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March 5, 2008 at 12:40PM EST

New Bon Jovi Set Is More Elaborate, Bon Jovi's In The Round Look Has State Tie


According to stage designer Douglas "Spike" Brant, the set for Bon Jovi's previous tour was rather ordinary.

"The show was very stripped down with no technology, and a very simple
wooden set," says Brant, who works for ArtFag LLC, a New York and Los
Angeles-based company whose credits include design work for Mariah
Carey, Green Day, Beyonce and the National Football League.

But that's not what concertgoers are going to see tonight when Bon Jovi
performs at the Mellon Arena. For the current tour, the band requested
an elaborate set-up, in the round, no less.

"They wanted something cool and gave us no direction," Brant says.

Brant and his associates enlisted Tait Towers, a Lititz, Lancaster
County, company in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country for
assistance. The firm, which manufactures staging and automation for the
touring industry and whose clients include The Police, the Rolling
Stones, U2 and Super Bowl halftime shows, came up with Venetian blinds.

Yep, good old-fashion Venetian blinds, albeit on a scale that
supersedes anything in your grandmother's sitting room. Tait designed
Venetian blind video screens made of double-sided monitors, allowing
fans to see Bon Jovi from every angle possible. Expanding from 10 feet
by 10 feet to 10 feet by 30 feet, and showing the concert in 360
degrees, the screens are unique to this tour.

"There's nothing else like it," says Tait Towers vice president Adam D.
Davis, a Carnegie Mellon University graduate. "Bon Jovi is always
pushing the frontier of what's possible, technically, with video, and
they've done it again."

According to Davis, it takes 20 computers to run the Venetian blind
video screens, which are motion-controlled and feature high-definition
video. They cost approximately $6 million. One of the biggest hurdles
was designing a system that could be assembled in about an hour and
easily transportable.

"It's one thing to make it and have it live there (in one place)
forever," Davis says. "To make it and have it come apart in a matter of
moments, then troop around to the next city, that's tough. "

After incorporating the Tait Towers schematics into the design, Brant
submitted 70 drawings of different ideas, ranging from stage shapes and
screen ideas, for Jon Bon Jovi's approval.

"Out of that, we broke it down to what he liked and what he didn't, and that gave us the direction we needed," Brant says.

While fans are likely to be amazed at the technical wizardry of the
stage design, Brant admits that the staging and design is meant to put
the musicians in their best light; pleasing the audience is merely an
offshoot of that.

"It's how it appears to the artist when he walks up from behind it,"
Brant says. "It's what it's like for the artist when he's underneath
it. And then, when he's on stage, what it's like when he's six inches
away from it."

As far as fans go, Brant adds that "it's often the guy in the back of
the room, that's who you're serving more than anyone. Because if you're
in the front row you don't give a crap what the stage design is; you're
so close to the artist and that's who you came to see."