Franklin Graham Gospel Tour

ROADSKILLS

Franklin Graham Gospel Tour

by Cat Strom.
Photo Credits: CPC Production Services

Tour life is not all rock’n’roll excess as sometimes the client is of a somewhat different mold.

Recently CPC Production Services was contracted to supply a full technical production solution for Franklin Graham’s six-city tour preaching the Gospel in Australia. This included audio, backline, lighting, rigging, LED screens and television production.

CPC also production managed all crewing, travel and accommodation.

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The tour visited Perth, Darwin, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney, reaching more than 59,000 people in person and thousands more through a live web stream. Each tour stop featured music from Crowder and the Planetshakers.

CPC was responsible for the entire audio rig, supplying all equipment except the DiGiCo SD10s for American artists (FoH, Monitors and Record) and their partner company PMSL from Hobart supplied the d&b rig.

Front of House varied from venue to venue, but generally consisted of two hangs of d&b J series per side for the main left and right, two hangs of d&b V Series per side for outfills, d&b V Series for front fills and other various fills and d&b B2 subs running in cardioid mode.

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Gospel tour in Sydney

The lighting was designed and programmed by Daniel Smallbone of Lumina Design and was operated by his associate Matt Brewer. The rig was designed for the rock’n’roll schedule they had to work to: in at 6am, up and going by 10am for rehearsals and soundcheck from 2pm until 5:30pm.

The show was performed at 6:30pm through to 9:30pm, then load out and done about midnight.

A simple front of house truss held eight Martin MAC2000 Performance profiles for effects in the audience, 12 MAC2000 Washes for stage and audience wash and four MAC Viper Profiles running Follow-Me data merged into the MA Lighting grandMA2 network. These were used for all specials, followspotting, and key lighting.

The midstage truss had eight MAC2000 Profiles with custom gobos for effects across the stage and 14 MAC Aura XBs for overhead stage wash and effects. The upstage truss had the same combination but with five MAC2000 and eight MAC Aura XBs.

More MAC2000 were located on the upstage floor to deliver aerial effects with custom gobos. Side of the stage were eight MAC Quantum Washes, four per side. Atmosphere was supplied by an MDG Atmosphere HO.

Planetshakers

For control there were two MA Lighting grandMA2 light; one for Matt and the second for the Planetshakers’ LD. An NPU with three 2-Port Nodes was used for DMX transmission. MA, ArtNet and NDI networks were in place for the entire system to interface all consoles and the two Resolume Arena media servers.

The tour used VuePix screens: two 8m by 4m ER4.6 rear screens, two 4m by 8m ER4.6 side screens and one 15m by 2m ER4.6 Proscenium Screen. All were running Brompton Technologies controllers, scalers and receiver cards.

Three S4 Controllers did the rear and proscenium screens, and two M2 Scaler/Controllers did the side screens.
The rear and proscenium screens were driven from lighting’s main Resolume Arena media servers, which had three separate video feeds/auxs coming from the OB truck including pre made content and effects on board.

The side screens were driven directly from OB Truck. All controllers were networked and controlled by the Technical Director and CCU Operator back in the OB Truck for exposure and colour matching.

CPC’s new OB truck that they designed and built earlier this year made its debut on the tour. This truck is specifically fitted out for the recording and streaming/televising of concerts and other live style events, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The truck has the ability to run full 4K HDR all the way through if needed, but like most jobs at this stage they ran 1080p50 HDR.

CPC OB truck in Melbourne

Major pieces of equipment in the truck include four Panasonic AK-UC3000 4K HDR Studio Cameras, Fujifilm lenses, Vinten tripod systems and a full suite of Ross Video vision mixing equipment.

A Midas XL8 96 channel digital mixing system is also included as is a Riedel Artist 64 comms frame with 12x RSP-2318 AES67 Panels and two-way radio repeaters, phone and Clearcom 2-wire interfacing.

The truck was used to switch the eight camera chains individually to the LED screen feeds, multiple live web streams and then clean feed records and ISOs for postproduction. The truck also did playbacks for material going separately to the arena and the live streams.

Inside OB truck in Sydney – Planetshakers performing

Inside OB truck in Sydney – Crowder performing

Company Production Manager:
Murray Free

Audio:
FoH System Tech: Nick Morse Monitors
System Tech: Jamie Muller
Stage and System Tech: Murray Keidge
Stage and System Tech: Ashley Rieck
Backline Tech: Simon Grubb

Lighting:
System Engineer / Rigger: Wesley Bluff
Floor Electrician: Lachlan Hood

Video:
Technical Director: Owen Forsyth
CCU: Andrew Harcourt
Comms: Glynn Carter
LED Screens / Graphics: Dale Norris
LED Screens / Graphics: Michah Coto
Camera: Ron Surtees

Franklin Graham preaching, Sydney

CX Magazine – June 2019   Entertainment technology news and issues for Australia and New Zealand – in print and free online www.cxnetwork.com.au

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