My son is technical manager. So it goes from shows to the BBC bowls coverage. They just set up an identical site in Essex, and have duplicated everything, so people can move from site A to B and it’s exactly the same layout, and they are heavily time coded and automated. To the audience right of the stage is an upstairs glassed off area where the band play when they’re not on stage. They can add in a brass section when needed very simply. Technology means things like the huge channel count has to be managed by programming, so if you have 16 singers, each one with in ear monitors, plus the band, with changes in levels and effects, it has to be right. So each number is heavily preprogrammed, but the poor sound op has to cope with the inevitable personnel changes, where for one show, a quieter singer replaces a louder one, and they have to make rapid adjustments to fader starting positions when they suddenly get recalled, but are wrong. When Covid messed things up, they added smaller stages outside for the guests and the big theatre was empty, with the shows being streamed to individual rooms and small areas. Crazily complicated. They do it really well. Another friend goes in as guitar cover, so has to play pretty well non stop for an hour, music he has to read, and follow the instructions like at end of this song, put on wig, go down stairs, enter stage centre, play bar 222 through to 230, run back upstairs continue from bar 239. Because of the video, the band also have look at camera cues! In the videos you see the pianist prodding a pad. Everything is automated, even the sheet music on the pads!
