Ring of Honor – UK Tour

Our production team provided AV support for the Ring of Honor 3 day UK wrestling tour

BRIEF:

For the Ring of Honor 2017 tour Premier designed, produced & implemented AV production including Audio, Comms, Lighting, Power & Rigging.

This event consists of a full wrestling show coming to the UK for 3 days only. The events were situated across the country at London – York Hall, Liverpool – Olympia & Edinburgh – Corn Exchange.

This is the second year that we have been involved with the production for the event. This year’s tour included additional sound and lighting equipment compared to our last tour with Ring of Honor.

 

PROCESS:

Having already provided production for the previous year of Ring of Honor, we wanted to go bigger and make use of more lights, a bigger sound system and a fully redundant communications system.

Our team had to consider the difference in venue specifications and how a full wrestling ring can still be lit efficiently. It became apparent that at the Liverpool Olympia venue, no rigging points were available to cater for the 12x12m truss which is situated above the wrestling ring. To overcome this, we utilised Prolyte’s MPT Towers which effectively allow us to ground support the rig and send it to the required height safely.

Working documents & technical specifications drawn in the Pre-Production process gave all crew and production teams an idea of the look we wanted to create, and how to do so safely & efficiently.

 

EQUIPMENT USED:

Although most of the attention was focused towards the wrestling ring, it was evident that when the wrestlers walk out they must do so in spectacular style.

Having recently invested in Sparkulars these were utilised on the walkway towards the ring, accompanied by 6 x Clay Paky Sharpys on the floor with a further 6 rigged at height. This gave wrestlers the appearance they wanted and the ‘walk out’ effect, associated with wrestling.

Above the main ring was a 12x12m square truss rig consisting of 72 Par 64s with CP95 lamps, 8 Clay Paky Sharpys, 6 Elation Sixbars & 4 ETC Source Four Juniors. The Par 64s were used to provide a full wash of heavy white bright light on the ring and surrounding areas, aided by the use of CP95 lamps, frost and colour correction gel.

Pre-& Post fight the use of moving light fixtures and Sixbars gave the added effect of a wrestling show and the intensity of such sport. Assuring all wrestlers could be seen from all areas of the stage & ring, 2 crew members would focus the conventional fixtures to assure that all positions are covered and evenly lit, this was crucial in Liverpool Olympia as the event was streamed live in the US.

The heart of all lighting on all 3 events was a pre-patched Avolites ART 2000. This industry standard dimmer has switchable modules allowing Dim & Hot power to be sent along Socapex lines with ease. Lighting control is a hugely important aspect of any show and to assure the operator has the ability to create the look associated with Wrestling, an Avolites Quartz was used, offering touchscreen technology with manual faders and macro buttons. The Quartz can easily offer positional & colour palettes to either run a show from a cue stack or manually.

With all Audio being provided by Premier, it was evident from experience that the L’Acoustics KARA system would suitably provide coverage and allow introduction music and commentator microphones to be heard easily. Operating such sound system was done so by the Yamaha LS9 and utilised the L’Acoustics LA8 Amplifiers which are more than capable of powering pristine sound through speakers such as KARA.

For all commentators, the use of high quality microphones was essential, we chose to utilise Sennheiser’s SKM300-865 handheld microphones running to dedicated receivers and through a multicore to the LS9.

 

Stats:

Number of Events: 3

Total Equipment Weight: 6,532KG

Total number of items provided: 1,898

Total Man Hours: 110

Total value of equipment provided: £244,406

Transport – 1 x 44T Arctic

 

Video: