Chasing Pixels
From a record-breaking LED wall to the expressive visuals it displayed, LIVE unravels the tapestry of tech that comprised Adele’s Munich residency
Words Verity Butler
It seems to have gone from every once in a while to a regular occurrence that the world bears witness to the technical leaps and strides taking place in the AV sector. Adele’s second concert residency back in August 2024 is a glittering contemporary example.
Held in a purpose-built outdoor arena at Messe Munich, it presented a mosaic of innovation – pooling together a dynamic intersection of tech vendors who in turn delivered a show for the history books. With the August shows succeeding her hugely lucrative Las Vegas production Weekends with Adele, the world-renowned British singer was eager to take on the next exciting challenge of her career. This month-long endeavour took place at the Live Nation-backed, purpose-built, 80,000-capacity Open Air Arena in Munich, Germany.
The 16-time Grammy winner, who has sold over 100 million albums, announced the gig to her fans via her Instagram: “A one-off, bespoke, pop-up stadium designed around whatever show I want to put on? I couldn’t think of a more wonderful way to spend my summer.”
The ten-date residency consisted of two emotionally charged performances per week, with the singer pouring her heart out through 22 of her most iconic songs at what became dubbed the ‘Adele Arena’.
The design of the event was delivered by Stufish. “We approached the stage design from different angles to address the emotive aspect of [Adele’s] show being inclusive and allow her to embrace her audience,” says Ray Winkler, CEO and design director at Stufish. “This was as well as delivering the technical complexity of our design to the high standard that she and her production expected from Stufish.”
Though the show’s success could be anticipated, with audiences totalling a whopping 730,000, it quickly became apparent that this was to be greater than your average residency.
Wall of fame
Arguably more the show’s star than even Adele, let’s start with that Guinness World Record-breaking LED wall.
Delivered and installed by Solotech, the visual spectacle consisted of LED panels from Roe Visual, supplied entirely from a single batch to ensure precise visual quality. The curved wall undulated across the enormous venue, spanning an impressive 244m in width and 18m in height. It was flanked by cylindrical towers that resembled a vast analogue film reel – which served to complement the thematic visuals that were displayed on the screen.
“While Adele is no stranger to holding multiple records for her music,” stated senior adjudicator for Guinness World Records Joanne Brent when awarding the record, “this achievement stands apart, celebrating her remarkable vision for the Adele in Munich residency.”
The lightweight-yet-durable design of Roe’s CB5 Mk II made this massive installation possible. At the same time, its 6000-nit brightness and efficient heat dissipation ensured brilliant, vivid visuals throughout the duration of the outdoor performance.
“It reflected the extraordinary experience she had meticulously crafted for her fans,” emphasises Brent. “I was intrigued to see how such an expansive screen would be used. The bespoke visual effects were tailored to each song and really elevated the performance for an undeniable ‘wow’ factor. It was a perfect complement to Adele’s artistry.”
When speaking to Grace Kuo, sales director for Roe Visual, it is evident that the scale of the production and range of technical partners demonstrates that it was more than just a normal concert: “It was a fully immersive experience. This achievement highlights Roe Visual’s commitment to pursuing innovation and excellence in display technology.”
Star treatment
Adele’s music is proliferated with raw tales of devastating heartbreak and poignant life experiences. As a result, her shows demand a creative variation of visual content in order to truly capture the singer’s story. In Munich’s case, the end result ranged from painted vistas to a captivating reimagining of the Skyfall title sequence; with the responsibility for visuals having been assigned to the team at Treatment Studio.
“A lot of the foundations of our business have been built in music touring,” explains head of production at Treatment Studio, Lizzie Pocock, “for the likes of AC/DC, Elton John and The Rolling Stones – to name a few.”
An award-winning creative agency founded by industry pioneers Willie Williams and Sam Pattinson, the team at Treatment Studio generates experiences for live music, festivals, art installations, experiential spaces, branding campaigns and theatrical productions. Its expertise comprises stage, lighting and set design and multimedia content production, as well as the creation of interactive and mixed-reality environments.
“We’ve worked with Adele for a number of years now, including, most recently, on her Vegas residency. This show was building on where we had left off with the Vegas shows,” says Pocock.
