Touring in support of Williams’ 11th studio album, The Heavy Entertainment Show, the production reflects the nature of both the artist and the album, mixing full-on schmaltz with in-your-face entertainment in an atmosphere that is cheeky, loud and proud to be brash. In a design set to dazzle in keeping with the effervescent star, Lighting Designer, Mark Cunniffe, opted to use 200 Ayrton IntelliPix-XT LED matrix fixtures to line the front edges of the stage, which is star-shaped.
“One of the major challenges of a stadium show is that 50-60 percent of the show is played in daylight, before transitioning into night-time later on. The further north in Europe, the longer the sun lingers, so it is important that we have a visual show for that first portion of the show, as well as beyond into full darkness. Whether it was lighting-based or screen-based, I wanted something that would work in daylight and was looking for a punchy pixel-based source that provided really serious impact – which IntelliPix-XT does in spades.” he said.
“I wanted there to be no separation between the staging and the lighting. By rigging IntelliPix-XT on the front of the band risers, the main stage and the star-shaped forestage, I could clearly delineate the three stage levels and tie in the overall look and feel of the show.”
The IntelliPix-XT is a development on from the original IntelliPix-R delivering six times greater efficiency from its nine independently controlled RGBW multi-chip high-power LEDs which emit narrow two-degree beams from their 126mm diameter optics. These are configured in a three by three matrix, with a pixel pitch of 175mm, each of which can be aligned precisely to form highly complex assemblies that deliver large-dimension 3D volumetric lighting effects. An efficiency rating in excess of 95% of its PSU enables IntelliPix-XT to run continuously at full power without any loss of performance. Cunniffe had not used the IntelliPix-XT before so his choice reflects a good deal of faith in the Ayrton brand:
“I was looking for a really bright parallel beam to accent and clearly define the star-shaped stage edge; it is clearly an important visual indicator of the show’s character. Other LED sources were considered but were far more wash-orientated making that sharp clarity difficult to achieve, whereas the IntelliPix-XT is much more of a beam light and provided the necessary ‘punctuation’, especially in a stadium-size show which requires a lot of LED. They did a great job.”
It isn’t only the brightness and clarity that has impressed Cunniffe as he explained: “I particularly like the pixel-mapping facility of the IntelliPix-XT. The beauty of the feature is that you have nine separate cells to map which, multiplied by 200 units, gives you an awful lot of pixels to play with – eighteen hundred in all. When pixel-mapping them it is easy to match them into other products. I run a lot of video content through them but can pixel map many other effects too.”
As part of such a vibrant stage and light show, the IntelliPix-XT have more than proved their mettle and Cunniffe is enthusiastic about their performance:
“The IntelliPix-XT are a signature unit of the show and are used on nearly half of the twenty-song list. In between, I run them at 20% as stage trim to delineate the edges of the star-shaped stage. I’ve been really impressed with the fixtures, their output, the pixel mapping and their flexibility. I wouldn’t hesitate to use them again.”
Ayrton is distributed exclusively in the UK by Ambersphere Solutions, and the 200 IntelliPix-XT units were supplied to Robbie Williams’ The Heavy Entertainment Tour by Neg Earth Lights.
