Ronan Keating, the charismatic multi-platinum Irish music superstar, has thrilled his legions of Australian fans with recent national tour. Stepping away from ‘The X Factor’ judges’ desk, Ronan, accompanied by his seven-piece band and a string quartet, delivered stellar performances of songs from throughout his career.
Lighting designer Neil Trenell (creative director of the FIX8Group in the UK) designed a simple three truss rig to cater to a wide variety of venues from state theatres to arenas. The rig needed to be easy and quick to load in and out as there were several back to back shows on the tour.
Neil insisted on having Clay Paky Alpha 700 Beams on the show as he uses them on all of his shows. In this case he had twelve of them situated on the floor.
“The Clay Paky Alpha Beams are great for beam looks from the floor,” he said. “I use them to try give some depth to the stage. There’s a lot of space to fill and the Clay Paky Alpha Beams do that well. If you see three or four CP700 Beams in clusters on the floor then it’s probably one of my shows! It’s a bit of a signature look that I use and it works.”
Neil always using a MA Lighting MA2 control console where ever he is in the world due to the functionality it offers.
“The fact that we could pre-program a show, bring it out here and plug it straight into a console was great for us,” he said. “We had no production rehearsals at all and went straight into the first show; straight into a full show with video and lighting happening – hopefully simultaneously! It was hard but we’ve got consoles back home in the UK we can program on and we can then bring the show file out. It’s great for me because as soon as I log into the console in my user profile, it knows exactly how I have it. The MA2 software is stable, fast, effective, efficient and powerful for the size of the platform.”
Neil was keen to stress that his local provider Chameleon Touring Systems were excellent and the gear was extremely well maintained.
Photos: Troy Constable
www.claypaky.com.au
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