A Hong Kong Concert Stage in Toronto
Videoscope stages Jacky Cheung

Location
Ricoh Coliseum, Toronto, Ontario

Assignment
Create a Hong Kong Concert Stage for Pop star Jacky Cheung

Staging Services
Videoscope is renowned for its expertise in staging corporate events.  
In February we put our diverse skills on the line by staging a concert for the famous Hong Kong pop music star, Jacky Cheung.  It was a two night show at the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto .

Videoscope was hired to provide full service Staging with Steve Dunstall as the Staging Consultant  The concert required a multi-level stage complete with an elevator, lighting, sound, video production, video projection, pyro and special F/X, as well as the back line instruments.

The show came to Toronto from Hong Kong, where Jacky Cheung has been a huge pop and movie star since the mid 1990’s.  Known for his rich baritone, wide range and exceptional interpretive vocals, he has been dubbed the “Canto pop king.”  He was crowned "Chinese Artiste of The World" in Monte Carlo at the 1996 World Music Awards. In this period Jacky Cheung was the biggest selling Chinese pop singer in the world and is still one of the most respected. In 2005 he received a CCTV-MTV award for “Pan-Asia Male Artist of the Year.”  

The show brought lots of challenges for Videoscope. The timeline was very tight. The night before Jacky Cheung was to take the stage, the Toronto Marlies played a hockey game in the Ricoh Coliseum. Immediately after the game the coliseum had to be transformed from “hockey mode” to “concert mode.”  The staging crew could not start to load in the concert set-up until 7 am, with the first show scheduled for that evening.  

This was not your typical five piece rock band. It was a combination of rock’n roll, orchestra and theatre. Normal procedure for a show this big, with such a short set-up time would be to rent a vacant warehouse, lay out the entire show, pre-rig, label and colour code everything. But there was no pre-design to lay out. The Hong Kong designers were in the process of creating a whole new lighting design for Toronto .  “Creative changes continued right into the show day. The final set-up was 180 degrees different from the first plan we saw”, says Steve. “Our ability to adapt quickly to our customers requirements was key.”  

The lighting rig was a huge and complex design. There was no way it could be installed as a “one off” in the time available.  The only possible solution was to pre-rig all of the lighting fixtures on swing wing trusses at the shop prior to the load in. This process took three days of shop prep, but the timeline to install it was still very tight. Steve negotiated with the Venue to pre-hang the 54 truss motors the day before the Hockey game. We could now load in with all points pre-rigged and the lighting trusses loaded and ready to fly. Time was still a concern so the massive 46’ x 60’ multi-level stage was built on wheels at centre ice and then rolled into place after the lighting rig was raised.    

The Hong Kong producer admitted that they couldn’t have pulled it off in one day in Hong Kong . But it all came together.  The Hong Kong lighting designers were programming the new show right up until the doors opened. The Meyer Array sound system, the three big 16:9 screens (24’ wide in the centre and 2 x 20’ wide on the sides), the 25,000 lumen projector, the cameras, the pyro and stage effects, the elevator in the middle of the multi-tiered stage, the multitude of instruments  -  all performed well. The two sold-out shows delighted Jacky’s Toronto fans.  

Videoscope’s extensive staging experience stood the “test of time” for this concert extravaganza.