A NEW ERA FOR WOW: Innovative Stage Design Unveiled

Behind the Scenes Insights from Technical Manager James Killen

In a thrilling new chapter for the World of WearableArt (WOW), the three-week show that attracts around 60,000 people annually to Wellington, boasted a new state-of-the-art stage designed to redefine the audience experience for its 2024 season. The new stage has evolved the show experience, allowing audiences the chance to get as close as possible to the garments to really appreciate the incredible detail that goes into each piece.

Led by Production Designer Robin Rawstorne, the WOW team took the bold step of moving away from the familiar pointed shape of the set to the strong architectural shape of a prism. This opened up more options for the creative team within the various sections, as well as generating more garment entry points to the stage via two new ramps. The new shape also unlocked new possibilities for the storeys-high AV set up.

Taking full advantage of the new stage, Executive Creative Director Brian Burke and Show Director Malia Johnston conceived ‘Dream Awake’, a narrative that took audiences into a world between worlds spun by the mysterious and magical ‘Dream Maker’. They weaved six realms inspired by the 2024 WOW Competition sections, which this year included Natural World, Geometric Abstraction, and Crazy Curiosities of the Creature Carnival joining the recurring sections of Aotearoa, Avant-garde and Open.

Every year the arena spectacle combines performance, live music, aerial artistry, dance, and digital technology. As each entry is wearable, models traverse the stage like living pieces of art, moving through the space accompanied by lighting effects, performers and music, designed to enhance each piece. This year the models were accompanied by aerialists including the dazzling integrated dance artist Rodney Bell (Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Rora), kapa haka performers, singers, roller skaters, and a large ensemble of dancers who provided the basis of every scene.

Eden Mulholland’s pre-recorded soundtrack accompanied by fiddle player Shimna Higgins and multi-instrumentalist Dave Khan was interspersed with live and recorded vocals by Sharn Te Pou as The Dreamer and Nikita 雅涵 Tu-Bryant as The Dream Maker.

The production team behind the show, led by Technical Manager James Killen, pulled out all the stops to support the ambitious ‘Dream Awake’ narrative. With a commitment to pushing theatrical boundaries, the creative leadership team, James and an array of talented Heads of Department worked together to immerse audiences in a multi- sensory experience that included a new soundscape and integrated live cameras for giant projections to showcase the artistic intricacies of the designs at the heart of the show.

Resoundingly positive reviews frequently singled out the production technology and quality for special mention. Audiences loved being able to see the garments enlarged as they come to the fore onstage and the use of the full height of the arena space helped people feel connected to the performance regardless of where they were seated.

We talked to James Killen to discuss the vision behind the show, the challenges his team faced, and the technological marvels that made this a must-see production. James, Director of his own company Mambo Show Services, has been involved in some capacity with WOW since 2008, originally as a rigger and automation operator before moving up the responsibility ladder to assume technical lead in 2023.

Q. How would you describe your role?

Essentially I played devil’s advocate asking the gnarly questions to make sure that what the creatives were proposing was technically achievable. Unless there was a massive technical obstacle we generally always said yes.

Q. What were the time frames?

I had small conversations now and again with the creative team from a year out, and got more heavily involved in the planning in February and March of this year, once the stage was signed off at the end of January.

We got into the TSB Arena on August 2 and had six days to build the stage including all the revolving elements in the cut out holes for smoke vents, trapdoors and LED strip. Then every Friday till September 5 we did a bit more rigging infrastructure. This put us in a really good place for production pack in, as we were just installing the show really, with all the infrastructure already done.

We had eleven days at the start of September to pack in with the first rehearsal on September 12. It all went relatively smoothly and according to schedule which is testament to how good the teams are at what they do. By the 10^th all we were doing was the aerial orientation and fine tuning the rigging for the projection platform movements. It was really just the final touches.

Q. How did the scope compare to a typical show?

It is WOW so it is significant! Installing the rigging was pretty immense taking over 1,000 hours all up. The riggers worked very hard to get everything in, in the time allowed. The other departments would all have comparable hours as well.

Q. Did the new stage pose any challenges in terms of AV design?

The new stage was pretty straightforward. The only issue was the access ways to the trap doors which in places got pretty tight and posed problems for some of the garments because of their size.

The shape of the stage also meant that we had a compression point where it came forward and into the crowd. Everybody wanted their gear to be in the same place for the lighting, rigging, and flying. It was a real puzzle but the joy of working with such an experienced team is that everybody knows they need to come to the table and we talked it through. The lighting designer and the sound and AV teams worked around what needed to fly in and out for the scenic elements.

Q. What was the biggest head scratcher for you?

The main challenge for me personally was the height and weight limitations due to the maximum capacity of the venue. When we started to consider the amount of video, lighting, rigging, scenery and garments, plus people flying, we really had to think about where we could place parts of the rigging in order to be able to get the engineer’s sign off.

Sound is also always a challenge in the TSB Arena with it not being sound treated. Bart Barkman as Sound Designer and Western Audio Engineering introduced d&b audiotechnik’s Soundscape, the first time this immersive platform was used in Aotearoa New Zealand, lots more speakers operating at a lower volume. It was a wild concept and a New Zealand first with speakers placed wherever we needed to hear the sound. It worked a treat with people being able to hear the sound of footsteps moving around the arena, for example.

Q. What was key to the success of the technical design?

I think this year the amount of work that went into planning and integrating the rigging and aerials was critical. For us the most important thing was to absolutely nail the requirements of the aerialists when we took the show from the rehearsal room to the arena. We made a real effort to understand what the individual performer’s needs were in order to have a precise counterbalance at all times. For example, we had some people who wanted to start spinning on the ground before they started spinning upwards. We really had to customise our approach to meet their expectations.

Integrating wheelchairs alone is not actually too difficult from a rigging point of view. The tricky part was that we had another performer moving and interacting with the wheelchair. This required some out-of-the-box thinking to deal with the changing weight. We combined an advantage system with the rigger climbing up and down the tower to counterbalance the performer, so they were exactly at the right height at all times.

Q. Favourite bits of tech?

I think the huge video walls and the content provided by Drop the Spoon created in conjunction with the creative team really added to the narrative, distinguishing the different realms. The back screens were 26m wide by 7m high and the frost cloth screen was 21m wide x 8m high each side. Plus the huge live projection of the garments as well as the Soundscape.

Q. What did you enjoy most?

Getting to work with all the different Heads of Department. It is such an over-the-top show and so incredibly technically demanding and yet these guys pull it off seamlessly every year. They are just so good at what they do, and I got to work alongside them.

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The Creative & Technical Teams

• Executive Creative Director: Brian Burke
• Show Director: Malia Johnston
• Composer & Music Director: Eden Mulholland
• Production Designer: Robin Rawstorne
• Lighting Designer: Trudy Dalgleish
• Sound Designer: Bart Barkman
• AV Designers: Drop the Spoon
• Costume Designer: Gabrielle Stevenson
• Lighting: MJF Lighting
• Video: Streamliner Productions
• Audio: Western Audio Engineering
• Automation: Theatrical Solutions
• Infrastructure: Metro Production

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Photo Credit: World of WearableArt Ltd