“It’s a very different setting. Vegas was a small, intimate theatre, compared to Munich – a ginormous, stadium-sized set-up with such an impressive screen.” Pocock emphasises Treatment Studio’s recognition of the Vegas show’s success and the importance of retaining a similar look and simply translating that into a wildly different environment.
“One of the big considerations was that the audience’s view of her was a lot less close up. We had to make sure an image of her would be portrayed on the screen, in terms of both pre-recorded footage and from a live perspective,” she adds.
Although the LED wall’s scale meant a larger canvas for the team to work with, it also came with its own challenges.
“It was very long and shallow – not a typical aspect ratio,” Pocock explains. “But that made it fun, as with challenge comes creative thought, which pushes you to develop your approaches.”
When it came to the visuals itself, the process began with some initial direction and ideas from Adele. “Then there was a natural creative process, during which we bounced ideas back and forth, as well as putting boards and animation tests together. We did this until we had 30 seconds of a piece to show to give an idea of what it was going to feel like.
“We then built it out using imagery of Adele as well as silhouettes and other techniques for maintaining connection between the screen and the audience.”
“Adele’s Munich show was particularly exciting for us to work on,” concludes Pocock, “because it really showcased what our visuals were capable of in a temporary environment.”
Playing with fire
With the setlist featuring a myriad of Adele’s deeply emotional anthems, it was crucial for the special effects department to understand the tone, since they were grappling with a venue of such scale.
“On 2 November 2023, Paul English, Adele’s production manager, contacted our CEO Nicolai Sabottka with the subject line: ‘ADELE LIKES FIRE’,” says Matt Varley, creative director at FFP Effects. Founded by Sabottka, FFP is the creative force behind the world’s most captivating flames and SFX. His mastery of pyrotechnics has ignited the imaginations of audiences worldwide and has fuelled 25+ years of innovation within the entertainment industry.
“It’s always possible to put SFX on top of an existing stage, but when we’re given the opportunity to be behind the scenes from the beginning, it always leads to something extra special,” he says.
Tailored performances that push the boundaries of live entertainment are FFP’s speciality, with its proprietary flame systems offering unmatched spectacles.
“We initially took Liquid Flame Giga, our signature, proprietary large-flame systems, which produce a 16m-high flame, and had the team build a lot of additional systems to massively beef up the number we utilise for this compared to a normal show,” Varley adds.
“Through months of research and testing, our team succeeded in debuting four of our brand-new Liquid Flame Terra systems. These produce a massive flame over 30m tall.
“We then also had to figure out how to do the pyrotechnics,” continues Varley, “developing effects in close proximity to the audience that could be safely fired as well as providing a massive, high-altitude finale to be shot up into the air behind the stage at the end of the show.
“Luckily for us, Renzo Cargnelutti, our crew chief, is one of the most sought-after pyrotechnic programmers in the industry. His sequencing is a masterclass in how pyrotechnics can consist of more than just controlled explosions firing off ballistically – and actually be artful.
“Then there was the task of taking the amount of confetti Adele is famous for using at her shows and finding a way to amplify that,” he expands. “We had to make sure we had enough to cover the whole crowd – the equivalent area of two American football fields – while having fire simultaneously.” The final total at the event was 100 confetti units which had to be manually loaded and reloaded over the course of the show.
FFP’s effects were used across four of Adele’s iconic songs. Rolling in the Deep, which closed the shows, saw the final chorus kicking in with a rapid sequence of 540 pyrotechnic jets chasing back and forth along the passerelle (catwalk) – ending with a huge explosion of white confetti through the last note of the show. Set Fire to the Rain started with a tsunami low-fog effect paired with strobing pyrotechnics. The storm on the video screen then blended and distorted to become a full display featuring all 60 of the arena’s flame heads in action.
Connecting the dots
When it came to production, the concert series was led by manager Paul English and sought expertise from a variety of disciplines within Clair Global, all of which was overseen by its account executive Andy Walker.
“A great thing done by Andy was getting the IT team on board to supply fantastic internet across the whole site. It made our lives much easier throughout the entire backstage area, which is an immense space over 600m long,” says English. “This was linked to the comms system, so we could go everywhere with a Bolero pack – and worked perfectly, providing exactly what we asked for.
