On September 17, 1996, Michael Jackson gave a concert at Dynamo Stadium in Moscow. The King of Pop Show was part of his HIStory World Tour. This was the second visit of the popular artist to Russia; the first concert in the framework of the Dangerous World Tour took place in 1993 at Luzhniki Stadium. The organizer of Michael Jackson’s second visit to Moscow was the ARS company. The performance of the popular singer and showman was successful, despite some problems that arose during the transportation of equipment for the show.
Since those distant times, we have not preserved so many materials and photographs from this great event for JSA. Below we publish some unique pictures that we managed to take at the time of preparation for this event and save for history.
Playbill for Michael Jackson’s concert on September 17 in Moscow.
Poster, badge and ticket for Michael Jackson’s concert on September 17 in Moscow.
Alexander Strizhak was the technical director of the concert from the Russian side at the invitation of the ARS company. He was involved in and supervised all organizational issues for the implementation of the technical part of the rider and the solution of local organizational and production issues for the concert. So at that time, such world-class concerts were still a rarity, at the request of Alexander Strizhak, his trip was specially organized to the city of Prague, where Michael Jackson’s performance took place (September 7, 1996), for preliminary communication with the Production Manager of the tour. After that trip, he managed to assemble an administrative team to complete the assigned tasks and organize the recruitment of personnel to carry out the work. It should be borne in mind that at that time the technical service sector for stadium live concerts in Russia was just being formed and everything had to be done for the first time. Prior to that, Alexander Strizhak gained extensive experience in similar and similar jobs at Grand Show Systems, where he was first an administrator, then became a technical director of projects, and at the same time headed the stage division of the company. At the time of the invitation to the production team for the Michael Jackson concert, Alexander Strizhak was already working one year independently, as they say today, as a freelancer. Therefore, mastering the practice, already new for him, of holding a large concert of a world star and faced with large Western show business in its technical part, Alexander Strizhak decided to open his own business and found his personal company. The main activity of which was to be the direction – the organization and management of the technical production of projects. The so-called PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT in English / it was a “revolutionary” idea at the time for the Russian live music and event industry.
Since it happened on the day of Michael Jackson’s concert – September 17, the year 1996 became the date of birth of the JSA company.
In the pictures below: A statue of Michael Jackson in Prague for the promo of his concert, Alexander Strizhak on the field of the Dynamo stadium in front of the stage for the Michael Jackson show, and the right portal of the HIStory stage of Michael Jackson in Moscow.
Below are several surviving photographs of the main team members of Alexander Strizhak in this project, taken during working moments at the Dynamo stadium: Mikhail Popov – business partner during 1995- 1996 and administrative director of the team, Viktor Moiseev – business associate and economic administrator, Svetlana Pivushkova – assistant and administrator (later became the first office -manager of JSA). And also several photos of Alexander Strizhak taken during his work as the local technical director for the concert of Michael Jackson at the Dynamo stadium on September 17, 1996.
Версия на русском языке: МАЙКЛ ДЖЕКСОН & HISTORY WORLD TOUR. КОНЦЕРТ НА СТАДИОНЕ ДИНАМО В МОСКВЕ
© All photos and materials are exclusively owned by JSA Stage Company.
The picture above (*) was for the cover of the book about Michael Jackson: “Michael Jackson – History Past Present and Future”
Unfortunately, on June 25, 2009, under rather dubious circumstances (in our opinion), Michael Jackson passed away (R.I.P.), but the star of the KING OF POP MUSIC continues to shine in the sky of our life. His activities have had a huge impact not only on the musical side of Show Business but also on the development of the technical sector and especially for the staging part of stadium concerts. JSA is proud to be associated with the name of Michael Jackson.
(*) We took this picture from the Internet for free access; therefore, we do not know the name of the author and did not intend to infringe on anyone’s copyright.