25 European dates, plus Taipei and Macau
Rebel Heart was Madonna's tenth world tour, supporting her 13th studio album of the same name. It opened on 9 September 2015 in Montreal, Canada, and ran for six months in 22 countries.
Mojo Barriers was contracted to keep audience and artist safe at all 25 European dates and at the shows in Taipei and Macau in February 2016. The European leg began at the Lanxess Arena in Cologne on 4 November 2015 and visited 12 countries.
Corners for a cross- and heart-shaped stage
Mojo supplied almost 200 pieces of kit for the front of stage and front of house, including vario corner sections, snake gates and flex corner sections. Its range of special curves and corners in black aluminium let the barrier line match a complex stage design with a cross- and heart-shaped B-stage. All barriers were black aluminium, as Madonna wanted them to be unobtrusive.
The large elevated stage had an extending catwalk, with a circular stage halfway along and a heart-shaped stage at the end.
As close to the audience as possible
Madonna is one of the world's biggest artists, with state of the art production, so it was an honour to be entrusted with both audience and artist safety during her European tour dates. Although this wasn't a challenging install, the shape of the stage did make this slightly more complex as Madonna wanted the barriers very close to her stage to increase intimacy and enable closer contact with her audience. …
The American tour shows were seated, which meant there was not a lot of barrier pressure during the show. Here in Europe, the standing shows meant the barriers needed to be able to withstand this increased crowd pressure. We worked closely with the PM, Jason Danter, to design a barrier layout that suited the show and enabled Madonna to be as close as possible to her audience.
