PAUSE

Finally the pause button has been hit on the Asian tour of CATS. I am in Busan, Korea, to operate the final two shows of this tour that wraps today. Little did Richard and I know or envisage back in March 2007 what CATS would end up becoming for us. It has at times consumed us. Some of the facts and figures are: -Over 300 performances -Three countries. Korea (twice), Thailand, China -Seventeen cities -Sixty-four weeks of gigs. Shipping time between counties is extra. On top of just doing CATS shows nightly: -We transferred the show from its original HOG2 platform to GrandMA. For 3 weeks we were doing transfer of a day and then operating a show of a night. -We were contracted to light the NEW Korean version of KATS. Again that meant thinking about 2 things at once !! English CATS and Korean KATS. It also meant that we got to meet David Hersey in New York which was awesome (meeting Mr Pilbrow was very cool too!!). In summary its’ been great and bigger than what I or we imagined. And the fact that there’s more must mean we are doing it right !! Until the PLAY button gets hit in April 2009 that’s it for CATS for a while. Meowwwwwwwww I’m off to have a cat nap…. GY ^The end of the night...happy punters leaving.

Happy Birthday

Mandylights turned two over the weekend and what better way to celebrate than by attending the theatre and then going dancing afterwards. Its not really what we did, but we lit a couple of dance party events, Sleaze Ball and Parklife, and had two productions of CATS playing in Korea. There was also a small wedding in there too. Not a bad effort for a weekends work. All the shows went really well and there are lots of happy punters everywhere. Check out the Sleaze Ball story here on the Mandylights site for more info. For all the Korean readers that we have on this site, I was interviewed yesterday about our production of CATS by a Korean entertainment technical magazine "The Staff". I look forward to seeing it, I cant read Korean. Hope there's a few photos. That's it for now. Time to get going with the bigger, better, faster 3rd year of Mandylights. Not that the first two years were slow by any means. Bring it on. CHEERS GY

Parklife Melbourne

^ Air Stage

^ Fire Stage

  After getting back from my month long overseas run, I barely got my washing done in Sydney before coming down to Melbourne for Sunday's Parklife event...

  It's always fun to work with Fuzzy and this year I've designed all the stages for the Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide events. After doing a ridiculous amount of paperwork, it was nice to actually get behind the console for the Melbourne event yesterday. The part sold out, had a really good crowd and now I'm really looking forward to the Sydney version next weekend.

  Was a pleasure to work with Soulwax and their LD who played an awesome set, and while he may not be everyone's favourite, Martin Solveig - who closed my stage - always gets the crowd worked up and singing along like nobody else can. What would a Fuzzy / Solveig party be without a bit of Blur's Song 2 and Lenny Kravitz's Are You Gonna Go My Way?... ! Well done and congrats to Fuzzy and this event can only get bigger and better in future years....

  That's it from me for the moment... time for me to board my flight back to Sydney

cheers

rich

Cats Opening Night

Last night was the opening night of Cats in Seoul. The show went incredibly well, playing to a packed house and finishing with a standing ovation. I've stayed back to see the two shows today and Greg's spending the next week here in Seoul to help hand the production over to our awesome Korean operations team who'll make sure it keeps looking good over the next several months. ^ Greg and I at the theatre with Jo-Anne Robinson, the show's director. This marks the end of a production process that's lasted most of the year and taken us back to Cats productions from the early 80s, seen us fly to New York and Korea and resulted in the creation of a pretty awesome, spectacular new production that has everyone raving. For now, I'm about to enjoy a rare two days off in Tokyo before heading back home for Macquarie Bank, Parklife and Sleaze Ball before venturing back off to the USA in a few short weeks time.... Told you it was the crazy time of year! rich

First Preview

Just had our first preview of Cats here in Seoul and we're really happy with the results Greg and I will spend the next few days polishing the show before Friday's opening night but we're in excellent shape and have a really good looking show in the theatre. Been really good working with the show team again and looking forward to much, much more in the future. The funny thing is that 19 years ago I saw Cats for the first time as a 7 year old kid in London's West End and now I'm sitting here as a designer. Really happy with it all, it's a bit of a personal milestone which I'm pretty stoked about. Pictures coming soon to the official part of the website, but they'll probably be up a few days after I get a couple days rest in Tokyo before returning to Sydney, which in many ways, will be more full-on than Tokyo for a few weeks! cheers rich

Full Throttle

Mandylights lit up some of Australia's most expensive cars tonight to launch the new Australian series of Top Gear. As usual the spectacular Aztech Event was most definitely fast paced and high octane!

KATS Korea Kapers

I am busy in Seoul overseeing the setup of the new Korean production of Cats that myself and Richard are designing. We have come up with a very cool circular trussing design that mimics the set nicely. The truss design is a departure from a few straight trusses and pushed the gear supplier to come up a good way to make it actually happen. They have done a great job of building a custom concentric circle truss. Very nice. I have decided to call it the Spaceship. Check back soon for more updates as Richard and I get into rehearsals next week and actually using the gear. On paper it looked good and the indications from what I am seeing as we set up and focus and bring more gear online is that the show will look very nice. Beer and BBQ very soon once some more work is done... GY ^We have liftoff !!