The World of Hans Zimmer – A Symphonic Celebration has been touring Germany since April 2018.
The show presents the sounds of the composer of film scores, for the first time arranged for orchestra and combined with the projection of film sequences to create an impressive live experience. The tour has already been extended once, in the autumn of 2018, due to the immense demand for tickets. Further tour dates have been added in the spring of 2019, not only in Germany but elsewhere in Europe as well.
Die Soundhouse Veranstaltungstechnik GmbH of Hassfurt in Bavaria, with Philipp Stapf in the role of Production Manager, is accompanying the tour as the technical service provider. For the rigging, the Soundhouse team are relying on chain hoists from Movecat. The challenge here has been to dispense with an anchoring system for the loads despite the massive weight of the back truss.
“The back truss carries no fewer than seven LED walls, two of which, in addition, have to be moved. That all adds up to considerable weight,” explained Jürgen Erhard, Soundhouse’s Sound Technician.
“Furthermore, the back truss passes very close to the tower structure, so we have to rig the points with extreme precision. The tower elements themselves only have to be rigged when setting up and dismantling the show, so we only need two suspension points per tower, to each of which two 1t D8 Plus hoists have been assigned. Elsewhere however in the Hans Zimmer production, we need a large number of suspension points and they have to be very closely spaced, which can make for problems in some halls. Since the Movecat motors have proved absolutely efficient and reliable in the past – in the course of the last tour, there wasn’t a single failure – we naturally opted for them again on this leg of the tour.”
In all, some 65 Movecat motors are being used. A further two have been earmarked as spares. For the main PA, which weighs around 1.9 metric tons, Soundhouse employs six Movecat hoists (1t D8, 2T D8). The sub-woofers and side PA were rigged using D8 Plus 500 kg hoists. The large HZ logo is hung at a slight angle from the ceiling; for this, we use eight 500 kg D8 Plus hoists, the structure is further reinforced with additional steel wires. For the side truss, D8+ 500 kg and D8 Plus 250 kg chain hoists are used. The back truss, which as already mentioned is extremely heavy due to the LED screens, is rigged using 1t D8 Plus and 500 kg D8 Plus motors.
For the control of the motors, eight-channel MPC 8ED8 from Movecat be used for the PA and video equipment and an MPC 32TD8 Touring Rack from Movecat for the lighting equipment.