25 October 2011

Event Production Awards 2012. Submission for Best Staging Company of the Year

In 2011 Brilliant Stages worked On Take That’s Progress Live 2011 Tour with creative director, Kim Gavin, show designer, Es Devlin, and technical designer, Malcolm Birkett, in consultation with production manager, Chris Vaughan, to create OM and several other aspects of the staging including the screamers and the 7m by 3.5m boom arm on which Robbie Williams skimmed above the heads of the audience.
Take That’s Progress Live 2011 Tour reunited its 5 original performers for the first time in over 15 years as they played to packed stadiums in the band’s biggest tour to date. Brilliant Stages produced the following stage elements for the show with a design to rehearsal time of less than 5 months.

Additionally Brilliant Stages designed and engineered the giant figure of ‘OM’, a 20m high animated man, which was brought to ‘life’ as a primitive god-like figure during the on-stage action. A two-stage telescopic ‘spine mast’ formed the main component of the structure, providing both support and lift to raise OM to sitting and standing positions. The outer section of the mast effectively acted as the spine, while two extending inner sections acted as a lifting ‘prop’. The whole figure was mounted on a 1.5m high, mobile, self-propelled base located on a 35-ton modified articulated trailer.

In show mode, the trailer extended to 12.8m, which stretched OM’s legs out in front of him and contracted to 8.8m to draw his legs up into a crouched position before standing. OM performed moves that included a sweeping motion of the arms, nodding the head, raising each of the singers in the palm of his hands, until eventually moving out in a recumbent position into the middle of the arena. As he did so, he carried the band members on each hand and on platforms located within the abdomen.