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So much love for Showcalling
A gig somewhere in Europe
Coming from the world of corporate, I’ve dabbled across most disciplines at one time or another. I got into projection and I loved vision mixing and sound… but I never really made it as an LD… Moving into producing was my natural progression in the end but I still keep a hand in when hired as a showcaller. It’s something I never want to give up… lately I’ve taken to getting at least one selfie for each show I call. I now have quite a detailed library of crew showcall positions. Something I’m proud of (coz I’m obviously a techie geek) and you are only likely to be similarly impressed if you too harbour an interest in screens, LEDs and gadgets. Here’s a collection from the last few months….
How about this gig?
This was a Done and Dusted spectacular for Riot Games at the O2… My faves were the band lifts… and the step flames…. and the lasers….. and the trophy lift mechanism…. the kabuki with the snifters and the UV….. and the crazy crowd too.
Special shout out to Hamish, Hayley, Sticky, Mikey Grove and all the SM crew. Bonkers!
Noor Riyadh 2022 & 2023
In both 2022 and 2023 we travelled with a production team of over 200 event professionals to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and worked at Executive Producer level across both years to pull off the largest light art festival in the world.
We spearheaded this massive team from Filmmaster Events serving senior governmental stakeholders and working with artists, diplomats, officials, celebrities and every kind of event professional from around the world interfacing in all elements of large scale public event delivery to install and display hundreds of light installations around the city from the top of the highest skyscrapers to the wilds of the surrounding desert land.
With millions of international visitors attending throughout this sixteen day festival, we were especially proud to break twelve world records across both years.
9 Months of work - for 3 hours of Show... And quite the honour it was too
There’s way too much to say about this show in a simple blog right now - especially since the Queen died just three months later - but I was routing through the various available footage online today to find the best coverage - and there’s heaps of stuff out there as you’d expect.
But I did like this snippet from Sky. Even though they weren’t the ‘host broadcaster’ on the day, they were there to capture and summarise so much of what we were trying to convey. Thanks guys.
Burberry London 2022
This turned into a nice little mini-blast into London in between doing the Platinum Jubilee and flying out to Saudi Arabia for pre-production on Noor Riyadh. The whole team at Gainsbury and Whiting were amazing as ever and this would be the first time we encountered these nifty modular dolly robots that don’t need rails. See if you can spot them in the video. Beautifully directed by the award winning multi camera director James Russell. Very keen to find another excuse to use this kind of system... I personally thought that the robots should have featured more in the edit... and of course worn Burberry themselves, though I'm pretty sure I was alone with this idea!
We popped over to Doha and pulled off this little number the other day
Arabian Gulf Cup - 2019
League of Legends - World Championships Opening Ceremony 2019
What an absolute joy and an honour to be on the team that produced this utterly superb and ground breaking event. Utterly blown away by the US team at Riot Games that pulled this off - despite the intense level of risk of using such a cutting edge system to deliver this show, my job as showcaller was pretty easy - since this 15 minute show had been devised and built over a 10 month period utilising the very best in the business for virtual and augmented reality. Tippety top!
Land Rover Evoque 2019 Launch - Truman Brewery
Car launch in London - bang on!
Here’s a great launch we did last week with Imagination and Sassy Films.
One thing this video won’t tell you is how cold it was on site!
Car Launch with a Twist
I'll admit, at first I was sceptical.... in fact, after a few rehearsals in London, I became even more sceptical... a 270 degree barrel roll is quite a different stunt to perform since there are just too many factors that are simply uncontrollable.
True to say that I'm not an experienced stunt professional myself, but after we swept away the remains of the first few cars during our initial indoor trials, it was obvious that this was not going to be a straightforward gig.
Nonetheless Terry Grant, the famous stunt driver was utterly determined. This was HIS show... it was going to be a world record for JLR as part of a one off car launch for the Jaguar E-Pace. Terry is NOT one to disappoint!
There was to be no other option but to complete the roll with slick perfection.
Aside from Terry and his team, the Creative Producer, Jane Brighton at Imagination was equally focused and, you could even perhaps say, relaxed. She just knew that it would come off good in the end.
