Jands Vista v2 is a Festival Favourite

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The Jands Vista range once again proved its flexibility and power when lighting designer and programmer Steve Heywood chose to put Vista consoles, running the next generation Vista v2 software, in control at two recent UK music festivals.

For Meadowlands 2012, a diverse and vibrant event staged at Glynde Place in the picturesque village of Glynde in East Sussex, Steve and Dan Williams, the lighting designer for the event's main stage, shared operating duties on a Vista T2.

An eclectic line-up included acclaimed LTJ Bukem, who closed the festival with an entrancing four hour DJ set, as well as Lamb, Fink, Speech Debelle, Portico Quartet and many others.

With the usual limited programming available for a festival rig, which included moving lights, conventionals and the latest LED fixtures, Steve and Dan needed to be able to work extremely fast and “busk” accurately – one of the main reasons that Steve specified the T2.

To further maximise their limited time, he pre-programmed some elements using the Vista v2 software on his laptop to make the most of their programming time on stage and help give the refined show that he was looking for.

Steve put his own Jands Vista S3, also running the Vista v2 software, in control at Meadowlands' Soundharvest stage. The Vista family's consistent software interface made it seamless to swap between consoles.

A few weeks later, Steve once again used a Vista T2 as the house console for lighting the main stage at the Redfest event held at Robins Cook Farm near Redhill, Surrey.

Headliners included Modestep, Kids in Glass Houses and Foreign Beggars.

Steve loves the visual interface of the Vista v2 software, which makes it simple, quick and logical to programme, easy to busk, and most importantly, always lets him get precisely what he wants out of the rig. “It means that I can create exactly what I want when necessary….rather than following what the console thinks I want” he explains.

Dan Williams comments, “Having everything right there onscreen in front of you is great and makes real sense.…it's an extremely intuitive operating system.”

Steve concludes “The power and simplicity of using Vista v2 enables you to build a lightshow extremely quickly, but still lets you control the details. It's a great desk for improvisational and ‘on-the-fly' operation, which is always an exciting way to work.”

Lighting equipment for both events was supplied by Oxford-based Robert Nisbet Event Production Services.