Paul English
Production Manager | Adele
As production manager for pop superstar Adele, Paul English has been one of the masterminds behind the singer’s two-year, 100-plus dates Las Vegas residency.
Still, the biggest achievement, both in a literal and in a figurative sense, was Adele’s 10-date residency in Munich, Germany, in August.
“No one’s ever really built a pop-up stadium, so there’s a few things that came from that,” English said. “When we looked at the design, lo and behold, we ended up creating the world’s largest temporary video screen, which was a record breaker. So, that was probably the largest achievement of this year.”
When contemplating where building a 76,000-capacity temporary stadium for a single artist ranked in his overall career milestones, he says, “it’s definitely up there, especially because of it being a one-off. I worked on the Olympics and other events that were of a vast scale, but this was a great, massive undertaking I’m very proud of.”
He’s sure it inspired other artists and their teams to consider doing something similar, but is aware that there’s only a handful of artists that could pull it off at this scale.
“The gap has got so much bigger now; it’s so much harder for the little bands to come in and get anywhere, which is a massive problem,” English said. “Of the bigger artists, I think a lot of them will look at that as a format they can use moving forward. I can definitely see that people will try and replicate it, and do these residencies. You could stay somewhere for a much longer time if you can build your own stadium.”
You can also stay for a long time, if you’re invited to set up shop in a casino for two years, which is what Adele has been doing at The Colosseum At Caesars Palace in Las Vegas since November 2022. When she wraps up Nov. 23, her production manager will have been in Vegas for three years. A residency like that has pros and cons, he says.
“It’s wonderful that you’ve been in the same place for so long. For some that may be too much groundhog day,” he said. “The things I don’t miss about touring is getting on a bus. With the residency thing, you’re in a bed every night. It satisfies the simple needs you have.”
For Adele’s Munich shows, the team created a stage design that mirrored her Vegas setup, which was a complex process, according to English.
“We really only started building the site in January, so we had a really short space of time to create that. A lot was done by the seat of our pants, so to pull it off felt unbelievable,” he said. “It was a real feat.”
