For those of you who are interested how events like this are planned and staged, this months Total Production magazine features a 17 page in depth look into the technical and artisitc requirements needed to put this tour on the road. there are also plenty of back stage photos showing the equipment in use.

It can be read and downloaded online HERE (from page 28 onwards) and makes a good read if you have some spare time and like technical stuff.

For those of you who dont have the time, but want to appear knowledgable in the pub, here are some usefull snippets for you.

The production cost $10M and requires 25 trucks to move the kit.

The inflatable puppets cost $2M, twice the cost of the entire 1980s production.

The wall is 35' high and 240' wide and requires almost 400 bricks. Each brick is a flat pack, made from cardboard and is 5' x 2 1/2'. Bricks will last no more than 4 shows before they need to be replaced.

The stage occupies 3350 square feet.

The puppets are 9M tall and fully animated. Five minutes of movement for the teacher requires over 60 cues to operate the winches supporting the puppet.

The projections system beats the worlds largest Imax cinema by producing single high def images 240' wide with 8560 by 1620 resolution.

20 Barco projectors put out almost 500,000 lumens.

10 Apple Mac pros were used as a "render farm" for producing the animation.

750 pyros are used in the 20 second chase at the start of the show.

Sound is a Clair Brothers line array using JBL components. Amplification is Crown/Amcron Macro-Techs. Big heavy muscle amps designed 25 years ago.

Almost 130 channels of audio are used.

The main mix is analogue.