FOR THE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT tour of North American arenas in 2008, we completely re-imagined the performance space from the ground up. I was looking for a different way to use the relatively new “Stealth” LED product, which was one of the first semi-transparent LED walls to come on the market. The tour was to sell mostly 270° with the ability to seat concert goers behind the stage for a 360° “in the round” experience. After playing around in Vectorworks with different screen deployments, I settled on five screens to be suspended from variable-speed hoists on trolleys which would allow them to move through 3D space in novel and spectacular ways.

The stage itself would be our own bespoke rolling stage, allowing us to design any shape we wanted while creating our own “underworld” for backline technicians that would provide access to stage entrances of our choosing. Singer Mike Shinoda sent us inspirational images of various pieces of architecture and fighter jets. These design cues were synthesized by Stephen Pollard to create the one-of-a-kind stage we toured with. It was as if a spaceship had landed on the arena floor, and the screens would dance above the band displaying geometric shapes, narrative content or I-Mag depending on the song.

One innovative feature of the design was the centre bridge/staircase that allowed singer Chester Bennington a platform from which to sing to the fans “behind” the stage in a 360° scenario. For support acts, the entire bridge would fly out and open the upstage area allowing easy ingress/egress to support act Coheed And Cambria. Lights that were suspended from this structure were available for the support act and then became floor fixtures when the bridge was lowered in to place. The result was a completely different stage look for support and headliner without compromising production value for either artist.