A sacred ceremony in a sacred place pulled off flawlessly.
Pope Benedict XVI came to America in April, and was astutely handled by the best, most experienced hands in the live event industry, from stadium rock to Broadway shows.
The Pope’s visit was a six-day series of events highlighted by a mass held at Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was the fourth in New York City’s history, but none of the previous events had as many limitations as this one. All the talent assembled and tools available had to make up for a considerable built-in scarcity: the lack of time.
“The most astonishing thing about the keynote project was that Yankee Stadium didn’t open the doors for us until 12:01 a.m. Friday morning, and by 1 a.m. Sunday, Secret Service locked it all down for a security sweep,” says Co-Producer Patrick Stansfield. “We’re talking about a total of 49-1/2 hours to pull this off.”
“If we had plenty of time to do it, we would have done it all a different way,” adds Scenic Designer Edward Pierce. They didn’t.
But they did have Stig Edgren.
First Call
Executive Producer Stig Edgren, of SEG Events, is a steady, experienced hand at this. He handled Pope John Paul II’s visit not only in 1995, but also handled papal duties going back to 1987 when the Pope celebrated Mass in Los Angeles. So with the trust built up and a proven record of delivery, it’s not surprising that he was turned to once again for this Mass. It’s also not surprising that so many of the principal players he assembled had worked on previous Papal events as well.
For this April 16 event, Edgren got the call from the Archdiocese of New York in September. “The beginning conversations are about the Pope’s movement, when he’s planning on celebrating mass and security,” Edgren explains. “The Archdiocese is hosting the event, so it mostly involves them, although, obviously, the Vatican is very concerned about the Mass itself.” Edgren quickly got on the phone with offices of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Police, Fire & Special Events departments to coordinate these important issues. The logistics are daunting — for example, consider that almost a thousand buses from all over the country were bringing people to the stadium for the Papal Mass & Concert of Hope, in addition to a huge youth rally at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers.
“We had the right team to do this from the very beginning, no question,” Edgren says. “Having Stansfield and [production supervisor] Doug Pope in place early, managing the labor involved and overseeing everything allowed me to run around working with the Archdiocese.”
So many of those in place had worked with Edgren on the Papal visit in 1995, including Stansfield and Doug Pope. “The Archdiocese had complete trust in me as far as bringing people on board for this,” he says. “They didn’t question my choices of vendors, because they knew I was picking the best people in the business.” One new aspect was bringing in Ken Ashby, who produced the pre-Mass show, and Danny Ezralow, who directed it. The Concert of Hope featured performers such as Harry Connick Jr., Jose Feliciano, among others.
Look for the Union Label
Hudson Theatrical Associates was given the daunting task of putting together the entire labor force. Hudson’s Sam Ellis was the labor supervisor, and says it was a long process to figure out how many hands were needed. “At any given time during the load-in and set up there were 200 to 250 Local #1 hands working on this,” he says. “But the total number of people involved was close to 490.”
All involved commented that the planning was critical.
“First, we had to sit down with all the people in charge of the individual elements — the video people, the lighting, the staging, and figure out how many people they each needed,” Ellis says. “Then we assimilated all that into a gigantic schedule.” For example, they figured out that the electric needs required a dozen electricians at a certain point, and they needed such-and-such time to make it happen. “The first five hours were just laying the flooring, so we had to figure out what we could do while that was happening — in this case, start putting the chairs in and hanging lighting trusses off the FOH balcony rails.”
Where to Begin?
“First of all, you pick the captains, the heads of the departments, and that was very important to us,” Ellis says. “It was important to us that they be the best because they had to go reach out to their best workers.” Ellis stresses that the best were found in the unions. “Often times there are critics of union labor, but in our instance, only by using union workers were we able to accomplish what we needed to do. So in addition to union stagehands and technicians, we also used teamsters to load and unload the trucks. We had 70 or 80 trucks to unload, and we were very happy with their professionalism.”
Impressively, it was all done safely, too: “With all the people involved, we had two very minor accidents: One stage hand slightly sliced a finger requiring a few stitches, and another twisted an ankle. Probably 1,000 people were in harms way and everybody could walk out!” he laughs.
“It was an amazing team of union workers,” echoes Doug Pope. “ IATSE Local #1 especially and IBEW Local 3 did an amazing job. They knew their crafts and they didn’t mess around.”
They couldn’t mess up the grass, either. To protect the sacred greens, they used Terraplas, a patented system of breathable sheeting capable of handling light-duty loads, so chairs and people could walk on it, but no vehicles. For vehicles, there was Bravomat, “The entire warming track was covered by 1,400 pieces (at 100 pound per) of 4’ x 8’x 5”-thick Bravomat: heavy-duty interlocking modules capable of supported loaded forklifts,” says Stansfield. “The first 41/2 hours of the load in was just laying that track. So, we really only had 45 hours to build the altar and performance stage and decorate the stadium.”
