PRG UK worked closely with Arcade Fire’s design team and touring and production management to supply the lighting, rigging and crew package for the indie rockers’ headline European tour, including the fantastic shows at Earls Court in June.

PRG’s Senior Account Manager, Scottie Sanderson, worked with Show Designer Richard Stembridge, Lighting Designer Chris Bushell and Production Manager Greg Dean to transform Earls Court into a disco-inspired layout of lights and mirror balls, creating an electric atmosphere.

PRG added significantly to the main touring package to create the show that Stembridge envisaged. A total of 20 PRG Best Boys were on the main rig along with MAC Viper Washes and Clay Paky Sharpy Washes. To fill the arena and reach across the audience, an extensive rig was constructed to support a 40-foot silver triangle, seven 20-foot silver triangles and eight 32-inch mirror balls. The fixtures lighting the audience included 4 Martin MAC Viper Washes, 43 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700s and 81 Pixel Pars.

PRG also provided the entire cable management for the London shows, consisting of over 15 kilometres of cable, 80 additional hoists and over 450 metres of trussing, to accommodate the over-audience lighting and audio. The entire lighting and rigging package was complemented by a 10-man crew.

Arcade Fire’s tour was in support of their latest album, Reflektor. In addition to the London shows, the band also performed larger gigs at Le Zenith in Paris and Sportpaleis Antwerpen in Belgium, where PRG was able to team up with their Paris and Belgium operations to support the shows.

“The Earls Court gigs were truly fantastic. The team was really pushed on this one, putting in maximum effort to make sure it happened. The crew and UK project management team, namely Ian “Bongo” Philips, worked extremely hard to make the tour seamlessly integrate between the more intimate, and the larger shows,” says Sanderson.

Collaborating with PRG in France, Sanderson worked with Laurent Boillot to supply further audience packages for the Paris shows. In Belgium, PRG was able to directly support any extras needed for those shows.

Touring Europe and playing festivals including Glastonbury, the main touring package for Arcade Fire consisted of PRG Best Boys, Martin Atomic Colours, Vari-lite VLX Washes and white and black Martin MAC Auras. For control, PRG supplied an Avolites Sapphire Touch to the Lighting Designer [Bushell].

The four-man universal crew included Crew Chief Rob Starksfield, Kinesys Technician Paul Mundrick, Craig Hancock on Systems and Dimmers and Jason Dixon and Rob Gardner on Moving Lights.

Ian Phillips, Project Manager for the London show and the tour, says that the biggest challenges they faced were trying to tie in a festival and headline package into one touring show, which required extensive pre-production and planning to make it happen.

Arcade Fire is set to play festivals throughout the European summer, before heading to Japan and then the US.