Ayrton Cobra and Spider meet in Poland
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Pajak chose the latest Ayrton IP65 rated fixtures including 68 Perseo Profile, 21 Domino Profile and 46 of the new Cobra laser-sourced fixtures. The remainder of his rig consisted of 24 Ayrton Huracan Profile fixtures which were sited under the protection of the stage roof.
“IP rated fixtures are essential for the type of outdoor work I do,” Spider explains. “Recent years have seen a massive change in the development of IP rated fixtures like Ayrton’s Perseo, Domino and Cobra which are fully ready for both outdoor and indoor use. This is a big game changer. Ayrton fixtures are very bright, reliable, supercool units, with nice design, great optics and quality of light, and have everything you could want for internal features. They just happen to be IP rated too!”
Already familiar with Perseo Profile, Spider chose to embed the fixtures in eight LED screens fixed to eight overhead moving clusters. Another group was dedicated to a large trapeze shape truss that framed the moving clusters and was also used as a moving set element.
The Domino Profile fixtures were employed mostly as front lights and key lights on the singers and soloists, maximising the colour potential of Domino. “Domino was quite new when I first specified it but I’ve found it to be a powerful outdoor profile that has proved ideal as front light on festival rigs,” says Spider. “The colour mixing in Domino is very useful because the output is bright enough to play with, especially when creating darker and more saturated colours. Domino and Huracán have enough power to combine all the feature layers of colour, gobo and animation to achieve everything you could want with beam, aerial or front light with which to paint your space. The results are vivid and punchy.”
The newly released Cobra fixtures were a late addition to the Podsiadło shows and used simply and effectively on each of the left and right wings flanking the IMAG screens, and upstage as floor lights behind the band risers.
The Podsiadło shows marked the first use of Cobra in Poland and Spider’s first opportunity to put them into action. “I took my time in getting to know Cobra to get the maximum visual impact from it,” he says. “Everyone expects its fabulous white beam, but Cobra is much more than that with its different modes, colours, gobos and especially prisms.”
The combination of Perseo, Domino and Cobra proved so successful that Spider specified them as a lighting package which he used continually for the Summer 2022 festival season. “IP rating is equally as important for rental companies as for LDs. We no longer need to have separate rigs for indoor and outdoor gigs during the summer season,” he says.
“Perseo was the first fixture to make me realise this was possible. It has really good balance that fits into any environment from stadiums and festivals to arenas and clubs: compact, light-weight, with nice colours, features and output. Then, when I needed more output, Ayrton introduced Domino which is basically an outdoor version of Huracán which I knew already! This allowed me to combine a greater number of features whilst retaining plenty of output. Plus, I can use it without any rain covers which I am not a fan of at all.”
The festival package saw an increase in the number of fixtures to over 100 Perseo Profiles which, along with the Cobra, Domino LT and Domino Profile fixtures, withstood the heat, dust, wind, full sun and rain of a busy Polish summer season. “The IP rating gave us a full toolbox and a lot of confidence throughout the summer season. They were well tested and stood up to everything.”
The Ayrton fixtures were supplied by Polish rental company, Wizja Multimedia, which purchased the Cobra units specifically for the Dawid Podsiadło show from Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for Poland, Lunatec Sp. z o.o.