And then there was security: Stansfield points that every single person involved, and those attending the event, had to submit “name, Social Security number, birth date, place of birth, and all were duly screened. All 80 trucks were scanned electronically, and laminated passes for the crew were distributed daily and never left the stadium.”
Hearing the Spoken Word
“The biggest concern was the sound — that’s what had me tossing and turning at night,” Edgren says. His call went to Clair Bros., and was picked up by Ralph Mastrangelo, executive vice president of touring. A long time friend and associate of Edgren, he had a history of working on big events with him.
Looking back in hindsight, Mastrangelo seems to appreciate the task more even more then when he was in the thick of it. “It was a lot of work all the time,” he sighs. “We were handcuffed in so many different places.” But he, Mike Wolf, and others on the Clair Bros. team just “stared at [the project] for a while as we consulted with the guys at Mountain Production.”
Quickly, they concluded that they had to put the main speakers on the roof and hang some line arrays (but not too many less sightlines to the Pope be obscured). With no room for error, and certainly no real sound check or rehearsal, he says they flew by pure experience and AutoCAD. “We’ve done this long enough that once we came up with a plan, we knew it was going to work.” He too credits Edgren, Stansfield and Doug Pope with putting together an incredible team of people. “Everyone brought their ‘A’ game,” Mastrangelo says.
Clair Bros. Lead Audio Designer Mike Wolf has a long history of working on all things religious. He worked on Pope John Paul II’s visit to St. Louis’ Busch Stadium in 1999 and also has been involved with projects for the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulos, Sun Myung Moon and Billy Graham. He was there for the first site meeting back in November for this event.
“The biggest challenge was the logistical problems of the stadium of not being allowed on the grass, so everything was built or bridged directly between first and third base, the Papal Throne being roughly over second ” Wolf explains. “The performance stage was on home plate, and the orchestra and choir were between home plate and the foul ball net.”
The keep-off-the-grass mantra highly influenced the system they designed for it, as say a Super Bowl Event, carting the system out on the field was never on the table. “The only place left was placing the system on the roof of the stage. It’s the first time I’ve known that the main P.A. was on top of a roof like this — there has been some big shows where some speakers would be placed on a roof, but never the entire P.A.”
Up on the roof was a six-column Clair Bros. i4 system.
The sheer size and weight of going this route was something the team took very seriously. “We worked with Mountain Production to make sure the staging could take the weight, plus handle hanging some smaller line arrays below for the Cardinals and Bishops on the ground.”
No details was left unresolved: Sure, it’s one thing to put speakers on top of the roof of a temporary stage, but you can’t just have the traditional speaker covering left… uncovered. Doug Pope points out that they painted the grills gold to match the overall color scheme of the event. The grills of the hung line-arrays were covered in white fabric.
“We didn’t want people out of sync, so Clair Bros. came up with an ear monitor for everyone performing and that way the choirs and orchestras could all stay locked into the same beat,” Edgren adds.
“The biggest drawback was the lack of time to set up,” Wolf sums up. “And it’s telling that it took three days to load out the audio!”
Pope on the Pope
Doug Pope, who has a 30-year history with Edgren, and also worked with him on the 1995 Papal event, said early on a key factor was bringing in Hudson Theatrical Associates. “Neil Mazzella and Sam Ellis put together a crack labor team, starting with scores of department heads.” How important was this gig? “People dropped out of their Broadway shows to do this.”
For Doug Pope, spreading the work around as much as possible was going to make this event a success. “We didn’t want to wear people out — just the [department] heads!”
After the first site survey way back in the fall, they put together a time line of how it would all go down. They knew they would be starting at midnight, and knew the Bravomats needed to go down quickly and seamlessly in order for the forklift and rest of the worker to be done.
“We did have the benefit of a pre-rig day, the Monday before, where we moved in as much equipment as possible, which was still not very much — it is an 87-
year-old stadium and there’s not a lot of spaces to put things!” he laughs.
Looking over the creative team’s shoulder the entire time, of course, was the Yankee Stadium grounds crew, making sure nothing damaged the play. As intrusive as that sounds on paper, Doug Pope assures that they did their job with professionalism and respect for what the team had to do.
“People like us, we’re only there a little bit,” he explains. “But the Yankee Team Personnel have to carry on, and they have a love and respect for their grass, and we respect that. Hats off to the Yankees for all they did, including allowing us to use the team’s locker rooms and everything else.” Everything else included the umps changing room, which was magically transformed into an elegant room for the Pope to vest in (that’s “suit up” to you non-Catholics out there).
Final Thoughts
Edgren says he would have liked to see the young people who ran around the stadium track with the foam doves go running out on the field for “just one moment right before the Mass, but it was just something that didn’t get asked in time.”
