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Celine Dion Touring the World with Pandora's Box
After nearly five years in Las Vegas, the Canadian singer Celine Dion returns to the international stage with her "Taking Chances" Tour, which started in South Africa in February 2008. Every show features six Pandora's Box media servers from Cologne/Germany based coolux GmbH to help create the visual design of the show.
Celine's spectacular career began after a stunning win at the Grand Prix de l'Eurovision de la Chanson in 1988. After her long, successful run at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas she chose to return to her roots, touring and performing on the worldwide concert stage.
Just as for her former tours, Celine again chose to rely on her lighting designer Yves Aucoin to create the splendor of visual art that has been the hallmark of her past projects. Yves chose coolux products to have a unified solution for controlling and mixing video content by means of Pandora's Box media servers and Pandora's Box media manager, all communicating with a GrandMA lighting desk. The three Pandora's Box media server Green systems render the imagery in real time, all of which are running simultaneously as well as independently on different display technologies. One system is controlling the extensive LED stage-floor, the second is feeding the Element Labs' Stealth package and the third is used for the video switcher that is mixing the camera-feeds with the contents from Pandora's Box. Every Pandora's Box media server system has a hot back-up system which can take over at any time.
As the lighting and stage designer, Yves Aucoin is attending the entire world tour, backed by Pandora's Box operator Louis-Philippe Gaudreau. Aucoin describes the advantages of the coolux systems: "We can adapt to the local conditions very fast during a show. I can make the necessary modifications in the lighting desk and Louis-Philippe can save these straight in the cue on the timeline of the media manager. Instead of saving the changed characteristics in the GrandMA, I can leave modifications and programming of the necessary values entirely to Louis Philippe and thus stay concentrated on what is happening on stage. This is amazing!"
Operator Louis-Philippe Gaudreau adds: "I have used several other media servers. I have used and known the coolux Pandora's Box for only one year but I can already say that it is an absolutely reliable, powerful and stable system. And further, this hybrid way of working on the projections with Yves is really fun!"
The impressive stage has basically been designed to play in the round as a center-stage, but if a local venue requires, it can also be used as an end-stage configuration. If this is the case, the coolux products allow Aucoin and Gaudreau to modify the show as needed. The center of the stage setting consists of a huge collapsible LED cube made of 1080 Element Lab Stealth displays V2.5; these are flagged from above by four roll-up-screens by Gerriets, illuminated by Christie HD projectors.
Various Ayrton LED-Modules are inlaid into the stage-floor and the lateral catwalks to light up Celine and the dancers as well as to display graphical content.
All around the stage plasma screens have been installed for the audience in the first rows. These screens display feeds from eight HD cameras and a Pandora's Box media server. From this perspective the audience can follow Celine's performance closely, even if she's acting on the other side of the stage.
10th September 2008
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