Of course, on the last run, and in front of a tense crowd (including the people from Guinness Book of Records) Terry did a perfect 270 twist and, for me, with all the power of a first class car launch, it was simply a great honour to be on this team - and I proudly share the end result here.
How to blow up a lot of stuff and get paid for it!
A lot of fun doing Idex in the UAE this past month.... perhaps our next show can be a from a client like a natural yoghurt brand doing a retreat in a green and leafy country estate!
4 Days of my life!
Had SO much fun with James Corden and his dancers putting this little sequence together at London's Excel this week. Totally professional cast and crew - and a beautiful Production Company too - Set Live! - First time I've worked with this team, and I sincerely hope it's not the last.
The whole thing took four days for us to choreograph and put it together on site. It was only filmed professionally for an internal audience - so I'm glad I found someone posting this from FOH since I was backstage during the performance and had no idea how the thing ultimately turned out.
My favourite moment? - The dinosaurs of course! - I even got to keep a costume afterwards. Totally gonna wear it out somewhere soon. Essential part of my costume wardrobe!
European City of Culture - The People's Opening, Aarhus
A great honour to be working on this project. I will now be relocated for all of January in Denmark as Senior Stage Manager to oversee and deliver this beautiful ceremony that is truly designed from the heart. Watch out for the People's Opening on the 21st January when we parade an event with 6000 participants through the streets of the city of Aarhus.
Delivering this star studded event at the Albert Hall for Inca - Fashion Awards 2016
I've directed the Fashion Awards now since 2009 and, although this event is always tense and last minute in terms of the demands on all production crew across the whole project, I'm actually pretty attached to this sparkly fashion extravaganza!
SO much fun with Imagination for Land Rover last night!
They say if you want a good clean show, never work with children and animals.... well how about Bear Grylls, a helicopter, a purpose built 'River Thames' a flying horse, a Lego Tower Bridge and a bunch of stunt drivers? - Yup. Nailed it!
Is your phone safe from hacking? If not, perhaps you need this £11,400 phone!
Image: Charles McLellan/ZDNet
I helped to launch this new phone yesterday at 1 Marylabone, London.
We had lots of fun..... we used some great projection and laser stuff - and the whole place was very beautifully decked out thanks to Inca Productions.
I showcalled the gig. I never fully worked out why, but Leonardo DiCaprio showed up - and he brought his dog along too... so we weren't expecting that. Also adding weight to the occasion was Tom Hardy and lots of models milling around etc.... so I think that means the phone is amazing!
You want one? - It's called the Solarin - available from Sirin Labs. £11,400 or thereabout.... and no, I didn't even get to hold one, let alone a show freebie!
Throwback to Yesteryear....
I guess it's okay to share some of the distant past from time to time..... Here's an old thing I chanced upon as I was archiving today - it's a comms recording from an event I had the pleasure of showcalling back in 2006 that I might say was a little under-rehearsed....
Until the comms channels get tweaked, it's a total noise - in fact, you might deserve a prize just for trying to listen to it... but actually, once it calms down in the first 30 secs, especially for those in our "industry", this is a real peach of a comms recording! -
THE STORY
We were 'doing' Michael Jackson et al for a well known televised music awards ceremony and things were not going well at all - mainly because all the celebs were deciding everything last minute, the venue were imposing a curfew ruling for our finish time and there were some other things happening that I can't really write about! - Anyway, there was no event director backstage to sort all this. As a result, the crew (IE us) just made it up as we went along.
The main voices are me - Spike Allibone the showcaller, Iain the First AD for TV (Doing a senior floor manager / SM / Everything job) and Rachel and Sarah who were getting the acts on and off including Lindsay Lohan and other presenters who also had no idea what was going on.
The show only got recorded from about halfway through once a very savvy sound tech realised that someone might enjoy or perhaps even learn from listening to what happened "on cans" that day. What had happened before he hit record is sadly lost - since it was utter chaos!
Iain deliberately left his headset mic on during some of the negotiations happening backstage so that the rest of us could hear the nightmare he was having. Some of the real gems you have to listen hard quite hard for.... the actual time span of the show was much longer so I guess you could call this a "highlights" edit.
