On tour with a medieval castle

Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way Ball” World Tour is the third concert tour supporting her second studio album, “Born This Way”. The show clocks in at two and a half hours with 23 songs split into five acts. The stage is modelled on a medieval Gothic castle featuring viewing towers, intricate carvings and a large catwalk allowing audience interaction.

The lighting design is by Patrick Woodroffe with Mac Mosier out on tour as lighting director. The rig is a self-contained Upstaging production that includes about 270 moving lights and multiple LED fixtures – all controlled by a grandMA2 full-size. “There’s quite an assortment of fixtures in the rig, many of them dictated by the amount of space we have,” explains Mac Mosier.

Using the grandMA2 on this tour has been quite a learning curve for Mosier who particularly likes the way the console is laid out. “You can set it up just like the grandMA ‘series 1’ or however you like, and that’s fantastic,” he says. “Everyone has their own way of using a grandMA2. The grandMA2 has some really neat new features, such as instead of having an effects palette to work on, you can actually build the effect into the cue. It’s a great console and it’s exciting that it still has more to offer. There’s no Timecode on this show so I’m actually operating the console live and calling spots, it’s a lot of fun.”

Lighting Programmer Patrick Dierson states: "The grandMA2 system has proven itself to be remarkably stable under some incredibly processor-intensive programming sessions during the tour’s build-up. One outstanding feature in particular is the extreme flexibility of its customisable Macros. We've been able to create some very complex Macros that help the touring crew prepare and maintain the wellbeing of the lighting rig each day. Any crew member can walk up to a grandMA2 network station and have access to fixture tests and functions at the press of a single button. With a show this big, it's a welcome technical luxury."

Adam Bassett is the associate lighting designer. The stage design was created by Mark Fisher with Ric Lipson.

Photo: © Troy Constable


Used Equipment:

<link http: www.malighting.com en goto>2 x grandMA2 full-size