Known for her spectacularly acrobatic shows, German superstar Helene Fischer kicked off her 71-date ‘Live 2023’ tour on April 11th at Barclays Arena Hamburg for a 15-city run through Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Although Solotech has long provided technological solutions globally, this is among the first times Solotech’s Live Productions Division, Europe, provides a complete 360-degree solution in Germany.
Produced by Live Nation and created by Cirque du Soleil, the tour comprises multi-night mini-residencies, with audio, lighting and video production needs provided by Solotech’s Live Productions Division, Europe, including L-Acoustics’ new compact and powerful L Series line source array. Additionally, Solotech provided Avid S6L and Yamaha consoles, wireless in-ear/microphone packages, Roe Visual Vanish 8T LED panels, robotic cameras, a full-blown lighting rig, and other related infrastructure.
Significantly, Solotech and Fischer are also the first to use the L Series Progressive, Ultra-Dense Line Source by L-Acoustics on tour. This concert sound system meets the needs of Helene Fischer’s team due to its power, control, and consistency in a format that is almost half the size and weight of an equivalent traditional line source array.
On a show like this, technical aspects dictate what you deploy and how it’s deployed. Here, we had problematic weight limits in every venue, so we were looking for options to reduce weight and speed up load in and load out times. L Series also leaves plenty of real estate for other system elements and limits the type of visual distractions a larger system often results in, says Holger Schader – Senior Consultant, Touring and Special Events, Solotech in Germany.
In addition to being smaller, lighter and easier to deploy, the L-Acoustics L2 and L2D elements provide substantial audio benefits. They offer significantly enhanced power density, consistency over the audience area, and improved rejection everywhere else. They are powered by the new L-Acoustics LA-RAK III platform, which provides 48 channels of amplification and DSP in a 9U touring rack package, enabling high resolution control and power to each L2 and L2D speaker.
All of these elements were critical for Fischer’s tour. “There’s so much other infrastructure, so many lighting and video elements, that a high-density, low-weight system, with the full benefit of L-Acoustics’ proven technology behind it, plays a big role in a show like this”, Schader notes.
Solotech’s partnership with L-Acoustics and long-term association with Cirque du Soleil, as well as the company’s willingness to adapt and innovate relentlessly in service to its clients, was a significant benefit for this project. The creative process was enhanced by enabling a more fluent dialogue than would ever be possible if using multiple equipment providers. Solotech was involved early in the creative process in May-June 2022 so that Live Nation and Cirque du Soleil could refine their needs for lighting, video, and audio fluently and seamlessly, with Solotech providing real-world solutions, no matter how complex or ambitious the design concept.
As a client, you’ve got to look for a company that can adapt to all your needs, especially on a show where so many changes are made during the creative process. Not every company can do that. But because we are used to doing 360-degree shows of this size, if one option doesn’t work, we can easily provide multiple options to adapt to any artistic or creative changes down the line. Whereas other companies might struggle to enable designers to fulfill their vision, says John Probyn, Head of Business Development, Live Productions Division, Europe, Solotech.
Solotech’s provision of a full 360-degree live production solution speaks volumes in terms of the company’s willingness to go the extra mile and leverage its relationships with manufacturers to get ahead of new technologies and get the job done.
Photos by Thomas Holz
