled
by Kinesys, K2, and Upstaging. Very impressed!”
Upstaging was the first US production company to add the Kinesys motion
control system to their inventory. Says Upstaging’s Account Rep
John Bahnick, “We purchase Kinesys systems built to our specifications
through TMB. The guys at Kinesys and TMB have been very helpful with
training, customer service and technical support. Overall, Kinesys software
and systems are a cinch to use; extremely user-friendly.”
Kinesys motion control systems are manufactured in the UK and distributed
in the Americas by TMB. Find out more about Kinesys at TMB’s website: www.tmb.com/products/kinesys/.
For information about Upstaging visit their website at www.upstaging.com.
To learn more about the many innovative products available from TMB,
go to www.tmb.com.
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