Irish Lighting Designer Conor Biddle has been turning to Elation Lighting for several years now, from acts as diverse as renowned House DJ MK to Irish country singer Nathan Carter’s recent UK tour.
For an MK show at Olympia Theatre in Dublin, Biddle used an all-Elation rig as energy-inducing visual support for a catalog of house tracks that included MK songs ‘Burning’ and ‘Freakin You’. Having worked on previous MK shows in Ireland, Biddle worked with Session Hire Dublin to design and operate the show with Session Hire providing crew and supplying all of the lighting.
“I have worked with Session Hire for many years as a freelance designer and together we have provided lighting to MK’s previous Irish tours in several venues in Dublin over the years, as well as Cork and Galway,” Biddle stated of the relationship. “For MK’s Olympia Theatre show, we used Elation’s compact Rayzor Q7 LED moving head as the main fixture in the rig.”
Conor placed eight Rayzor Q7’s on the centre circular truss with a further eight on the outer trusses along with eight Elation Platinum Beam 5R Extreme fixtures. Other lighting, including house washes and spots, made up the rest of the rig.
“The lighting was the major design element of the show and I wanted to create a high impact look,” he comments of the design. “In previous shows with the artist, we had used the circle truss with six Rayzor Q7’s for smaller club shows. This being MK’s biggest Irish show to date, we wanted to up the ante and create a more expanded look to fill the large Olympia stage. The addition of angled side trusses and a floor package completed the look with larger numbers of fixtures.”
Biddle said he’s had a lot of experience with Elation products and the Rayzor Q7 in particular: “I love the quality of light from the fixture and their durable, rugged build with very compact size make them Ideal for touring,” he said. “I had a touring stock of 24 for a heavy two-year tour schedule and not one fixture let me down.”
The Olympia Theatre is a remarkable listed building in Dublin and as a result of its age has quite low weight restrictions. “The punch provided by the Elation fixtures compared to their small size and weight made them ideal for the design and worked fantastically,” he stated. “I spec Elation movers exclusively when I can and am always pleased with the results. Portable and powerful, they hold their own in the biggest of venues.”
Biddle gave praise to Adam from Session Hire, who “has been great to work with over the years; we’ve had some great shows together using his large Elation stock.” Biddle also praises Elation sales rep for Northern UK & Ireland, Alan Rayner, who, he said, “is always great, visits shows while I’m touring and demos the latest fixtures. Elation has great customer support and is a great company to work with.”