Supporting Callum Beattie with bold visuals was a light show by Steve Mccraken of Mac-Events, who programmed the show and ran it throughout the tour on his ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M Stadium Console.
Working with a kit supplied by Limelight Event Services, Mccracken busked some manual flashes, strobes, and other looks, but most of his show was cue stacked. “We kept the looks consistent from show to show to create the experience that fans expected,” he said. “Although we had to make some changes to accommodate some venues, we remained consistent overall.”
Mccraken created some effects mixing silhouettes with wide prisms and gobos. This look was notable in the song “Don’t Walk Alone,” during an instrumental breakdown, when the band are silhouetted and many of the lights are chasing. “The band appear out of the dark every second or so,” said Mccracken. “It’s a simple loom and it brings so much to this part of the show.”
Mccracken arranged his fixtures to maximise the artist-audience connection. “I deliberately put my front lights low, so Callum could see the crowd a little easier,” he said. “I also had blinders on during the talking sessions.”
Mccraken designed the show in Capture and preprogrammed on his MQ500M, commented on how his console helped him: “I triggered a lot of the FX in programming off macros, so I really liked how the extra playbacks in my ChamSys helped me keep everything I needed in one space rather than me having to sift through separate pages,” he added. “I also appreciated how I could layout my desk, so I could know that the first five faders and above will be for my manual front wash, specials and so forth, whilst the next bank of five would be for my macros, then the last bank for my song stack and bump buttons.”
The extra Playbacks were also helpful to Mccraken as a programmer, he noted “I also liked the Dual Screen for maximum layout space, so if anything did go wrong, I could catch it quickly,” he said. “This helped when changing Fader Colours.”
Mccracken was not only able to spend more time getting creative with this lighting, but he could also enjoy the show more because he too is a Callum Beattie fan.
