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for shoots that were taking place during the streaming boom.” Fast-forward to late 2024 and Universal Pixels began supporting world tours again, following a pickup after the pandemic-issued pause of live music. For Horan’s show, Universal Pixels ran tests on a custom Austrian drape to determine its real-world brightness. The theatre curtain at The O2 was splashed with cinematic slogans and graphics: ‘Welcome to The Show, starring Niall Horan.’ At the start of each show, the curtain would lift to reveal Horan and a six-piece band playing Nice to Meet Ya. “We started testing concepts with projection and drapes from October 2023,” says Mark Strange, senior project manager at Universal Pixels, “where we looked at how we could projection map the full Austrian drape. From this test, we came up with a solution that would work in the various venues we would be taking the show to – from UK/European arenas to US sheds – including two shows at Madison Square Garden.” Strange emphasises how one of the biggest challenges when tackling a global arena tour is making sure the AV set-up is flexible enough to be easily scalable – depending on the venue’s size. “The biggest challenge was when we needed to work in smaller spaces, such as sheds in the US, which is when you don’t have such a flat, blank canvas to work with. We went from having three projection positions to making this work from a single point of projection – and from a further distance.”
Niall Horan’s The Show: Live on Tour featured a music hall design created from 150 sq m of Universal Pixels LED screens
AV TOOLKIT: NIALL HORAN’S THE SHOW: LIVE ON TOUR 3x 40,000-lumens Barco 4K projectors 2x 20,000-lumens Epson projectors Panasonic UC4000 cameras Panasonic UE150 PTZ cameras 5x Roe V8T upstage screens 3x Roe downstage header screens Leyard CLM6 tiles 3x Disguise GX3 media servers
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