"With the screen, audio and lighting all hung from the roof, this ‘heavy’ rig required a lot of advance planning. UP provided a screen for the last tour in 2018, so it was a pleasure to work with the team again to find a solution for this unique in-the-round show. The huge 650 square metre Leyard LED screen was chosen because it is lightweight enough to reduce the overall rigging load, whilst still staying true to the overall design concept. The result is a truly immersive 360 canvas for Roger Waters' creative narrative," explains Jeremy Lloyd, co-director at London-based Wonder Works, a long-term partner, which was appointed to deliver production and technical design services for the tour.

The first task for the Wonder Works design team was to carry out a detailed weight study, as not only would the proposed LED screen be large but, as an in-the-round show, there is three times as much audio, lighting and video, compared to an end-on show. The team was faced with the challenge of designing a lightweight system, which would be logistically possible to install in every venue throughout the four-month tour.

The design team also needed to ensure the screen could deliver the technical requirements of the tour’s visual content, providing 10-bit colour depth, grey scale and low light features to maintain Waters’ trademark visual palette and concepts. Video director, Icarus Wilson-Wright, was assigned to facilitate the artistic vision of Waters and his creative director, Sean Evans.

“Roger and Sean had already devised the design concept, style and workflow but they needed me to technically integrate that into the show production. I worked with Sean to build a 3D previs project in Disguise and mapped the content in a Disguise server,” Wilson-Wright explains. “I've worked with Leyard many times over the years, and the results are always impressive, so I knew it would enable the team to realise the artistic concepts of the project without sacrificing quality. The screen effortlessly manages the high quality, large content we're pushing at it. The NotchLC video codec made 10-bit playback for our media servers a reality, as it’s an ideal scenario for show content like this with big canvases. The screen’s 10-bit capacity also enables us to work with darker content, which in turn allows us to use lower lighting levels to dramatic effect. The opportunity to run a majority of 10-bit content gives us a great dynamic range and look. We are very happy with it.”