While releasing her third studio album ARTPOP, Gaga held a private event in New York known as artRave, where she performed songs from the album and showcased art pieces. Later she took the concept of artRave and created artRAVE: The ARTPOP Ball tour.
Stage
Stage during "Venus" rehearsals
On December 4, 2013, Gaga posted on Twitter that the stage design for the tour would be done by the same architect as the Monster Ball. She also revealed the first hint related to the story of the tour: "This time we are on the planet... #VENUS." In an interview with Capital FM, Gaga discussed about the stage set up for the tour. Gaga wanted something other than the "Monster Pit" arrangement she previously had in the Born This Way Ball tour, since she was always limited to performing on one portion of the arena. Hence Gaga and her team thought of building two stages, one main stage and an accompanying one on the far end of the arena. It would be enhanced by the addition of a catwalk which would wind all around the arena floor, enabling the singer to interact with the audience.
Render of the stage
On March 17, 2014, Gaga posted a render of the stage, giving some details about the construction: "The stage is lucite and you can just dance underneath the runways".
ARTPOP Zone
The ARTPOP Zone is a section of the artRAVE:the ARTPOP ball stage. This special section is located in front of Gaga's piano on the b-stage. The section features seats and a mini bar promoted by Absolut Vodka for North American and United Kingdom shows.
Interludes and backdrops
Content shown on the screens and warped on the stage during "Do What U Want".
For the video content of the tour, Gaga decided to work again with Ruth Hogben as creative director and film maker. Nicole Ehrlich returned as producer with consultants Jonah Hall and Kevin Lau. The footage was later edited by Zoic Studios to create 14 song backdrops using a mix of footage and additional content such as stylized bubbles. The goal was to achieve "a very dreamy rave world" that could transform the very neutral white base stage color into atmospheric background pieces.
| “ | The stage itself consisted of several inflatables that would be blasted by multiple projectors. With no way to map these surfaces we created the content in a way that would allow it to warp and change over the contours of the structures, and appear to float up the massive [3 by 40 feet (0.91 m × 12 m)] screens behind the stage. | ” |
—Casey Hupke, Creative Director for Zoic Studios | ||
Backdrop concepts
Stage concepts
Stage Set up
- Inflatables stage set by Airworks.
