# HELLO....from the city that rhymes with fun.....2013 Juno Awards REGINA !!!!



## faracaster

Hi all....
Well I'm taking a different tact this year. The past couple of years I've been too busy to start the Juno thread in good time.
This year I'm starting before I leave.
I'll be on a big bird in a couple of hours winging my way west to the Brandt Centre in Regina Sask. to start prep for the show next Sunday (April 21st).
When I arrive I'll be going right to the venue to mark the floor for staging and rigging points. The show is about three weeks later into the year than it usually is. So I was packing for a spring environment. However, it seems winter still has a hold on the old 'Gina. I just checked my Weather Network app and it seems there will be some snow accompanying some temps in the -4 to -12 range. I am now re-packing. ....I hope you will check-in on this thread for the next week or so. I'll post when I can.
cheers
pete


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## Guest

LOL at the title Pete. Looking forward to pictures!


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## Chito

Looking forward to the updates on this thread. I was looking for it last year and I figured you got too busy to post here.


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## noman

Always enjoy your Juno threads........this is pretty late in the year. Smart of you to check the weather since most of Canada is not really spring-like yet.


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## GuitarsCanada

Always interesting and fun to see this come together Pete, will be keeping and eye on the thread


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## Kenmac

"Mulva?" ;o) Looking forward to your commentary and photos Pete.


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## faracaster

So.....

In the middle of the prairies ..... with a horizon as far away as imaginable .... there will be a rock show honouring the year's success stories in Canadian music.

I have to say, other than passin' thru, I had never been to Regina prior to my first scout for the show out here last June. 
I like it here. the people have been great and welcoming, the sky is huge and...the task daunting.

The venue is a shine, a church of Canadian culture, a place where dreams are nurtured and then catapulted into the cult of professional athlete ...or.... not.
The Brandt Centre is home to the Regina Pats (originally called the Patricias). You think you know hockey ? Fans of the Pats have been watching the team produce NHLer's for almost 100 years !!!
If a Pats fan tells me to watch a player, I better watch. The Pats are the OLDEST major junior hockey franchise on the planet...not kidding folks...since 1917, the blades of the Pats have been cuttin' ice. Inside the arena there are banners lining the one end of the bowl naming their considerable achievements....beginning with a Memorial cup final appearance in 1919 (the year of my own Mommy's birth).




















As much as the Brandt Centre is a cool temple of hockey....it's a real challenge to mount a show like the Juno Awards in an arena that has such a low ceiling. In the 12 years I've been doing the show this is smallest venue we've been in. 

After the past two years of being in NHL venues and having sets that loomed as much as 50 ft above the floor (let alone lighting above that), we had to think of different way to skin a cat.
So we decided that we'd go in the exact opposite direction. Instead of trying compete with the large vertical electronic walls of the recent shows, we'd eliminate them altogether. We'd let the excitable audiences of regina be our backgrounds. But of course I couldn't just take away all the electronic jib jab and leave it. There needed to be a twist. 
In most arenas....it's not possible to have a stage at either end for a show like this. There is a dedicated end for a performance stage with a large vom, extra steel for rigging PA and lights and of course access to the loading docks. The Brandt Centre differs from that in that it has a sizeable vom with a reasonable staging area behind it and basically the same structural roof above it.

The idea hatched was that I was able to put two stages, facing each other at either end of the ice surface. And...maybe a centre stage for small performances and award presentation. Here is an early layout showing a wacky positioning of the stages and levels between them that would become walkways from one end to the other.






























over the months, we had many more meetings, technical info uncovered, can's and can't's offered up and of course budget realities taking hold and we ended up with this layout.











Since we had no vertical pieces on the stages and the ceiling was so low (and not terribly attractive...as most rinks are) I was afraid that I'd see this roof in every wide and looking up shot.
So thought it might be nice if the lighting rig followed the walkways and we add video to the ceiling. Then if I used reflective material...mirrored paneling on the stage I could reflect the video onto the stage. going one step further I embedded video panels in the stage itself. So the final concept looks like this...


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## faracaster

Monday AM on the way to the venue.
HELLO welcome to Regina mid-April










oh well....it all about being Canadian eh.

The setup began Sunday with the usual. (If you have read any of my threads on the Juno Awards the past few years, this will seem redundant because...it is.) We need to follow a similar schedule each year. We get the venue Sunday at 12am. conversion of the rink from hockey palace to concert venue begins with removal of the boards, seating removal and or placement, covering the ice etc. We mark the floor for rigging points. Then later Sunday then load in begins. 












Okay....phew.....always good to get confirmation that "you are somewhere"......and there's a Timmy's nearby.










the barrage of cases load out onto the floor....






























