Hovering over the floor and general admission crowd, the stage is part space ship, part pirate plank, part church pulpit that gives fans an intimate and unique look at, and access of, the performer. Elevated by pulley system, the stage leans in and out, can be raised on a whim, and lowers down with Kanye’s weight, putting him right in the face of his frenzied fans below.
17 comments:
This was very interesting to read because I remember looking at the pictures and thinking that it must have been a headache to build. At my internship this summer one of their venues was a roadhouse where huge tours would come for a week or so and every time they loaded in it was incredible but different. Definitely no show had 30 18 wheelers, but some had 8 or so which was still very big to see. I remember the wizard of Oz specifically moved like robots, and I think they even established all these different areas of the stage for different road boxes to be loaded off into before the trucks even docked so that everything was done as quickly as possible. That Tour has been running for a long time though, and their load in started around 9AM. If/Then, which came later in the summer had a completely different load in, and similarly to Kanye’s show there was a lot of miscommunication, and then when it was time to install the turn table everyone had to come to a complete stop because it took much longer than expected and their people got angry and then our union members got angry and it was all just really intense. But then you remember that If/Then hasn’t been running nearly as long, and their load in didn’t get to start until 6PM. I personally just assumed that older tours would always just do it best, but it is interesting to me that this stage hand thinks that these problems were substantial. I assumed there were always these problems. I wonder whose team does it right, like really right. Because whenever people talk about these things its usually because something has gone dramatically wrong. Maybe we should celebrate seamless installs more.
Also I'm glad to here Kanye wasn't being annoying, because while I don't think he is as smart as everyone pretends he is, I think at this point people like to rag on him just to do it. So at least he is still a decent performer in the eyes of the stage hands.
This was definitely a unique perspective on the production. Usually touring shows load-in to venues with the same basic set-up, so it’s interesting to hear that this tour changes dramatically between venues. It definitely makes sense that that would have to be the case, though, since having a super grid which covers the whole ceiling is going to have to change between venues. I think the fact that loading in the stage was so difficult shows a severe lack of planning. The tour company should have known what pick points would be available and what configuration of the staging they would be using. Showing up to the stadium and figuring it out (which is what seemed to have happened) definitely sounds like a bad idea, and potentially dangerous. I’m glad to hear that the team was still very safety oriented and that the rig was spec’d out to be super safe. I was actually talking to some other students today about how touring stages and such tend to be way over-built for safety reasons, and how while it may sometimes seem ridiculous, it’s worth the effort.
If you look at the history of concert tour design, this has to be one of the most (if not the most) minimalist designs of a large-scale world tour. To hear the stagehand dish out how the load-in went, it seems like this was much more of a personnel management issue, as opposed to a celebrity/scale/design issue. It’s an interesting look into the relationship between local crews and tour crews. It makes me wonder where a Tour/Production Manager would be in this situation and how it could have been prevented. As I read the article and the troubles that the tour faced those days, it made me think of much larger tours like the U2 360 Tour or Rolling Stones Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour. These tours that stages that covered football fields and I’m curious now to know how those load-ins when with local crews with such stage that was so much more elaborate.
Well this is kind of disappointing. I clicked on this article hoping to hear all kinds of cool facts about working on the floating set, but alas, what I was hoping for seems to not quite align with what really happened. What I find interesting about this article is that the problems don’t seem to stem from the floating stage itself. As the anonymous stagehand said, “the concept was simple.” It sounds like most of the problems stemmed from a lack of planning and a lack of communication. Problems like arguments between the road hands, unlabeled cable, and picking the wrong call time don’t stem from the technical complexity, they stem from a lack of planning. To be fair, all of the focus being on the safety and planning for the floating stage could have caused other aspects of planning the show to be neglected, but if that was the case it would probably be in budget to hire another person to help with the planning so there are enough people to focus on everything. Also, it might be possible that their load in goes fine most of the time, but the trucks being five hours later completely messed up their usual system. Regardless of the cause of the problem, I hope the road crew finds a solution as the show continues to tour.
