KISS recently ended their iconic live performance career with a final concert at Madison Square Garden, complete with its live production featuring Martin MAC Ultra Performance and Wash lighting fixtures by HARMAN Professional Solutions.
In 2019, KISS embarked on the multi-year End of the Road World Tour but was derailed in early 2020 by the global COVID-19 pandemic. The End of the Road World Tour resumed in 2023 with hundreds of dates all over the world, culminating in KISS’s last concert ever at Madison Square Garden on 2 December 2023.
KISS once again turned to longtime Production Manager Robert Long and Lighting Designer and Programmer Michael Cooper to create a spectacle of pyrotechnics and stage lighting. To ensure visual impact on KISS’s final tour, Cooper built a lighting rig and utilised several Martin lighting fixtures provided by Christie Lites, with the new MAC Ultra Series playing a crucial role.
“We started the END OF THE ROAD tour in 2019,” said Cooper. “The core of the show with the video pods over stage and a lot of the video content stuff is similar as when the tour first started in 2019. But since they were released in the interim, we added Martin MAC Ultra Performance and Ultra Wash fixtures, which are Martin’s new flagship models for good reason. These things are incredibly bright. It’s absolutely the best light they’ve ever made, and it’s literally my favourite light that I’ve ever used. The amount of light coming out is unreal. There’s so much light on stage. It’s out of control.”
Pushing an incredible 46,500 lumens, the Martin MAC Ultra Performance is a bright-moving light fixture with benchmark output across the zoom range. Cooper’s design utilised Martin MAC Ultra Performance fixtures as follow spots on a custom automatic FollowMe system provided by Matt Mills.
“Using Ultra Performance as the follow spots worked out really well,” said Cooper. “Looking at the rig overhead, the follow spots were over one hundred feet from the stage—pretty far into the audience. Even with the standard lens they had, I was getting 120-130 foot candles on stage. The guys popped, they looked great. Matt Mill’s Follow Me system really dialled in our spotlight show.”
“A KISS show is really hard on equipment,” said Cooper. “We used to do a maintenance schedule on spot fixtures and swap out filters to keep the kind of pyro dust out of everything. We did not have to do that on this tour with the Ultras. I don’t think we’ve even swapped a single one of these fixtures out for a spare. They’ve been total workhorses. They were that reliable. And even better, they all match, when you look up at the rig. Back in the day, the lamps would have slightly different colour temperatures, the brightness would be different. When you look up at the Martin Ultra rig, it looked like every fixture was brand new straight from the factory. Even after we’d done 25 shows in just a couple of months. Everything looks exactly the same, they still match.”
In addition to the Martin MAC Ultra Performance and Wash fixtures, Cooper’s design also included Martin MAC Viper Performance, MAC Viper Wash and MAC Aura XB fixtures, taking advantage of the fact that the animation wheel effects would match with the MAC Ultra Performances.
Cooper also acknowledged the sheer scope of KISS tours can be challenging, but working with Christie Lites as the tour’s vendor ensured a smooth and enjoyable experience for everyone.
