Undercover had a sneak peek at the U2 stage at Melbourne's Telstra Dome prior to the band's performances over the weekend, discussing the scope of the production with Production Director Jake Berry.
The production can have up to 200 people working on it at once, of which there is a full-time touring personnel of around 88. Twenty of these are dedicated solely to working with the massive steel backdrop, which takes around ten hours to erect. Each city provides a local crew of around 76 to help with the load-in, and 140 for the deconstruction.The set travelled to Australia in ocean containers - for short trips, such as the trip to Auckland, it will travel in three 747s. With the tour postponed from earlier in the year, the massive set travelled around the world twice to be here.
When asked of the logistical challenges such a production faced, Berry sounded nonplussed, replying, "Once you get into a groove, the logistical things fall into place. Starting up is normally pretty hard, to work out where it all comes from. We have equipment that comes in from all over the world - America, Belgium, Holland, England. Most of it is not from Australia."
Sound-wise, the show features 196 speakers per system, with three systems sitting in different parts of the world, so as to save on transport costs. Berry also explained that, whilst the current show is smaller than Zoo TV and Popmart, it is by far more technologically advanced.
