UP provides festival vision for Lorde, Pet Shop Boys and Foal at Glastonbury 2022

Pet Shop Boys at Glastonbury 2022, photo by coalpoetmedia

Universal Pixels (UP) was proud to provide three distinct festival looks for touring clients Foals, Lorde, and Pet Shop Boys at the 2022 edition of the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, which returned to Worthy Farm following two ‘fallow’ years enforced by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Eclectic indie rockers Foals headlined the Other Stage for the first time in their career, bringing an eye-popping show complete with flown and stage-mounted LED screens to wow an eager Friday night crowd.

“We flew a downstage 19m wide header bar on Kinesys using 19 Leyard CLM 6mm tiles, which was framed by an identical 19m downstage footer bar attached to the set,” said Foals Production Manager, Mark Jones.

“We also flew a mid-stage 4.5m x 5m screen using the same product, also on Kinesys. The real challenge was building this in the changeover, though the UP crew did a great job turning this around.”

Lorde at Glastonbury 2022 photo by George Harrison

Foals at Glastonbury 2022 photo by Jody Hartley

The products the crew selected were the perfect canvas for Foals’ striking and often psychedelic visuals, turning the Other Stage into a neon-drenched disco for ‘My Number’ and providing otherworldly cloudscapes for ‘Spanish Sahara’.

“It was a great show, everything came together exactly as planned and the feedback we got from Glastonbury was very complimentary,” said Jones.

“From our touring side we have to thank Lite Alt, Adlib, Ox Events, BPM SFX and from the Glastonbury side Neg Earth and Skan PA helped make it the show it was, all supported well by Emma Reynolds and her Glastonbury production team.”

The staging for singer-songwriter Lorde’s Pyramid Stage set was a sharp contrast to Foals’ arresting visuals, with a production design taking the audience’s gaze toward the projected upstage sun and rotating sundial, the latter of which doubled as a huge staircase.

For the New Zealand artist’s touching and introspective performance, UP provided a three-camera PPU, Resolume media servers and three crewmembers led by Rob Fender.

The Other Stage’s Sunday night headliner, Pet Shop Boys, employed Leyard CLM10 panels to create a moving, mid-stage transparent screen, while Leyard CLM6 LED was arranged into 16 rotating totems.

All of this equipment, and the PixelBricks used for Pet Shop Boys co-founder Chris Lowe’s custom console front, was provided by UP. The LED tech for the set was Phil Leech, who worked in conjunction with Really Creative Media, which provided servers and two additional crew.

The visual content itself was predominantly bold and geometric, creating an angular, clean look for the group’s triumphant Glastonbury return.

“It was really good to be able to support our touring clients at Glastonbury Festival after these tough years for the industry,” said UP Director, Phil Mercer.

“Each of these shows looked very different; it was a pleasure to provide such varied set up requirements for each act and see how the performances played out with our inventory and trusted freelance crew.”