The all-action schedule included a 12-night residency by Bon Jovi and shows by Leona Lewis, Aerosmith, Rod Stewart, George Benson & Marti Pellow and Al Green & Michael McDonald, with the real obstacle presented by the dates for Leona Lewis’s four shows and Aerosmith’s one, all dotted within Bon Jovi’s run.
Leona’s show entailed four separate ins and outs—three of them either side of Bon Jovi’s, with Aerosmith slotted right in the middle.
In the Summit office, the technical requirements and logistics for the busy contract were coordinated by project manager Simon Frost and administrator Kate Parsons.
The Bon Jovi show was the most complex in terms of rigging, involving 117 points—33 dead hangs and 84 bridles—and totalling 52.3t of flown production equipment.
It also entailed a 40ft wide upstage trussing section with tracking for the video screen staying in the venue, and being flown out to 25m so the other shows could be easily and comfortably rigged and accommodated underneath.
Simon Frost and Bon Jovi’s chief rigger Mike Farese worked closely together to ensure that the operation ran as smoothly as possible.
Eight spreader trusses were dead hung from the arena’s roof beams, allowing the video tracking truss section to remain in the building without affecting the rigging of any of the other shows.
All Bon Jovi’s bridles were pre-built and labelled up in the US to save time on the load in—a task that needed the show to be positioned totally correctly in the venue to succeed.
The custom written load analysis software enabled Frost to calculate the length of each bridle leg and send the information to Farese, who had the bridles assembled at the last show in North America.
The Leona Lewis and Aerosmith shows had to fit in around Bon Jovi, thus, it was essential that the shows were considered as a whole unit.
Leona’s show involved 85 points—15 dead hangs and 70 bridles—and weighed 28.3t, while Aerosmith had 50 points—11 deads and 29 bridles—weighing 26t. Luckily, both shows featured straight trusses for lighting and video, and standard PA rigging out of the roof, with four and three hangs a side respectively for Leona and Aerosmith.
Where possible, Summit kept the same riggers working on the same shows for continuity and efficiency with teams structured to be overseen by experienced rigging supervisors.
Each show is assessed individually and based on the number of points required, with Summit recommending the optimum number of teams, rigging approximately six points an hour.