Composer Benoit Jutras was brought in to compose special music for the event. “He’s very brilliant and quick, and he came up with themes for the opening and closing that sounded like angels,” says Edgren. This music inspired Edgren to imagine doves, and passed the idea along to his creative team. Ezralow, director of the pre-Mass show, then asked if they could make a moment out of this, and brought in Michael Curry, a renowned designer known for his work with The Lion King. “He came up with these doves and the sticks that would carry them.”
Again and again, when summing up the success of the event, everyone comes back to teamwork.
“I had the best team in the world,” Edgren says. “They surrounded me, protected me, and I was honored to be part of it. It was magical.”
Kudos and shout-outs go to those of a Higher Power, too. The weather, for example, could not have been more perfect. “At the youth rally the day before it was a warm beautiful day. Then at the Pope’s visit to ground zero of the World Trade Center, the clouds were dark and ominously low, and it was as if you felt the [victim’s] spirits in the air. That stayed like that through Sunday morning, and then when Jose Feliciano started to play, that’s when the clouds broke…
“It was good advance work from God Almighty!”
The “Other” Gigs
St. Joseph’s Seminary
Imagine a four-person crew controlling sound for thousands in a rather unconventional venue — not to mention your client is the Pope. No pressure or anything. That was precisely the case with Maryland Sound International’s (MSI), role as soundco for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit with seminarians and disabled youth at St. Joseph Semi-nary in Yonkers, N.Y.
“As far as my crew at MSI, it was only four of us,” says Lead FOH Engineer Ryan Beck. “We had some help with the local crews, but most of the work was done on our end. “It was one of the most difficult gigs to keep track of since a lot of performers came in at the last minute.” In addition to Beck, the MSI crew consisted of Monitor Engi-neer Mickey Beck (Ryan’s brother), Patchman Chris Hall and Lead Patchman Travis White.
After leading Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, the Pope spoke at a youth rally featuring 22 performances on the grounds of the seminary. Performances ranged from national to regional acts including musicians, choirs and dance acts leading up to the Pope’s appearance. Performances began at 10 a.m. an
d lasted until about 4 p.m. when the Pope arrived during Kelly Clarkson performance of “Ave Maria.” The Pope was on stage for approximately two hours.
The biggest challenge for Beck was the complexity of the event. “Twenty-two acts are a lot to go through in one day,” Beck says. “It was definitely a stressful experi-ence trying to make sure everything went smoothly.”
Compared to a stadium venue, setting up the audio system on the grounds of the seminary caused what Beck described as “real estate issues” due to the lack of structure to hang the JBL VerTec line arrays. “We did some speaker hangs from the stage and we also hung speakers off four self-standing poles we set up,” Beck reports. “With a 8-feet-by-8-feet footprint, they are very low profile.” In total, system setup took five days including a full day of rehearsal. Each act had about 45 minutes to go through soundcheck on the day of rehearsal and the morning of the event.
The seminary grounds are approximately 500 feet wide by 900 feet long, a large space for the sound system to cover. “It’s easier than a stadium show because you don’t have to deal with echoes. As long as you’re aiming in the right areas, you can get a nice, even coverage throughout the whole field,” Beck notes.
The sound system consisted of a cluster of eight JBL VerTec 4889s aiming outward with an in-fill cluster of four 4889s on the main and delay poles, eight 4889s sus-pended on the left and right of the stage and a center cluster of six JBL VerTec 4887s. The system was run from a Studer Vista 5 digital consoles at front of house and moni-tors. A Yamaha PM5D was also used at monitorland for bands who had requested it.
“The most difficult thing was to make 22 acts work through one console at each mix position,” Beck says. “We integrated the PM5D through the Studer console where everything was stored in snapshots. The unique snapshot capability of the (Studer Vista 5) made it easy to recall each artist.”
The event also employed Crown I-Tech amps and a mix of Shure and Sennheiser microphones. The Pope requested a specially designed Audio-Technica mic, Beck re-ports.
“I have to say it was an amazing opportunity to mix for the Pope. I know he’s an amazing man with a lot of history behind him,” Beck says. “It was definitely a worth-while experience for me.”
Nationals Stadium
As the first non-Baseball event for the brand new Nationals Stadium and the initial step of a high-profile journey across the Eastern U.S., the Papal Mass in our na-tion’s capital presented a unique set of challenges for MHA Audio.
Asked about producing audio at the beautiful and elegantly proportioned stadium with its own state-of-the-art system, MHA Audio Owner Mike Scarfe ex-plains, “We couldn’t use the existing audio system because, as with all stadiums, the sound comes from above and behind the audience. Since the stage for the Pa-pal Mass was at one end, it would have been impossible to time-align it to the stage. We provided sound for the entire stadium and 47,000 people from 60-foot towers on either side of the stage.”
