Pop-punk-rock bands Busted and McFly combined in recent years to create ‘supergroup’ McBusted. XL Video are set to make McBusted’s latest UK tour one to remember with their creative and unique set design.

The tour aims to please more than just the ear with a non-stop, high-octane narrative screen design, set in a classic 1980s and incorporating fully playable arcade games machine, created by artistic director Paul Caslin.

The creative team working alongside Caslin includes Stuart Merser from Vis-A-Vis Video and lighting designer Vince Foster, with Production North handling all the technical coordination.

In order to achieve Caslin’s desired retro-looking console design whilst still using the latest technology, the team required a large upstage video screen, so XL – project managed by Phil Mercer and tour production manager Iain Whitehead specified 350 tiles of Pixled F–12 LED product. Above that is an ‘active banner’ of Pixled F–12 used for graphics or song titles.

The choice of full-on fun playback content was all commissioned by Caslin and produced by Blink TV as pixel-perfect material. It was then programmed onto Stuart Merser’s own Catalyst V5 media server, running on the latest Mac Pro hardware. All the sources going to the on stage screen and banner are channelled via the Catalyst.

XL Video is supplying four Sony HXC-100 cameras which are multi-routed; everything going onto the side screens is fed directly out from the PPU. XL are also providing a BlackMagic 2ME ATEM switcher on which Stuart is cutting the mix.