I think this gave some insight into what can really go wrong when you get comfortable doing a show one way, and aren't prepared to change aspects depending on the venue. I was a little disappointed because i thought a stagehand would have a little more to say about the technical aspects of putting on the show. although there was not much of the technical talk that i was looking for, this article shined a light on the need to organize and plan the setup of a show. when you get such miscommunication about the call time, or the truck arrival, or the limits and measurements for the rigging of the show, mistakes are more likely to be made. With a floating stage like this, mistakes can lead to disaster. I can understand the confusion that can be caused by a late load in or miscalculations, and i know that it can seriously throw a wrench in your plans, but i think that a crew who is specifically designated to travel with the show and set it up in many different venues should be able to handle a couple minor problems.
I'm glad to see that with all the complaint and stress, people still take stage safety very seriously as they should. With a stage like this floating in the air, everyone backstage probably has a brain-ful of red flags flapping in their minds. It is also common and wise for shows on tour to have different set up plans to cope with venues' weight capacity. I remember there's a performance on tour in Beijing, and they had to cancel all the automation pieces because the fly system in the theatre cannot hold up so much weight, which was such a pity to the audiences. As the tour PM or maybe company manager, it is one of your most important jobs to take a thorough venue survey and come up with plans.
I agree with the last comment that all of the miscommunication would only serve to increase the stress and discontentment level of the crew, which could lead to disastrous mistakes. It also baffled me that according to this stagehand, the road crews were super unfamiliar with their job, and the entire load-in schedule was chaotic. I wonder who is in charge of scheduling and supervising in situations like this - is there a tour TD on site? Is it the TD's job to make sure cooperation between his crew and the venue crew goes on smoothly?
I too am rather disappointed with this article. From the title it would seem that the article is all about the technical challenges and solutions that came with designing and building a floating stage, but the stagehand focuses almost entirely on how unorganized and uncooperative the tour stagehands were. It does shine a light on how important having good management in place is, as well as how important good labeling and organization is since they had problems with the cables, and since they had 30 trucks of gear, but when the interviewer asked how hard the stage was to build, the answer was that is was simply a super truss that was more large and in the way than complex. I know that this guy is simply a stagehand who puts up preexisting shows, but a little more explanation would have made the interview a lot more interesting. Overall, I was left wanting more.
I think it is really cool to hear about what it really takes to a crew to produce such a talked about effect. I first heard about the floating stage from some friends who are not in the theater world who saw it as a cool effect. When I heard about it I had a totally different reaction, something like “how can that work at all venues.” This article answers that question. I still have other questions that this article doesn’t address but that’s a conversation for a different day. It is cool that they have different systems for different size venues. There is an entire mother grid (or super grid as it is referred to in the article) which supports the rigging for the moving stage. It is also interesting to hear in a formal article/interview about the struggle between touring and house crews that I have heard about from people in the industry. But as always, it gets done.
I think it is interesting that they interviewed a stagehand that worked on setting up Kanye’s show because you normally do not hear from those people. I think it would be smart to get their perspective more often because it is the behind the scenes stuff that no one ever hears about, but usually wonder how they do everything. Most people think that it must be very difficult to put up the stage, but it seemed like the stage was the easy part of the load-in. It is interesting that professionals at that level still have problems and communication issues. It must have been very frustrating for the local crew that had to work under people that were fighting and not giving them proper instructions. It is relatively early on his tour so maybe they are still figuring out the best system to load in and instruct the local crew.
This is a really interesting and surprising perspective. I saw photos of this rig a few days ago, and was really impressed by it, but what struck me was how hard it must have been to design, make safe, and tour. And after hearing about a bunch of accidents with rigs like these over the past few years, I was worried about the safety, but the article makes it seem like it is incredibly safe. However, because of the size of the rig, I'm not surprised that the load in is hell. Considering the Garden is a colossal venue, it's no surprise that they ran into trouble, but on a tour as major as Kanye, I would think that the Yeezy team would have planned ahead for every venue so that they can load in quickly and effectively. Hopefully as the tour continues the team in charge is able to work out these kinks.
This was kind of a bummer to read. As someone who wants to do a tour when I am old enough this was upsetting to read. It shows the bad side of the tech busniess. I found it very interesting that they decided to interview a stage hand. Most interview are either with the performers or artist. not the backbones of these tours. Sadly I feel like the interviewer was also not used to interviewing a stagehand. I feel like there was a lot of sadness coming from the stagehand. I feel like the stagehand was jaded and did not want to help with the tour. As for the tour it self. The management team needs to get better based of the interview with there communication. Besides that the set designer might want to make changes to help with setup.