He continues, “Basically, we had a 550-foot throw from the speaker tower to the farthest seat. Working with Jim Cousins at Martin Audio in the UK, and using Display software, we were able to come up with optimum angles for the line array. We had 16 W8L Longbow on each side firing forward, and 12 W8LCs a side, firing sideways. Then, six W8LCs firing to the rear of stage left.
The total speaker complement included 32 Martin Audio W8L Longbow cabinets, 30 Martin Audio W8LC, six Martin Audio WSX subs and two Martin WT3s.
“It wasn’t just about clear spoken word reproduction because on stage right behind the speaker tower we had a 700-member choir and an orchestra of 50. The program started at 5 a.m. once the gates were opened and there was a variety of entertainment including notable opera singers Placido Domingo and Denyce Graves up to the start of the Mass at 10 a.m. The choir, cantors and orchestral accompaniment continued throughout the Mass until noon.”
The MHA crew consisted of FOH: Zane Marshall, assisted by Peter Maher; Monitors/Orchestral Stage: David Colella, assisted by Tom Buckley and Moni-tors/Entertainment Stage: Gavin Pearce, assisted by Bruce Coffman.
Asked about the audio results for this historic event, Scarfe concludes: “The client Showcall, an event production company specializing in large format, high threat events, was very happy with the sound. We received positive comments all around; everybody was impressed.” — Breanne George
Bird Watching
“The icing on the cake was the release of several hundred live doves of peace,” says Stansfield. “It was done in coordination with the 150 kids running and circling the stadium track with faux flying doves made of lightweight foam, and each attached by a lead to fishing poles. At a dramatic point, we released these 200 live doves that circled the stadium twice and then flew back to their home in New Jersey just like they were suppose to.”
A word about the doves… those jaded by the technological achievements pro audio, lighting and video will surely be dazzled by this: Basically, there is such a thing as advance team of doves, made up of a lead dove who calls the shots, and some dutiful lieutenants. They were brought to the stadium about a week before the big event. They checked out the stadium, and then the lead dove circled the stadium twice and flew back home, lieutenants in tow.
On the day of the big event, a couple hundred other doves were released with them, and following the team leader, executed their assignment with aplomb.
Were these doves in the union? What is in their rider? And how does one get to be the lead dove — is it based on merit and hard work, or just a matter of how you coo?
Producer Stig Edgren chuckles and sighs. “Oh yeah, there were a lot of dove jokes — even the secret service guys got on it saying they needed to frisk ‘em and check their beaks.”
CREW
CREATIVE STAFF FOR THE ARCHDIOCESE
OF NEW YORK:
Executive Producer: Stig Edgren
Co-Producer: Patrick Stansfield
Production Designer: Rene Lagler
Creative Consultant: Imero Fiorentino
Production Supervisor Doug Pope
Pre Mass Show Director: Daniel Ezralow
Pre Mass Show Producer: Ken Ashby
Pre Mass Technical Director: Rick Southern
Head Sound Mixer: Howard Lindeman
Communications Director: Larry Estrin
Production Controller: Mark Aurelio
Media Director: Maris Segal
Backstage Managers: Scott & Beth Schneider
Communications Manager: Pete Erskine
Production Site Electrics: James Eisner
CAT Event Power head Burt Bracegirdle
Lead Production Coordinator: Dennis Mennard
Media Project Coordinators: T.J. Morehouse & Nancy Shefts
Traffic Manager: David McDaniels
Runner: Jedi Keith
Crew Caterer: Gordy Hebler, Full Plate Catering Inc.
FOR YANKEE STADIUM:
Yankee Stadium Operations Mgr Doug Behar
Yankee Stadium Superintendent Pete Pullara
New York Police Department Capt. Drew Kastner
Head Yankee Stadium Electrician Fran Ninivaggi
SOUND—CLAIR BROS AUDIO, LITITZ, PA
Account Executive: Clair Bros. – Ralph Mastangelo
Lead Sound Designer: Mike Wolf
Orchestra Mixer: Doug Nightwine
Choir Mixer David Staub
Additional Clair Bros. Associates: Tom Huntington, Christopher Fulton, Robert Bussiere, Kevin Dennis, Anthony Sabao, James Ward
LABOR by Hudson Theatrical Associates
Contractors/ Labor Supervision: Sam Ellis, Susan Bristow, Irene Wang-Supervisors
For IATSE Stagehands Local #1
Electrics
Jimmy Maloney: Head Production Electrician
SOUND
Head Production Sound: Tommy Arrigoni
Assistant: Rich Gilmour
LOAD MASTER/FORKLIFT CREW
Head: Pat Quinn
TEAMSTER
Head: Vinny Russo
LOCAL ONE STEWARD
Head: Dan Gilloon
REHEARSAL STUDIO & MUSIC RENTALS
Studio Instrument Rentals: NYC Bo Holst, Carly Vena, Erik White
