Creative director Barry Lather and tour manager Geoff Donkin hired design and production studio Fireplay to handle the show’s creative production, production design, lighting design, laser design, and special effects.
Wednesday, October 09, 2019
Fireplay’s 360 Stage Design for Carrie Underwood’s Cry Pretty Tour
Creative director Barry Lather and tour manager Geoff Donkin hired design and production studio Fireplay to handle the show’s creative production, production design, lighting design, laser design, and special effects.
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I am always so amazed when it comes to concert design. Concerts are always such huge productions to put on and there are so many details that go into them. I love how they used the album artwork to come up with the eye shape for the stage. These are details that not everyone would notice, but they definitely help make Carrie Underwood’s concerts more interesting and entertaining. This is really impressive because of all of the challenges posed in producing a concert. Everything needs to be temporary enough to install and strike in a very short amount of time and a large number of times. In addition, everything needs to be on a huge scale to occupy the typically large venues that these shows take place in. In this circumstance, they had to come up with something that the audience would be able to see from all sides of the arena. Platforms were built and lights were added to make this possible. The sheer scale of this production is truly amazing.
Concert stage design is getting increasingly complex with the times. With the advancement of automation technology, it is increasingly unlikely to see a plain stage without any sort of moving parts nowadays. Especially with big name artists, their shows are constantly pushing the boundaries of stage design. I’m especially a big fan of 360 degree shows where the layout is basically an in-the-round production. This article really goes into depth about how much care and attention to detail goes into designing all the aspects of the show, from the stage itself, to the lighting, projections, and the challenges associated with this style of 360 degree concerts. Since the performer, in this case Carrie Underwood, will be viewed from all angles, she has to be lit from all sides, but the lights can’t hit the projection drop screens. These problems and nuances of the job must all be considered at once for the show to function properly while also looking good. I also appreciated how they had a gear list that showed all the fixtures that will be used, because I’ve always been curious how much equipment is used in these big shows. It is obvious that a lot of fixtures are used, but with the gear list, I can see how many of each type of fixture is used. On top of this, the list gives an idea of the consoles used (two grandMA’s !), how everything is networked, how many projectors are used (38 Barco 4K projectors ?!). For some reason, this information has always fascinated me, and this article was a goldmine for that information.
Carrie Underwood’s new 360 design show seems insane. I particularly thought that it was innovative that when Carrie was placed in the round, huge screens were placed in a circle in order for all audience members to see, considering the scope of the show. In terms of lighting design, I found it interesting the ways in which the designers confronted the challenges they faced. The ways in which they had to configure the screens so that they were effective, however also giving Carrie the very over the top, glitzy look that she aspired for her show. Personally, however, as an audience member especially for concerts, I do not completely love the over the top extreme glitz because I think it distracts from the performers' talent. However, regarding this show when referring to the photos it seems as if the show was done to support Carrie and working with her rather than against her.
This design is GORGEOUS! I don’t know much about the designing that goes into concerts, but it is so meticulously crafted and interesting to learn more about. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a whole entire concert set in the round, and they put an important amount of thought into doing so. The designers’ intentions with putting Carrie and the band on different platforms to make the show more interesting is definitely something significant, but something that is really important to me about that is the audience visibility. From the first photo, it is apparent that there is a lot of standing-room pit space. The different levels are good for shorter people in the crowd (as a very short person I have had past bad experiences) who have difficulty seeing over people’s heads—raising Carrie up at numerous points throughout the show is a fantastic practical choice! The attention and care to the beaded curtain was really interesting too—the fact that each strand gets deployed from an individual tube is crazy, but so clever for practicality (tangled beads would put a damper in the fluidity of the show, for sure).
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