Opening for business in Puerto Rico in October 2016, Metallica’s WorldWired tour – currently the 10th highest-grossing of all time – made its fourth visit to Europe in May for stadium shows in 25 cities, from Lisbon, Milan, Dublin and Brussels, to London, Copenhagen, Moscow and Mannheim, making new headlines along the way. Stageco has been with the tour from the start, keenly observing the unusual approaches instigated by Metallica’s long-time show director Dan Braun. The combination of the band’s vision and Braun’s design prowess on WorldWired was based on a desire to eliminate the generic “box” of the conventional stage, an idea that had allegedly been playing on frontman James Hetfield’s mind since 1992. The end goal was to eliminate as much separation between audience and band as possible. Steering the project from Tildonk, Stageco provided all of the stage decking and towers with which to deliver this reality. The structures – organised into three touring systems – were re-engineered previous winter to fit on 14 trailers per system, with 3 crewchiefs each overseeing a crew of 13. Following questions about the symmetry between the towers across the five bays, we responded by taking another look at the engineering. Soon realising that by adding a more stout beam, we could lose the towers and that saved us a truck on each system. It also made the structure stronger and easier to build and lay out with less crane time.
Stageco Worldwide