I find it so hard to believe that a show of this magnitude is not impeccably organized! With smaller shows I understand. But a star with the fame and FUNDS of Kanye should not have trucks arriving five hours late! And having improperly labeled cables! I find it incredible that this show didn't run like a machine.
I remember the last article about Kanye and his show and I was really really concerned about the safety of the rig, and hearing that people were moshing underneath still kind of freaks me out. That's just not a concert I would like, I feel. But it's comforting to know how extreme they took the safety measures, and I'm glad that part seems fairly organized.
I'm excited to see Kanya accidentally trip off the stage and be hanging there from his harness. I really hope that happens in all honesty, like I don't want him to get hurt, but buy would that be crazy to the drunk audience. What if Kanye faked his own death on stage? That would be crazy.
It is interesting that a show featuring Kanye West, which one would assume has plenty of money and resources, would not be better organized. However, I worked at my first ever event this summer, which was a cabaret featuring Meryl Streep, and the one thing I learned about event work is that it seems like it is always a bit of a shit show. You have to come in to a relatively unknown space and then just adjust as each location presents new and unique challenges. It can be really frustrating or really exciting, depending on the person. I found it exhilarating, but I enjoy having to think on my feet and roll with the punches. Also, as the people coming into the new space, you have to be both extremely organized and respectful to those who work there in order to put together the show, which it sounds like Kanye’s people were not. However, despite the long hours and ridiculous amount of complications, I really enjoyed myself during the cabaret and I could definitely see myself doing event work again.
This was interesting for me to read because I have actually never read an interview with a stage hand and I have always felt like they would have an interesting light to shine on situations like this. When there is a floating aspect to anything, my first concern is of course safety. With such a heavy piece of equipment there are so many things that could go wrong. After reading this piece, however, I can confidently say that I would feel comfortable going to a Kanye West concert and not fear death by large platform. What surprised me when reading this interview was how disorganized and unprofessional the road crew was. Showing up late and having meltdowns sounds like my high school deck crew. I hope that once I make it to the real world I'll be able to work with people who care about the work we do as much as I do.
Probably every stagehand, techie, or whatever will admit Kanye West’s recent floating stage performance was cool as hell. Besides being completely awesome, it also lets every audience member experience being up close with the performer and this stage concept could equalize ticket prices since you don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars just to be in the front row. However, a stage like this, as many others have said, is hell and it’s understandable why. You would need an extremely experienced crew, tons of hauling power, and an insane amount of safety checks. However, it’s a little ridiculous how the stagehand described his experience. How could a load in of this size for an artist with so much fame be so unprofessional and lacking communication? I’m glad they at least triple checked everything and did multiple walk-throughs. I guess it can’t be easy installing a show when your stage floats.
The idea behind this floating stage is interesting. I’m a bit confused when the article says that it hovers over the floor and the general admission crowd. If the stage is hovering above the crowd, as an audience member why do it? Isn’t the point of going to a concert like this to see the performer? In any case, the idea is cool and I’m sure the fans love it. It also sounds like it is very well engineered (and probably Engineered), but the planning leaves something to be desired. It sounds like there isn’t an advance team to go to each venue to decide which of the stages they are going to use and the process of installation. It also seems like the road crew needed more experience with the installation of this floating stage. My guess is that in the next couple of stops on this tour, they will have all the details ironed out.
I tend to stay away from articles that I see a lot of people commenting on, but I was still entirely too curious about why Kanye kept being a topic of discussion on the green page. So, I still don't quite see what all of the hype is but maybe I'm missing something. The floating platform is interesting, beyond that being the only scenic element, it sounds rather underwhelming. As for the load in the guys analysis of the process sounds pretty straightforward as well. From where I stand and what I have read in the topic so far, it definitely sounds like the roadies attached to the tour are poorly managed and have a bit of turmoil amongst themselves. While I was in undergrad I worked a roadhouse for a few years and never has an experience like this. Though I did hear some mild horror stories from the folks I worked with, they would tend to round off their stories with "don't ever work on a ... Tour". This leads me to believe that down the road Kanye will likely be left as the name blamed for the unfortunate load in and not whatever manager was actually to blame.
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