Michael ‘Simmo’ Simpson has just finished touring the country as lighting designer and operator for the Justice Crew #Hype Tour 2014.
“After a few meetings with management and the boys it came together rather easy,” he commented. “The design was based around movie clips of the boys, as well as other media, on Martin EC-10 LED Panels whilst the lighting had a nightclub feel. However none of this distracted from the main stage performance.”
A total of thirty-six Martin EC-10 LED Panels were used; nine Panels wide by four deep. Added to that were five Martin 2140 LC Panels.
The EC-10 is a high performance, true 10 mm pixel pitch LED display panel that features an award-winning, lightweight and cable-free design for rapid deployment.
As there was no rehearsal time scheduled for the tour, Simmo used MA 3D to program the show and at first he found mixing lights and screens together to be a bit of a challenge.
“As the tour progressed I found it to be a lot simpler,” he said. “It’s the way off the future with many bands; screens in some sort of configuration with lights by the shit loads! The design worked in 99.9%. of venues on the tour. The show was put together so we could easily change it if required because we were playing big theatres to small nightclubs.”
Simmo reports that the EC-10 LED Panel system proved its reliability on the hectic Justice Crew #Hype tour schedule. Basically it was a twenty-nine show schedule, mostly overnighters and the EC-10 Panels went up and down without one problem, which amazed Simmo. In fact Simmo found it easier to set up the Panels all by himself leaving the local labour to set up the lighting.
“Once I was familiar with the system, I found it easy to build as it’s pretty easy once the header and truss are level,” he added. “Every day, it was ready for media within twenty minutes and that’s quite impressive taking into account all the different venues we played. It also packed up in basically the same time.”
Simmo was also impressed at how the Panels simply fastened together and especially the lack of cables at the rear.
“The way the EC-10 Panels locked together with ease is a credit to the designers of this system,” he remarked. “Matter of fact, the only cables were nine 10 amp circuits and nine Cat5 lines into a Gig Switch mounted in the truss. The entire screen was powered by nine 8 amp single phase circuits for all thirty-six EC-10 Panels. Two 6-way socopex powered the nine circuits and the switch as well as one Cat5 home run to the Martin P3 Server. Each day I only ran the screen at 15% – anymore and it would wash out the light show.
“There’s no addressing as it’s all done through the Martin P3 Server which basically identifies and maps it internally. The 3-way header consisted of nine single EC-10 Martin Header PSU’s in three Martin Triple header pieces. Once the header pieces are together, you leave them in 3-way which travel in a Martin 3-way Header case. The EC-10 Panels pack into eight per case which is basically the same size as a Viper Case. The whole screen plus accessories fitted into one row of the truck.”
Show Technology provided the screens and Simmo is extremely grateful for their help. The lighting was provided by Chameleon Touring Systems and consisted of mostly new items with some golden oldies as well. The system was put together by Pat Clark and Tim Allder. The rig included 16 x Clay Paky Sharpy 330 Wash, 16 x Clay Paky Sharpy, 7 x Martin MAC Viper Profile, 4 x MAC700 Wash, 4 x MAC301, 12 x Pulsar ChromaBanks, 16 x Dwe Duet, 36 x Martin EC-10 LED Panels, 5 x Martin LC Panel, 1 x P3 Media Server and a MA Lighting grandMA console.
