Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour has redefined the scale of global touring — and DiGiCo consoles are at its core. The production, supported by Solotech, relies on a Quantum852 for front-of-house and a Quantum7 at monitors to manage the show’s complex, high-input mix across three stages.

Launched in 2022, the tour has reached 80 cities across 43 countries, with 225 performances to date. It supports the band’s “Music of the Spheres” and “Moon Music” albums and has achieved a nearly 60 percent reduction in CO₂ emissions compared to their previous tour, underscoring a strong commitment to sustainability.

Front-of-house engineer and audio producer Dan Green, who has mixed Coldplay since 1998, works alongside head of audio system design and FOH tech Tony Smith. Green began using DiGiCo in 2011 and upgraded to a Quantum7 before recently adopting the Quantum852. “The Q8 has been amazing — it just offers so much more workflow flexibility,” Green said. “It’s taken everything that was great about the Quantum7 and expanded upon that. The screens are amazing, and it enables me to have more layers and workspace. The Q8 is clearly the best of the DiGiCo bunch so far.”

Green highlighted the Quantum852’s onboard processing as a key benefit. “The expanded Spice Rack has allowed me to free up some of my plugin chains, which I was using on outboard processors, and be more integrated into the console, which is really useful to have everything under my fingertips,” he said.

With approximately 200 inputs and 32 ambient mic channels, Green said the Quantum852’s power and routing options make it uniquely suited for Coldplay’s large-scale setup. Its extensive aux capability also simplifies submix creation for broadcast feeds, allowing engineers to start from balanced stem mixes.

Sustainability remains a major theme for the crew. “In the audio department, we’ve tried to downscale our racks,” Green said. “Before I had a lot of analog hardware, lots of analog preamps, lots of outboard effects. And I’m really happy that now we’ve managed to reduce our setup down to the Quantum8 and basically one rack.”

Monitor engineer Chris “Woodsy” Wood continues to rely on a Quantum7 at monitor world. “Though he was tempted to move over to the Q8 when we did, Chris is more than happy with the Q7, so why change if it’s not broken?” said head of audio system design and FOH tech Tony Smith.

Both Green and Smith credit DiGiCo for its reliability and support. “They’ve been so supportive and the team are always there to answer a text or help us with any emergency situation,” Green said.