Lighting Designer Francis Clegg of London-based design house MIRRAD turned to control technology by British manufacturer Avolites to drive his atmospheric lighting for electronic retro-rockers Public Service Broadcasting’s (PSB) The Race for Space album tour.
The band’s unique sound features samples of vocals from old public information films and propaganda material with a goal to “teach lessons of the past through the music of the future.” This is reflected in the live show’s black and white archive video content by Gerrad Blyth, which Clegg cleverly juxtaposed with vibrant colours and dazzling aerial effects in a design that won him a Knight of Illumination Award 2016.
Clegg opted to use the highly tourable yet sophisticated Avolites Quartz running Titan version 10 to programme his winning design: “The Quartz fit the bill perfectly as I run everything in cue-lists and only need a compact work space – 10 faders is plenty! Not to mention it’s fast, runs as many universes as I ever need and has all the required input/outputs.”
Clegg’s rig, supplied by Colour Sound Experiment, was based around the Claypaky A.leda B-EYE K20. The versatile effects light was supported by Robe Pointes, Robe 600 Washes and Prolights Diamond 7’s, as well as a selection of tungsten side and backlights.With the video screens being square and of a fixed ratio, Clegg positioned the lighting fixtures as creatively as possible to lend further depth and perspective to the overall look of the show.
A long-term fan, Clegg has been using Avolites consoles for the past five years. “Avolites consistently introduces new tools to meet the requirements of the programmer,” he said. “I like the flexibility of the Titan software; it’s great for getting together a quick busking show but also features powerful cue-list show tools such as the updated patch view from version 9 and the intensity output tracking view in version 10. I use this a lot, filtering by groups of selected fixtures, to ensure my cue-list programming is as robust and conservative as possible! I’m also a fan of version 10’s updated effects tracking options – super helpful and another great step forward in the software.”