While I diminished the vertical impact of the set .....having two distinct stages increased the sound department's rig substantially....


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## noman

That's a lot of gear!! Looks like a typical April day in Saskatchewan...........


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## faracaster

And of course....lighting was doubled to also accommodate.



















Of course truss to hang it all. I have no idea how much truss but there was a 53' truck and a half of just truss.
My lens was not wide enough to include much more than you see here.










and so it begins...



















motors hung from rigging points


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## Beach Bob

Fascinating process to see. Thanks for sharing


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## hollowbody

My favourite thread every year! Thanks for sharing, Pete!


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## greco

Many thanks for doing this for us, Pete.

Cheers

Dave


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## keto

2 HUGE thumbs up for doing this, Pete. I know hundreds here read your insider reports with interest.


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## GuitarsCanada

Right on Pete. Looking forward to the show


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## faracaster

Thanks to all you cats for the good vibes. I'm so thrilled you are diggin' this.

Of course I couldn't go away without something to play. I threw this on one of the set trucks coming out from Toronto.



















PA flying up !!!
We're using more sound reinforcement this year than we ever have. With two main performance stages and a award/performance stage, the audio designer had to think of this in a different way. These line arrays are flown with subs in the middle. There are 18 of these distributed throughout the arena.







































A 200 foot section of truss being rigged along the edge of the rink. This is for the follow spots and smaller moving fixtures.











Here's my head of construction, Perry Frigault and his right hand man Ted Morishita mugging for me. 
They are smiling in this picture because our first set truck arrived a day early and they were able to get a jump on building the pieces of set that have video panels mounted in them.
Those smiles would fade Tuesday morning when we were told that set trucks #2 and #3 would be a day late.....YIKES !!!!!
For some reason, the cartage company instead of driving the trucks to Regina, decided to put the trailers on a freight train....but didn't tell us. 











Installing metal frames to mount lo-rez video panels to.


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## Jim DaddyO

You have a cool job.


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## greco

I saw this and thought Pete might like to see it:

http://regina.ctvnews.ca/junos-set-up-in-full-swing-1.1242220

Not much to read.

Cheers

Dave


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## Cartcanuck

This thread is awesome. I don't know ya Pete, but you have one of the coolest jobs in the world.

And having been in this rink many many times for concerts and hockey games, I was really wondering how the Juno's were going to do it. Simply amazing.


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## dodgechargerfan

This is really cool.

It's great to get an understanding of how events like this come together.


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## faracaster

Good Morning Regina !!!!
I thought I had a nice dark room facing west for gentle awakenings. BLAM !!!! 
Not much separating the tall buildings in Regina from the horizon. 












Okay so in virtually every arena we do this show in, there is a clock at centre ice and we talk about how high we need to place the clock to get it out of the way. This helps, lighting, sound and rigging. Eventually each year we give into the fact that the screens mounted in the clock can help us during the show. so we relent and bring it back down a bit.
The Brandt Centre has no centre clock. YIPPEEEE !!! Finally a clear centre ice space floor to ceiling 
Then what do I do? Draw a centre cube with four screens in it. 




















Here's the video panels that you saw earlier getting mounting into another truss full of lighting fixtures and then flying up into the sky 






















Afoementioned centre clock.....my centre clock.....with video panels hanging out below.




















Here is the centre award stage being assembled.
We made metal frames that the video panels are being tied to.


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## bluehugh2

Nice job there Dr. ! Always a pleasure to see your Juno work...


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## sh333

Awesome Pete!!


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## GuitarsCanada

Starting to take shape


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## faracaster

I love cabling...and shiny things.
there's a lot of that on this show. :banana:


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## noman

I'd hate to have to trace a faulty cable in that pile of spagetti!!!


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## Jim DaddyO

Or try and trace a hum because someone laid a lighting/power cable next to a mic line.


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## shoretyus

ok my stuff is old crap .... but these lighted controls are better than sliced bread.... 




faracaster said:


> I love cabling...and shiny things.
> there's a lot of that on this show. :banana:
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## faracaster

Staging finally going in.

East and award stages.











view of all three stages from the east end.





















Award stage












east end vom ramp being built






















Geodesic dome being built (and flown). More on that later.


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## ronmac

36 hours until tear down and load out! :food-smiley-004:


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## faracaster

Even at the Juno Awards....in Regina.

The tale shall be told.


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## axestronomer

faracaster said:


> I love cabling...and shiny things.
> there's a lot of that on this show. :banana:


This just does not look right? The shackle need a quarter turn.


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## GuitarsCanada

Stage looks great live Pete. Another great job


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## Chito

Great job Pete and thanks for the photos and insight.


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