American rock pop band, OneRepublic, headlined this summer’s 34-date Honda Civic Tour of North America, with support from Fitz and the Tantrums, James Arthur, and a range of Ayrton lighting fixtures.
Core to the strikingly impressive lighting design by Mark Butts, Production and Lighting Designer at Los Angeles-based Preset Productions, was 103 Ayrton MagicPanel-602 fixtures, supplied by global rental company VER. The lighting showcased Butts’ and Co-Production Designer and Show Director, Raj Kapoor’ aim to forge a signature ‘brand image’ for the band.
“We have worked with the band before, but never on a big tour, and we were keen to start developing a visual style and brand for them which really captures their personality and image,” said Butts. “We wanted this tour to be the first step in defining the OneRepublic style and to make them known for their live shows in a similar way to iconic bands like Muse, Rammstein, U2 or Nine Inch Nails.
“We wanted to create something different for the band, something very architectural and very modern that would really focus down on them and provide an interesting environment for them to play in,” he added.
Butts and Kapoor rigged 10 lighting trusses in pairs at a 35° angle to form a series of receding ‘triangles’ which get progressively smaller upstage, loaded with 103 MagicPanel-602 fixtures to create a type of architectural ceiling piece with which to frame the band.
“As part of the architectural effect, we envisioned the show’s dynamics coming almost exclusively from the selection on the face of each MagicPanel-602,” explains Butts. “We deliberately kept our use of colour to a minimum, using only 5 colours red, blue and different shades of white in the whole show and, barring one number, each song is entirely monochromatic. This keeps it clean and modern looking, and we can make all the statements we want to make with all the other tools we have.
“One of the reasons I was drawn to MagicPanel-602 was, if we weren’t going to achieve dynamics from movement or colour, it had to come from somewhere else. And that ‘somewhere else’ was from the selections on the face of the MagicPanel-602, and creating strong imagery using different chunks of the rig,” Butts explained.
He continued: “MagicPanel-602 is so versatile that you can just keep changing the programming and never repeat yourself. You can make them look however you want. Even though the MagicPanel-602s are the older models, I feel there is still so much untapped potential with those fixtures.
The band’s 16th annual Tour launched in Kansas City on 7 July and finished in The Woodlands, Texas on 12 September, before crossing the Pacific to Asia for more dates between 17-25 September 2017.
