In support of his second album, Shangri-La Jake Bugg set out on a UK tour, including headlining the first Albert Session of 2014 at Royal Albert Hall on February 21. The sold-out tour featured his home city at The Capital FM Arena Nottingham; Newcastle; London; Edinburgh and Manchester. At the Albert Hall he captivated his audience in two sets - one acoustic and one with his band.PRG senior account manager Scottie Sanderson worked closely with Stuart Farrell, the lighting designer for Bugg’s UK tour. The eclectic run of venues started as smaller club shows, building to the larger Nottingham Arena and Royal Albert Hall; back down to the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh. The prep was built around the larger shows, and allowed the crew to scale back with minimum impact on the production.

Facing a number of logistical challenges across the series of venues, Farrell talks about how PRG supported him. “Logistically it was a challenging tour; it felt more like a series of one-offs. PRG helped make what could have been a very difficult and expensive tour run smoothly and on budget, without asking me to compromise on the design.”

Having worked with Bugg extensively, Farrell designed and coordinated the lighting for the show at the RAH, which was also filmed on camera. With Farrell focusing on the main stage, Gordon Torrington from PRG, assisted as the filming and lighting operator for the remainder of the Royal Albert Hall.

Torrington commented on the evening: “Stu knew what he wanted, he was very direct and decisive which helped the show run smoothly. I had some feedback on improvements around the hall which effected filming which Stu was happy to come into play.”

Farrell used the RAH's flown light rig for the show complemented by a floor package including VL3000 spots, Sunstrips and i-PIX BB4s. There were two extra trusses for the Nottingham show which also included some MAC 2K washes. Touring crew were Jake Sullivan, Simon Howarth, Russell Harris and a cameo from Josh Barnes; Gordon Torrington and Mark Hollis complementing for the Royal Albert Hall show.

Earlier in the week Bugg gave a master class to a selection of A-level music students, from London schools, as part of the Royal Albert Hall’s education and outreach programme. He rehearsed with the chosen singers for a once in a lifetime opportunity to join him on the Royal Albert Hall stage. PRG are proud to support the young British singer songwriter, also nominated for a BRIT Award in the same week.

“It was great to work with Stuart on this," Scottie explains. "We were able to assist with pre-visualisation in WYSIWYG; supply the smaller shows, and complement for the larger ones. The crew were great, and rose to the challenge of the scale of venue sizes. It was also very enjoyable to work with TM Chris Rowley and PM Michael O’Connor again.”