The triumphant return of the original Sugababes at the O2 homecoming on 16 September.
Ed Warren commented: “I just loved how the whole thing came together,” he recalled. “It wasn’t just the lighting, but also the choreography, the music, the lasers, the confetti – and most of all, the beautiful harmonies of the three iconic singers.” As the show’s lighting and stage designer, he supported the beloved stars’ performance with a production that celebrated their place in British music history.
Running his Colour Sound Experiment supplied rig on his ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M Stadium, Warren created myriad looks that ranged from flashy disco-like specials to soft, contemplative washes in his impeccably crisp timecoded show. “The entire show was programmed to timecode; the only live busking I did was for key lighting the performers,” he said. “I worked very closely with Matt Sharp and Pete Thornton from More Eyes in the time leading up to the production to coordinate light and video.”
As a longtime ChamSys user, Warren credited the MagicQ console’s FX Palettes feature with making it easier for him to add this dimension to his show, as it allowed him to build up FX quickly from existing Palettes. “This is a fantastic feature,” he said. “My FX are updated each time the Palette is changed, rather than me having to go in and update FX or Cues. I’m not sure how I survived before it!”
Warren’s life mentioned the Timeline feature that allowed him to program his show over a variety of desks and laptops: “Regardless of what I programmed the show on, it translated across devices perfectly,” he said. “This was important since I was able to program this show in my spare time as I traveled. So, I did so on my laptop during flights and on train rides, as well as on my MQ250 and MQ70 at home. Every second counts! And yes, I love programming to timeline, being able to skip forwards and back through the audio.”
Working with a great team, was another big timesaver. “Neil Smith, the lighting crew chief for Colour Sound Experiment, as well as the techs Tyler Paxton, Cem Hurrell, and Simon Robertson were wonderful,” said Warren. “We had a special group of people on a very special night. It was a great memory maker.”
