Billed as the largest ever touring production, Joop van den Ende's new Saturday Night Fever opens this month at the Teatro Nazionale, Milan. Sound design is by the Dutch designer Jeroen ten Brinke, who specified a sizeable L-Acoustic loudspeaker system and incorporated a number of backstage innovations into the design.

Jeroen has specified a combination of 24 x L-Acoustics KARA loudspeakers for the main left and right arrays, supported by 2 x SB28 subs, with 24 L-Acoustics KIVA cabinets forming the clusters. These are powered by 5 x LA8 amplifiers, which incorporate the LA network control for remote control access and processing via the Meyer Sound Galileo system.

A specially designed set of flight cases has been commissioned for the tour, enabling the KARA speakers to be securely stacked 3-high for transportation. In addition, the KIVA speakers and main hanging brackets will remain pinned together for shipping - all contributing to saving time on arrival at a new venue, and on breakdown.

Given the size and scale of the show, the tour logistics are very tight, averaging two and a half days in most cases from load-in to show opening, putting considerable pressure on the touring staff. Orbital's task from the outset has been to focus on how to streamline each and every part of the technical process, requiring some major ingenuity.

David Bartholomeusz is Orbital's Project Manager/Production Engineer for Saturday Night Fever and he explains what was involved:
"Given the scale of the show, we knew that we faced a mammoth task to get the show designed, built and all the equipment tested – not helped by Christmas and the New Year holidays falling right in the middle of the build period. Everyone stepped up to the mark, and it shipped to Holland on time, ready for the first day of load-in at the Theater Aan De Schie in Schiedam. We were very fortunate to have Stage Entertainments' Bas Arets, the sound No 1 for the show, come over from Holland for 4 days during the build. His knowledge and assistance certainly helped us to ship the show on time.

"We were very keen to try and streamline as much as possible of the technical process, and introduced a number of measures to achieve this. The first involved using Orbital's proprietary Guff cable, which combines six audio lines, four BNC video lines, CAT5 and power into a single cable. This makes a big difference to load-in times, as you only need to run the one cable to accommodate all the production aspects. We are also utilising our FOH "Digimult" cable, which consists of 4 x BNC, 4 x audio lines, 2 x Cat5 and Power, to cover all necessary requirements to make the Digidesign system, and other components, go together as quickly and seamlessly as possible. This, coupled with our integrated "RacPac" racking system that incorporates in-built lighting, power and easy stackability, makes it possible to wheel the large amp racks and radio racks into place, ready to plug'n'play!"

In addition to David, Orbital's build and ongoing technical support team for the show comprise: production engineer – Dan Bailey; engineers – Simon Shepherd and Simon Dawson; comms engineer - Alex Waddle; and radio mic engineer - Jason Fernandes. All computers were built and programmed by Richard Carter and Bill Addison, with Nihal Badik responsible for all transport and logistics. Orbital's remit includes providing ongoing technical support throughout the tour's progress around Holland, which currently includes 14 venues over the next 6 months.