page_title: The Circus Starring Britney Spears
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: The Circus Starring Britney Spears / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: The Circus Starring: Britney Spears in Boston, Massachusetts Español: Entrada al escenario de Britney
context_page_description: The Circus Starring Britney Spears, commonly referred to as the Circus Tour, was the seventh concert tour by American singer Britney Spears. It was launched in support of her sixth studio album, Circus. Rumors of a tour arose as early as October 2007, after Spears released her fifth studio album Blackout; however, it was cancelled due to unknown reasons. The tour was officially announced in December 2008, with dates for American and British venues revealed. The stage was composed of three rings and set in-the-round to resemble an actual circus. Fashion designers Dean and Dan Caten created the costumes. A giant cylinder screen was set above the stage to showcase videos and backdrops. Effects were provided by Solotech. Magician Ed Alonzo joined Spears during the second act. The setlist was composed generally from her albums In the Zone, Blackout and Circus. Spears announced she would tour Australia for the first time in June 2009.
  The Circus Starring Britney Spears was described as a "pop extravaganza". It was divided into five segments. The Circus featured a metamorphosis of Spears from as a ringmaster to a slave, while being surrounded by different performers.
context_section_description: The choreographer was Jamie King, who previously collaborated with Spears in her Oops!... I Did It Again World Tour. He did the casting of the dancers and acrobats, and worked with Spears on the setlist and the choreography. Simon Ellis was hired as the musical director. The production design was done by Road Rage, a formed alliance between Nick Whitehouse, Bryan Leitch, William Baker and Steve Dixon. Lightning design was done by Visual Light, conformed by Whitehouse and Leitch. The stage was designed by Road Rage and set in-the-round, with a big stage in the center painted to look like a target. There were also two satellite stages in the sides unified by small catwalks, to resemble an actual three-ring circus. The stage was built by Tait Towers and included nine lifts, which had a cost of $10 million. It traveled in 3,000 rolling cases packed into 32 semis and a crew of 150 people was needed to set it up. There was a semi-transparent Element Labs Stealth cylinder screen above the stage, comprising 960 panels that Solotech built into custom frames. The backdrops & projection content were designed by Dirk Decloedt. There were three new film sequences shot exclusively for the tour: an opening video featuring Perez Hilton, a video of Spears set to Marilyn Manson's "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and a final montage. The three videos were created by Veneno. Props, including swings, couches, unicycles, stripper poles, a gold cage and giant picture frames, were designed by ShowFX Inc.; they also provided custom VIP couch seating that lined the perimeter of the stage. VYV provided the video control, which included two Photon Show media servers and two Photon Controllers. The servers took timecode for the show and wrapped the images around the Stealth screen. Emric Epstein of VYV explained, "The servers and software permits us to control a large number of video layers on the 360˚ LED screen, composite the layers in realtime, and transform the final output so that everything look seamless after going through the LED controllers. There is also an astounding 3D preview of the stage and video screens in the software so you can control or re-program the show without being inside the arena bowl".
  The sound was provided by Solotech. Front of house engineer Blake Suib explained that, "[Me] and Solotech were asked to come up with a design that blocked the least amount of seats but provided the quality and coverage that [Spears] expects and that we were looking for". The public address (PA) was made of 64 Milos that split into four hangs of 16 per hang. Two at the 50 yard line pointed one way and directly behind, two at the 50 yard line pointed the opposite way. Also present were 32 Micas; 16 per hang, pointing to the sides. Each one of the four hangs had its own equalization (EQ) and level control, so in case one of the speakers were louder there would be a separate EQ to compensate for any change in the tone due to the distance. All the components and tools used in the public address were designed by Meyer Sound Laboratories, including a software called Mapp, used to decide where to point the PA; the Simm, to analyze and time align the PA accurately; and the Galileo, used to EQ and balance all the sections of the PA. The speakers were self-powered with amplifiers also built by Meyer Sounds. There were 24 HP700 subwoofers positioned all over the arena floor, and the Simm and Galileo were used to time align. Spears used a Crown CM-311AE headset microphone wearing the mic's beltpack (usually hidden in color matching material) on her top or pants, she did not use in-ear monitors; instead 12 Meyer CQs were positioned, eight flown around the center ring and two on each of the smaller stages. Spears specifically asked Suib to make the show sound similar to a dance club. Solotech provided the lighting package, including a mostly Vari-Lite rig, with 80 each VL3000s and VL3500s in various positions, and 60 VL500s built into the stage deck. Whitehouse also had 18 PRG Bad Boy luminaires, 16 of which sat in pods that hung in various positions low
caption: Spears performing "Circus" as the opening song.
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