World Building: Behind the Scenes of The Minds of 99 ‘Infinity Action’ record-setting tour in 2022

Full production rehearsal the day before the first show

World Building. If you ever played Age of Empires or similar games, you’ll know what I mean. It occurred to be at some point during the tour that this is what the production crew do every day. They arrive at a near-empty venue early morning (night really!) and literally build a world so that 12 hours later the doors can open, fans can enter and the concert can begin. The stage, rigging, lights, screens, speakers, kilometers of cables, amps, computers, podiums, you name it. Think of this, when you go to the venue, pretty much everything you see (apart from the venue itself naturally!) was build in that one day. And as if that wasn’t enough, they have to take it all down again after the show, load it in the trucks and drive to the next venue overnight and maybe catch a few hours sleep and then repeat the whole world building the next morning! I am in awe of all the people that were involved in the production of The Minds of 99 Infinity Action Tour and of course, not all of them are featured in my behind-the-scenes photo essay here – a lot of them do their job before I am even awake! This is a tribute to all the incredible people behind the scenes that make it all happen.

It is humbling and inspirational to be around so many highly skilled people. There is a real sense of family here, a fellowship if you will. And with the whole The Minds of 99 ‘family’, the crew have become friends over the years. Photography, especially documentary photography, can be a somewhat lonely job at times as you are almost always the only one doing that specific job on set and you are an observer, a documentarian. So the gigs, the tours are my office, this is where I meet everyone and feel part of a greater whole. It means so much to be part of a team and I am so grateful to be a part of the ‘Minds family’.

Behind the scenes photo story of the biggest indoor tour in Danish history – The Minds of 99 Infinity Action Tour 2022

The tour was 9 sold out arena concerts in April 2022. 79,000 tickets were sold making it the biggest indoor tour ever in Denmark! It featured an international sized stage production, something like 16 trucks transported the whole ‘world’ from arena to arena in Denmark.

First is a series of stills from the final production rehearsals held on the 2 days just before the first concert on the tour. I love these full production rehearsals with the full light setup but no stage (and crowd of course). It means I can walk around and learn the production and light design and I can make pictures, that I can of course never make during an action concert:

From the production rehearsals we go into the world building on the very first day of the tour:

First day of the tour and World Building at Royal Arena
If you build it, they will come!
1st show about to kick off
Sound check on the B stage on day 2
Massive light beams courtesy of The Sun piercing straight through Royal Arena on day 2
Day 3 and we are in Herning and I actually wonder how many kilometers of cables that were in this production!
LiveLaser calibrating the lasers (a good time to not point cameras towards the lasers but the opposite way as here!)
Gunnar rigging up the pyro for ‘Knud’
Theis filming for the big screens. I shall never complain about carrying still-cameras again looking at this rig!
Yours truly in action, captured by Søren Borkmann
On the 2nd leg of the tour the white nightliner was home for 3 days
Home for 3 days! Bunks were quite comfy actually.
Mark Balstrup in action, he creates all those incredible ‘after show’ videos plus the mini documentary at the end of the tour production! Mark films and edits better and faster than anyone I know!
What Gigantium in Aalborg looked like when I woke up in the bus and went looking for coffee!
Merch merch wonderful merch!
Must…Resist….Mirror…Selfie…but can’t. Aalborg backstage team huddle and idiot with a camera and a big mirror!
What the great pre-show team huddles look like when I am not doing selfies in a mirror 🙂
Aalborg just looked so epic in that venue with the curved roof
About half of FOH, minutes before the show
World Building in Odense, early in the morning (well early for me, clearly they have been building for hours already!)
Nicolai Hoved, Head of Production for LiveNation and as you can clearly tell, very hard at work, very important part of the production 😉
Søren – Tour Manager 1, Frederik – Production Manager and Anders – Tour Manager 2 enjoying those moments just after a concert has begun and it’s all going well.
Mike filming Niels for ‘Drømmer om Livet’
Getting my gear ready before a show in Aarhus. X-T3 with 8-16mm and X-T4 with 16-55mm (normally I would have those lenses swapped), and very important knee pad (for sitting on my knees on stage) and 2 x ankle supports (old ankles!) and in-ear monitor. This is probably actually the gig where I forgot to put extra batteries in my pockets, good thing backstage was right next to the stage!
Merch booth and the merch crew are awesome!
Infinity Cake on the last day! I had no idea you could print on eatable paper and whack it on a cake. What will they think of next!
Production Manager Frederik ‘Frygten’ Folke receiving his farewell ‘gold record’ present as he had his last day working for Minds. It’s been incredible to work with you over the years Frygten!
Final team huddle
Tour Manager Søren and Tour Manager2 Anders played ‘Emil’ on spoons at the B-stage on that last night and it was hilarious! Everyone could let their shoulders and hair down on this last night, relax and enjoy the last night on an incredible tour. I am normally so completely focused on making the best pictures I can and in my own world, but on this gig I too was just so loose and relaxed and laughing. What a magical time!
Watching the fireworks outside Ceres Arena, the end of a fantastic and successful tour
The Crew! Photo by Morten Rygaard

The tour was an absolute experience of a lifetime, the most exciting project I have done as a music photographer and I feel very lucky to be a small part of this crew and be able to do my thing, documentary music photography! Thank you so much for everyone in ‘the family’!

Do also check out my concert pictures from the tour and all my music photography stories!

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