The Brief
It was great to hear from Solid Entertainment on their upcoming tour with The National. NW Group and Solid Entertainment have a great working relationship going back a good few years and we’ve worked with them on numerous shows and tours.
They initially contacted us looking for a sound, lighting and vision package. It developed into a full-service production management role with NW Group taking care of all aspects of the local production.
Solution
As this was the start of an Australasian run and the first shows for the band in a few months, The National crew wanted to spend a day in a rehearsal studio to go through their gear and get everything sorted for the shows. We provided a rehearsal studio and production office space from our Auckland based facility and managed the logistics of receiving the touring gear. The rehearsal day went really well, and it was a great chance for the local crew to meet the touring crew and put months of pre-production into action. The National crew were able to do a full setup of the stage system and integrate their touring gear with the locally supplied equipment.
The biggest challenge for NW Group was that Auckland and Wellington were back-to-back shows. It meant an overnight drive across the Desert Road for the production, which consisted of three semi-trailer trucks, courtesy of On Tour Logistics, who handled the NW Group equipment, and Production Transport Services, who took care of The National’s Touring Freight. We carefully devised a plan of sending a truckload of gear from Auckland to Wellington the day before the Wellington show to prebuild some of the rig on the show day before the overnight trucks turned up. Emil from The National crew, along with Deen and Don from NW Group, flew to Wellington once the Auckland rig was all going, to manage this prebuild phase of the day. This meant both crews walked into a venue with motors floating ready for the rig to be attached and flown.
The TSB Arena tested the crew in the way only a sports stadium can, and The National crew appreciated the local knowledge of the NW Group Wellington office. The show is visually stunning with a meticulously designed and operated light show, backed up by epic visuals on the LED screen. Getting the right trim heights in the Arena meant the riggers needed to pay particular attention to getting as much height out of the rig as possible.
The asymmetric seating of the TSB Arena provided the audio team with a little hurdle to jump in terms of different box counts for the flown outfills in the venue. Using the d&b ArrayCalc software we were easily able to factor this into our PA design and the end result was a fantastic sounding show. Making use of ArrayCalc software as part of the design process makes deploying a system under very tight time frames a lot more manageable. The points, box angles, and trim heights onsite match the ArrayCalc design so all that is required on the day is to check your time and phase alignment, do a tune and hand over to the touring engineer to work their magic.
The post show logistics required focus too, The National’s next show was in Brisbane on the Wednesday after the Wellington show. All the crew hustled to get the rig down, in the truck and back across the Desert Road, all in good time to allow the touring gear to make it back to Auckland on Monday morning.
Outcome
The end result of NW Group’s hard work and expertise was a nearly sold-out show in Wellington that captivated audiences, and sounded and looked amazing, and had great reviews. It gave the punters a great night out which is the driving factor of what NW Group does on a daily basis.
