UK – Size matters! A wildly over-used phrase? Most definitely. But one that can also hold the key when you want to scale a transformative design for an electronic music heavyweight who’s moving his shows to larger and larger venues.
Ed Warren knows that! The widely acclaimed lighting designer had his show for Four Tet built around the idea of slowly panning together upright LED sticks behind the artist on stage. But when it was announced that his wildly popular, Grammy-nominated client would be doing shows in larger arena-sized venues, Warren began casting about for new ideas.
His search ultimately led him to replace his LED sticks with 58 one-meter long CHAUVET Professional COLORado PXL Curve 12 motorized battens supplied by Lights Control Rigging.
“I wasn’t aware of many of the possibilities that having 58 one-meter PXL Curves would bring until I sat down with my visualizer and began experimenting,” said Warren. “Then when you add automation into the mix, it meant I could have a super varied four-and-a-half-hour-long show from a very limited type of fixture.”
Warren recalled how his vision for the new design began to take shape: “When I learned that Kieran (aka Four Tet) would be performing at larger venues, I wanted to see how long of a bar we could get going an extended space over the audience. I think the idea came to me when I was walking through an airport. I immediately texted Kieran with the idea, and he loved it. We debuted it in Berlin in February, and the November 21 show at Alexandra Palace (where Four Tet has played in the past) was an update/refinement of that.”
As the sell-out crowd at Alexandra Palace witnessed, Warren’s “refined concept” is a deeply immersive design that continuously transforms space. At times during the evening, the entire venue was encamped under a brilliant pyramid of light, while at other moments, a stream of light seemed to land in the middle of the dance floor like some alien space craft. Later the space metamorphized again as large, angled panes of light reshaped the floor.
“The angled sheets of light looked cool, ominous, unique and welcoming all at the same time.” Warren noted. “I would start the show with a ‘house lights’ look on –then an hour into the show, I’d drop to darkness — then after a while I’d slowly introduce the PXL curves pixel by pixel from each end to the centre.”
“When the PXLs joined at the centre, all 58 of them slowly started tilting. Over a course of 15 minutes the tilt got larger and larger, until it eventually engulfed the entire dancefloor. You could hear people cheering when the sheet of light finally reached their end of the floor. That was unexpected, but it was fun knowing the crowd was really paying attention and feeling a part of the experience.”
Working with a veteran group of industry professionals, including production manager Matt Baker, as well as Rob, Cobain, Gaz and Ash from the LCR crew, Warren created a steady stream of potent looks in the four-hour-plus show, which he busked with his ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M Stadium Console.
“There was one moment in the middle of the set that was predetermined, but the rest of it was made up on the spot. I like to structure these shows in segments of 30-minutes and try to introduce a new fixture/movement/colour/effect on the half hour,” Warren explained.
Breaking up his show this way “keeps my brain from overloading,” said Warren, who quite obviously left enough room in this cranium to think big for this remarkable show.
