Celine Dion LIVE 2017 tour, in support of her 2016 French-language album Encore un soir, took the Canadian songstress on a 25-date tour of Europe, illuminated by a range of Ayrton fixtures.
Dion’s lighting designer of 28 years, Yves Aucoin, put together a lighting design worthy her incredible performance and ensured the singer remained firmly as the focus of the show throughout, aided by 24 Ayrton MagicPanel-R fixtures for her first major tour in 8 years.
“On a tour of this scale, with venues this large, I like to frame Celine so the audience can instantly see, in one look, exactly where she is on stage at all times. Sometimes I do this with followspots or top light, but key to the LIVE 2017 tour was a series of MagicPanel-R fixtures, 8 of which I arranged in a ‘V” configuration on the floor upstage to form a frame around her. At times these appeared like a pyramid effect above her head, so it was clear from all angles of the auditorium that she was in the middle of them,” Aucoin explained.
The LD placed another 8 MagicPanel-R fixtures on the front truss facing the audience to project effects and colours out into the auditorium, and rigged further 8 MagicPanel-R units under two LED side screens, to help blend the lighting with the video and open up the side lighting for the cameras.
Aucoin commented: “My intention was to make use of the MagicPanel-Rs’ rich colours and powerful beams so I mostly used them as full shafts of light and worked with the colour. However, they also proved to be nice effects machines and I used the onboard effects to create graphics and sparkle effects to add background interest.
“This effect was reflected in the video content as well. I am always looking to blend the lighting and video together so they work as one, and work closely with the video team to achieve this. For this number, we created a cityscape in which we matched the colours and the ‘excitement’ of the beams of light – some of the MagicPanel-R dot effects are unique – to maximise the effect.”
Having employed a plethora of DreamPanel-Floor and DreamPanel-Wall fixtures for his ‘in-the-round’ design for Dion’s 2008/2009 Taking Chances tour, Aucoin was first introduced to MagicPanel-R by rental company, Solotech, which handles all Dion’s tours.
“For the LIVE 2017 tour I was looking for eye candy fixtures that would frame Celine perfectly and be powerful enough for the stadium and arena settings. With audiences between 25,000 and 50,000, you can’t afford to be too subtle! Solotech showed me the MagicPanel-R and they certainly had the power. I knew from previous experience Ayrton were reliable and easy to tour with so I could rely on them. Added to that I had a wonderful crew from Solotech, headed by David Bergeron who is a key for success in any project, so the fixtures were, as always, in perfect shape.
Aucoin concluded: “I’ve been using Ayrton products since 2008 at least, and I like the way the company always come up with a new generation of products that are better and, most importantly, rock solid. The products always have a feature that makes me put it on my wish list! I’m really looking forward to trying out the MagicBurst next…”
Aucoin will renuite with Celine Dion in November, and has the 2018 Asian Games set in his sights.