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INTERNATIONAL NEWS
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS
James Blunt Tour Tests New Gear, Looks
PARIS — Paul Normandale of Lite Alternative,
the U.K. based lighting production
company that is supplying James Blunt’s
All the Lost Souls tour, is putting seven of
Martin Professional’s new MAC III Profiles
through their paces.
“I’m impressed,” Normandale said, of the
1500-watt profile spots. “The fixtures offer a
significantly brighter tier of lighting, a great
wide aperture source, a dramatic zoom, real
strobing — and finally a real red.”
The James Blunt tour, which is also supported
by Upstaging in Canada, is one of a
handful of field test outings for the profile
spot. The new gear was added for the recent
European leg of the tour, which moves to
Canada in mid-November. Martin LC Series
panels have also been added for the tour’s
larger venues.
Normandale, who is serving as creative
director and lighting, set and video designer,
said he chose the MAC III because he was
looking for a bright hard edge fixture for
venues with trim heights of up to 48 feet,
and he needed a powerful spot to go with
the Martin LC Series LED panels.
“Even at extreme zoom it has light to
spare from a trim of nearly 50 feet across a
video wall,” Normandale said, of the MAC
III’s ability to punch out more than 33,000
lumens.
Located high in a circle truss arch, the
MAC III’s broad front lens provides fat beam
looks in mid-air, Normandale said. “The high
output is a nice feature and when you combine
it with the broad beam it gives a very
different look.”
The MAC III Profile is the first luminaire
in Martin’s third generation of MAC moving
heads. Its list of new features includes a new
design, inside and out, new 1500-watt lamp
technology and advances in control, handling
and service.
“So far there have been no failures in the
rig, which for a new light is fantastic,” said
Glen Johnson, who handles lighting direction
and runs the lighting and video on the
tour.
Along with the MAC III Profiles, a checkered
wall of LC Series LED panels provides a
backdrop to the set. Normandale chose 22
LC 2140 panels, partly because of their twometer-by-one-meter
configuration.
“Moving trusses with the panels mounted
on them reconfigure through the show,
forming a true screen only once for one
song,” Normandale said. “The interlock of the
screens was critical and the modular speed
of the LC made this possible.The touring
rig also includes MAC 700 Profiles, MAC 250
Washes (which changes to MAC 700 Washes
in Canada), MAC TW1s, Stagebar 54L LED
bars and Atomic 3000 strobes with Atomic
Colors scrollers.
Blunt’s All the Lost Souls tour has played
in the U.K
LD Paul Normandale used seven of the MAC III fixtures, and
created a moving checkerboard backdrop with 22 Martin LC
2140 LED panels.
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Neo-Industrial Club Washed in Waves of Color
Lighting and video at the new club called matter create an immersive environment.
LONDON — With its neutral coloration and
cool concrete, stone and opaque metal surfaces,
matter, a 2,500-capacity nightclub that
opened recently inside the
O2 in Greenwich, had plenty
of neo-industrial edge, but
little chromatic excitement.
Dave Parry of the Most
Technical worked with club
owners Keith Reilly and Cameron
Leslie and also architects
and interior designers
William Russell and Sarah
Adams of Pentagram to
change that.
The result is a series of
color-changing LED lighting
and video in matter’s three
main spaces that, synchronized with sound,
creates a three-dimensional immersive environment
controlled by three Avolites consoles
for those whose recreational interests range
from dance to trance.
In all, there are thousands of LED light
sources, including several kilometers of Philips
Color Kinetics iColor Flex embedded in various
architectural features around the venue —
walls, pillars, balconies, corridors, stairwells —
even the venue’s restrooms, which also feature
images projected by two Sanyo projectors.
Parry specified the Avolites Diamond 4
Vision console to be at the center of the control
system for the stage, dance floor and wall
washing LED sources in the main room, which
has curved shapes and a second-floor wraparound
balcony. Two of Pixel Addict’s digital
media servers, also triggered from the Avo D4,
feed the video images running to 12 Sanyo
projectors, all fitted with custom scanning mirrors.
The stage and dance floor moving lights
include eight Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs and six
ColorSpot 575E ATs, chosen in part because of
their compact size and reliability, according to
Parry. The lighting system also included eight
strobes ensconced in the custom 75,000-watt
BodyKinetic dance floor, eight ETC Source
Fours, 24 PARs and four Robe 2•96 LEDBlinders,
all patched through 96 channels of Avolites
ART2000i installation dimmers.
“The ART dimmers were a complete no
brainer,” said Parry. When it came to specifying
a console for the main room he added, “I needed
something powerful and versatile enough
to deal with all the elements we wanted to
control from one user interface. It had to be
quick and easy to use patch and program and
have innate buskability as it’s a club environment
and so essential for any lighting operator
to be able to go with the flow of the rhythm
and vibes.” He also needed a desk that was familiar
to LDs who come in with touring bands.
The second and third club spaces, called
matter 2 and matter 3, are darker and more intimate
spaces for guests stepping away from
the main room and its brighter dance floor
visuals. Both feature color-changing LED wall
and alcove washing architectural light sources,
controlled by two additional consoles, the
Avo Pearl Expert and Avo Pearl Tiger.
matter 2 uses a mix of Philips Color Kinetics
iColors, iCoves and iColor Flex units, with
24 Kam 800S LED bars in the ceiling, and
moving lights consisting of four Robe Scan
575 XTs and eight Robe REDWash 2•36 LED
wash lights.
matter 3 features a long corridor with a
dance floor at the end, lit by Robe Scan 250
XT moving lights. The space can also provide
some immersive color sweeps with its
interlinked lighting and video sources. These
include 16 large plasma screens in the roof,
12 custom LED floor panels, 16 Kam LED bars
and more of Color Kinetics iFlex LEDs.
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PLSN NOVEMBER 2008