“When it came to audio, the shows in Munich sounded phenomenal; in the stadium, it was amazing from one side to the other, front to back. It’s a pleasure to work with Adele’s audio team and have Clair as our supplier.”
Walker comments: “This compelling project has been a lengthy undertaking of Clair’s global resources from our UK, North America and mainland Europe locations. It has enabled the production to use a singular supplier for multiple services, including audio, comms, radios and production IT. This included an interdepartmental network and 150 Wi-Fi access points for site-wide IT support and fibre distribution.” Clair Global also deployed a control package that mirrored the Las Vegas set-up: Digico Quantum 7 consoles at both the front-of-house and monitor positions for the star’s long-time mixing engineers Dave Bracey and Joe Campbell.
While Adele has long been cemented as one of the world’s best live performers and her production values are always first class, the scale-up in Munich was considerable – from both a PA system and monitoring/RF standpoint. Systems engineer Johnny Keirle mapped out a sprawling 36-hang, 14-delay-tower, L-Acoustics K1/K2/L2 design, covering the entirety of the large urban site in perfect clarity. This included carefully considering the amp positions and signal distribution to ensure that the almost 800,000 fans in attendance each received optimal sound quality.
Seismic system design
Keirle describes his high-stakes undertaking: “The shows in Munich are an example of a completely different approach to system design. In Las Vegas, we worked with an immersive L-ISA system, while Munich instead utilised a traditional L/R-dual mono system.
“This PA design was a complex process. There was a huge emphasis on creating a clean visual experience, with stage design being central to the show. This meant we had to find solutions for high trim heights at the main stage end and finding discreet, tidy audio solutions within the audience areas.”
With the stage thrust extending 100m into the audience and a passerelle looping from stage right to left, the team had to place delays beyond the golden circle and passerelle, relying heavily on the main stage K Series.
Keirle also had several external factors to consider, as he points out: “Outdoor shows often present noise pollution challenges. Moreover, with the summer weather being unpredictable, I designed a system that could handle extreme weather changes without assuming optimal conditions for HF propagation. The goal was to achieve homogeneous coverage while maintaining consistent imagery and temporal integrity across the system as much as possible.
“In a scenario where the audience is over 200m from the artist, it’s crucial for those furthest from the stage to have an equally great sonic experience as those up near the front. Particularly with an artist like Adele, where vocal intimacy and immediacy are key to her appeal – loudspeaker placement is paramount.”
Negotiating networks
A vital aspect for the show’s connectivity was hidden networking. Laurie Fradley, event support engineer at Clair Global, elaborates: “We had to feed all our equipment positions for PA, comms and IT – some situated in the middle of the large audience – ensuring there were no clear cable runs. We took the decision to deploy a multi-strand fibre network throughout the site for both our team and other departments that needed to service these areas. In total, we ran around 1200 fibre cores across the whole of the site.”
Communications system designer Patrick Taghavi navigated the Riedel Communications Artist 128 digital intercom network on AES67 audio networks. With reliable communication and audio signal distribution needed for 230 crew members, Taghavi outlines that a major reason comms were employed was for departmental communication and to enable the show director to call cues correctly and safely.
“A comms system like the one we built supports crystal-clear communication in a busy live environment,” he reveals. “We couldn’t run a show of this size without a robust, clean system – it’s critical to the safety of everyone involved.”
The show’s 42-person string section utilised elevators built into the stage around the passerelle, an aspect of the show design that demanded a bespoke cue light system to be engineered by Clair Global. Conceptualised and designed by Fradley, then engineered and programmed by Jay Walton, the comms system housed a Raspberry Pi computer and Stream Deck controller. This gave a visual cue to the 42 elevators, allowing the classical musicians to rise effortlessly from the stage in synergy with their instruments being played.
Production truly excelled in the implementation of these ten iconic performances through many sorts of weather conditions, and Adele showed the world how exceptional a stadium experience can truly be.
The star took to her social media channels once again to state: “It was the best vibes all round. I’ve never seen anything like these shows, it was truly spectacular and I’m beyond honoured to have been asked to do them.”
This feature was first published in the Winter 2024 issue of LIVE.