The company I was working for disappeared after this.
What did it look like on TV? - well, The Chris Brown moment can be viewed here.
The hysteria that was the We Are The World ‘performance’ can be seen here.
Bunting & Balloons
There are just some things you just tend to frown upon when you gravitate to professional show production.
Things like bunting and balloons for example.
BUNTING
To unpack this sweeping and offensive (to some) statement, let’s first start with bunting.
When I see a village street take on this adornment during some kind of fete or festival it’s often two things to me. It’s a quaint local tradition which I love…. but this otherwise lacklustre 'lamppost bondage' is also a warning sign that people who don’t understand how to make an original impact are around.
That’s the thing with the concept of tradition…. it’s just something you do - because it’s always been done. It simultaneously brings colour to your drab high street once a year (for no cost) and it also shows a total lack of imagination.
I live in a small Scottish village and we put ours up every year for our spring gala… and I love everything (and photograph everything) that this great community event brings…. including even the bunting…. I don’t own any… but I guess I’d help put it up if I was on the committee.
In my professional life there is a fairly long list of things which I would tend to avoid for most of my clients. For example, and in no particular order… Comic Sans font, Tina Turner's ‘Simply the Best’, prawn vol au vents, clip art and of course balloons.
BALLOONS
What do balloons tell you? - They say ‘we’re having a celebration…. we’re having a good time!’ - but do they REALLY? - Yes they add colour… and colour is good - I obviously don’t want to be seen as a party popper or be criticised as an over inflated snob but balloons, as an aesthetic, sort of exist as a staple add-on that people reach for without imagination. They’re not original but they are garish, they are not classy but they are cheap.
Some people say they are fun. But I would say, unless you’re a young child, I would love to see how much fun you can really have with a balloon. Do they lift your spirits? I mean really?
A Balloon archway at your wedding. Woop, woop. Some helium and they can attach to your table centrepiece…. now we get the party started!
THE KITSCH EXCEPTION
I suppose Kitsch is a respectable genre when it’s celebrated within its boundaries. Most festivals for the masses like Christmas, Mother’s Day, Hen Nights and Valentines etc all belong to the world of cheap plastic things from China - and I guess this could be a similar exception to the same traditional purposes surrounding my bunting comments earlier.
But when a client approaches me, they never say ‘I want a show that just looks like every other show please - don’t make any special effort’. It’s my job to pull off proper ‘wow’ and class.
Whenever we start the creative process, we would just never entertain the idea of balloons for a second. And yet, they just keep cropping up!
AND THEN LAST NIGHT...
This picture shows the moment (last night) when I cued a 500 pink balloon drop on Will.I.Am and friends at the Albert Hall.
I wasn’t the creative behind the decision, but I was directing the show. I needed them to come down on him and his band during the second chorus. Which means I cued them toward the end of the first chorus, coz the Albert Hall’s ceiling really is quite high up!
In the end, as they floated down on to the stage and the crowd danced and cheered…. I ended up really quite liking the whole thing.
So, I don’t take back my earlier diatribe - but I guess I need to bite the bullet here and say that, at Night Train, I might occasionally entertain the idea of balloons on a show… but there are no shortage of caveats surrounding this statement.
And please note, despite this small compromise, I absolutely refuse to allow Comic Sans to show up in any invite, signage, slide, logo or document. It’s contractual!
Fun on the Nasdaq!
Preparing to ring the bell....
This was great fun to watch.... there's always more to learn about how the markets work. Let's do this again sometime soon!
New York City
Killing it in New York!
It's been a good fifteen years since I've been to New York..... and what hasn't changed is the lovely people I've met.
I'm doing a financial show for Imagination... and it's going just fine.... but perhaps I'll find a bit more time in the next couple of days to go and photograph stuff... coz my guess is you won't especially want to see shots of the stage set!
Does Night Train blog?
Well yes.... except my industry does tend to require a fairly professional level of discretion surrounding some of the things that happen... and not just backstage either.... for example, I worked for over a year on the Commonwealth Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies... and couldn't really tell anyone what was happening throughout, and even after the events.
But hey, here's my "professional" Night Train blog nonetheless. You'll love it!
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