Siyan was recently also the first UK rental company to add the new Palco 3 Mobile moving fixtures to their hire stock. Its current and recent tours using SGM include Bloc Party (LD Craig Allnutt), Athlete (LD Dom Smith), The Ordinary Boys (LD Steven Abbis) which used eight Giotto 400 CMYs and 14 Palcos, Feeder (out later this month), and Coldplay (LD Nick Whitehouse) which is using 44 Giotto 400 CYMs. Siyan is also lighting the winter season's Somerset House Ice Arena with a design including SGM moving lights.
The Giotto 400 Spot and Wash Series are particularly popular for touring. The Palco LED colour changers - originally developed with the architectural market in mind - are also being used by lateral thinkers for scenic illumination, among other things.
Athlete's LD Dom Smith made the key design decision to use only SGM Giotto 400 Spots - 24 of them - as his moving light sources for the UK leg of the band's 'Tourist' tour. He'd previously used them during the 2005 summer show season at Somerset House in London. The fixtures were divided between being hung on the back truss, mounted onstage on towers or distributed on the floor. "I like the 400 fixture" he comments, "Its very bright and sharp and full of features."
He also says he thinks the frost filters are good enough to transform it into a very convincing wash light; so rather then having a mixture of fixtures, he can have the flexibility of changing the type and nature of the source. It's the first fixture he's used and been convinced that this tactic will work. "It made the programming interesting - you had to think about it a bit more than usual in terms of what you were asking the fixture to do or to be at that point . . . but I'm really pleased with the results."
Lightfactor's Peter Coles says, "Siyan has been instrumental in establishing SGM as a player in the UK touring market. The company also works with some of our most talented young artists and LDs which is really refreshing. The products have more than proved their reliability in a touring environment and Lightfactor is looking forward to seeing a lot more SGM products in action on tours and at shows and festivals over the next year."
(Lee Baldock)
