OneRepublic on tour with Ayrton MagicPanel
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Core to the strikingly impressive lighting design by Mark Butts, production and lighting designer at LA-based Preset Productions, are 103 Ayrton MagicPanel-602 fixtures, supplied by global rental company VER.
For Butts and co-production designer and show director Raj Kapoor, it was the first time of touring with OneRepublic. “We have worked with the band before, but never on a big tour, and we were keen to start developing a visual style and brand for them which really captures their personality and image,” explains Butts. “We wanted this tour to be the first step in defining the OneRepublic style and to make them known for their live shows in a similar way to iconic bands like Muse, Rammstein, U2 or Nine Inch Nails.”
The Honda Civic Tour is travelling with a big lighting package but Butts did not want to conform to a conventional ‘big’ light show. “We wanted to create something different for the band, something very architectural and very modern that would really focus down on them and provide an interesting environment for them to play in,” he says.
As a starting point, Butts and Kapoor rigged 10 lighting trusses in pairs at a 35° angle to form a series of receding ‘triangles’ which get progressively smaller upstage. These were loaded with 103 MagicPanel-602 fixtures to create a type of architectural ceiling piece with which to frame the band.
Despite the two downstage trusses being on a Kinesys system (to allow them to be flown out during the sponsor’s promotional videos at the interval), there is very little movement in either the trusses or the MagicPanel-602 fixtures during the show, with only one acoustic moment when the trusses are dropped in as an interesting backdrop for the band.
“As part of the architectural effect, we envisioned the show’s dynamics coming almost exclusively from the selection on the face of each MagicPanel-602,” explains Butts. “We deliberately kept our use of colour to a minimum, using only five colours – red, blue and different shades of white - in the whole show and, barring one number, each song is entirely monochromatic. This keeps it clean and modern-looking, and we can make all the statements we want to make with all the other tools we have.
“One of the reasons I was drawn to MagicPanel-602 was, if we weren’t going to achieve dynamics from movement or colour, it had to come from somewhere else. And that ‘somewhere else’ was from the selections on the face of the MagicPanel-602, and creating strong imagery using different chunks of the rig.”
Jenkins and Butts used a GrandMA2 console to its full potential to programme the show: “The GrandMA and Ayrton fixtures work together very well,” Butts says. “As programmers, we have collectively devised an approach to programming the MagicPanels that is really easy, fast and clean, and allows us to achieve complicated looks without a huge amount of hassle.”
(Jim Evans)
