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There was a time when the most difficult thing about promoting a rock concert may have been having to remove the green M&Ms from the rest of the candy or finding a special brand of champagne. But the stage was a relatively simple affair: instruments standing in a convenient location and a couple of speakers stage right and left. Setting the stage
Three Plus makes an unlikely pairing
at Janet Jackson's stadium gigBy Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comThose days are long gone.
A small army of carpenters, electricians, lighting technicians, and audio and video specialists have been working since Monday to construct a fantasy theater within Aloha Stadium for the biggest concert of 2002 -- and possibly the most expensive ever produced in Hawaii -- when HBO presents the Janet Jackson "All for You" tour at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow.
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Production costs alone for the two-hour, 24-song concert, which will be broadcast on HBO on Sunday, "are north of $1 million," an HBO executive said. That does not include Jackson's fee.The higher production costs are because the concert is being augmented for television which in this instance requires 14 TV cameras, hundreds of lighting towers and platforms and miles of cable, said Mo Morrison, the show's staging supervisor and Michael Jackson's production manager for a decade.
"This is Janet's tour show; you will see the same thing here as you would inside an arena," Morrison said. "But we've had to adapt it for an outdoor stage and television."
"All for You: Live in Concert From Hawaii" Janet Jackson
Where: Aloha Stadium
When: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow
Tickets: $45 and $65
Call: 526-4400
The staging and roof assembly was shipped to Honolulu in 14 40-foot containers. The production equipment, including costumes, props, lighting, sound and other equipment filled another 20 containers.
The stage and roof which is covered by a canopy, took two days to erect. The stage is 80-feet wide, 50 -feet deep, 65-feet high and 8 feet off the stadium floor.
Two enormous speaker columns will be on each side of the stage as well as video screens.
The entire set was completed yesterday afternoon or an informal rehearsal and tonight's full dress rehearsal.
Jackson's tour crew numbers about 70. There are 12 stage and roof assemblers brought in from Belgium. The HBO/Tall Pony production team numbers about 100 with another 100 local stage crew.
Five containers held the lights needed for the television portion of the event, Morrison said. Twenty steel towers 15-feet high line the perimeter of the stadium's upper level.
HBO also will use a unique 100-foot crane called a Strada to hold a camera that will capture "unique images" of the stage production, Morrison said. The production also will include helicopter shots.
Two production trucks will be used as the audio and video control rooms. The video booth contains monitors for each camera.
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The stadium will be filled with as many as 70 microphones to capture as much sound from the stage and audience as possible.There are three sound mixers: one in the control truck for the television audience, one in the audience to control what they hear, and someone on stage who ensures that Jackson and company can hear what they're singing.
On Sunday morning following the concert, HBO officials here must send the tape by satellite to New York for broadcast preparation that night, said Bill Rice, HBO's vice president of production.
The production company has back ups for every scenario for transmission problems, including two satellite trucks and a reservation to use AT&T's Earth Station 20-meter dish, Rice said.
For those who can't be at the stadium and don't subscribe to HBO, a DVD of the concert will be released later this year, Rice said.
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Breaks don't come much bigger than the one that's coming Three Plus' way this weekend. The trio's second album, "3+4U," will be released next Tuesday. They're opening for Janet Jackson at Aloha Stadium tomorrow night. Three Plus makes an
unlikely pairing at Janet
Jackson’s stadium gigBy John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.com"We're still overwhelmed. The timing couldn't be better," Shawn Pimental, the group's manager, said during a brief call from Japan earlier this week.
It seems like an odd double-bill. Jackson is one of the biggest stars in international pop and urban music. Traditionally there is very little cross-over between pop and urban music fans on one hand, and reggae and "world music" fans on the other. So, how'd Three Plus, hot here but best known for Jawaiian and "island music" grooves, with a repertoire of reggae beat originals and Jawaiian pop chart remakes, score such a plum gig?
Pimental says it's all about being in the right place at the right time.
"Island Rhythms is a Clear Channel radio station and Janet is with Clear Channel management, and whatever city they travel to they contact a PD (program director) from a Clear Channel station and ask them who's hot."
After being contacted by Lanai, from Island Rhythms, Pimental sent a CD to Clear Channel and a deal was made.
"Compared to Janet Jackson's album sales we're nowhere near that, but for selling 80,000 (for 1999 debut album "Honey Baby") in a place like Hawaii, that's big numbers."
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