It’s hard to believe it’s nearly a year since Sam Smith’s 66-date Gloria tour – in support of the English singer-songwriter’s fourth studio album of the same name – played arenas worldwide before concluding in November 2023.
Here’s what Lighting Designer, Jesse Blevins, had to say about the tour on which he used 164 Ayrton Khamsin fixtures as his predominant – and only profile – fixtures, along with 4 Ayrton Domino LT fixtures, controlled by a FollowMe system, as follow spots. The Khamsin and Domino LT fixtures were provided by the tour’s lighting supplier, UK-based Neg Earth Lights.
“I’m a big proponent of having a lot of one fixture type in my designs, and try to stick with a maximum of two or three fixture types at the most,” said Blevins. “To me, this gives a bigger look and the balance of fixture types is nicer to the eye. For Sam’s tour I needed a fixture with the smallest physical size, a specific optic and a really flat field. I specified the Khamsins on the recommendation of my trusted programmer colleague, Dan Norman. I had a whole bunch of them and was rather nervous as they were doing the heavy lifting for the show. We needn’t have worried – as soon as we got into the rehearsal space and switched them on, there was no problem at all – they were plenty bright enough and worked out great!”
The Khamsin fixtures were rigged on front-of-house trusses, and on a single front truss, and four automated upstage trusses over the recumbent golden human figure that formed the central set piece.
“The show was very theatrical with purposeful staging from creative director Willo Perron,” said Blevins. “It had a good pace and a distinct progression, becoming more energetic from start to finish as the clean cut looks of the older records changed to more of a dance vibe for the current numbers. All of this was reflected in the lighting. Everything, from serving a technical lighting purpose to an effect, supported the visual energy.”
The four automated trusses could drop the Khamsin profiles in to form clean, straight, uniform looks for the backdrop which Blevins could play with, for example, using subtle gradients in colour from cool to warm, from one side of the stage to the other, for the song Like I Can, all of which was made possible by Ayrton’s “incredible and reliable uniformity in all parameters.”
“It may sound a cliché but the Khamsin was a great light,” confirmed Blevins. “They are really fast; the optics are great, and the zoom range is smooth. I was most impressed in general with the note of the light: how smoothly everything moves in and out – the colours, the shutters, the zoom – and how uniform it all was. During four weeks of rehearsals, we had just one in need of attention, and we really put them through it in every parameter.
“The calibration between the lights – slow dimmer fades, colour, movement – was very uniform and extremely tight. We could copy the look from one fixture to the next, and from one truss to the next, and it was homogenous and beautiful. When you have this number of one type of fixture, any discrepancy or variation would stand out badly and be a real problem, and we never had any issues with that.
“We used the gobos sparingly, but when we did, we were really pushing the edge of the optics, as wide as it could go. In such a situation we would often have to fine focus each gobo to get it sharp, but with Khamsin we could focus one light and it translated across all of them, which was an immense time-saver.
“The output was more than we needed: we had no issues with needing more light, which is not common. We were putting a lot of colours in the way, yet even with deep saturated colours we had plenty of light. I was very happy with them. It was a beautiful show.”
Dan Norman, designer and programmer at Evolve Lights, and Blevin’s programmer added, “The Khamsin with its incredible zoom, accurate colour reproduction between units, gobos and mechanical reliability made it an outstanding workhorse fixture for this tour. The accuracy of the mechanics held positions very well, meaning less time was spent updating positions. The LED light source was lovely to work with, the mixed colour representation between units was far more accurate than other brands offering similar fixture specs.
“Domino LT worked out very well as the front spots too. Again, colour was a huge deal on this tour, and the LED source helped keep colour representation accurate across the units. I have been using Ayrton fixtures for many years and always end up being super happy. They are easy to work with, and the profiles in the MA3 console just work! The fast zoom and focus along with the colour system is what keeps bringing me back to Ayrton fixtures!”
Neg Earth Lights’ Dave Ridgway, concluded: “It’s great to see that Jesse’s appreciation for the finer qualities in a spot fixture is matched by our own. It reaffirms our decision to invest so heavily in the product, one which seems to be trusted by many lighting designers across the market.”
