Jands Vista L5 Takes Control for Queen and Adam Lambert

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A Jands Vista L5 was chosen by leading Lighting and Visuals Designer, Rob Sinclair, to control lighting and media for British rock legends, ‘Queen'. Their recent string of high profile shows featured American Idol star Adam Lambert as lead singer.

The first highly anticipated show truly tested everyone's technical and creative skills. Performed in front of enormous crowds (estimated at up to 500,000 people) in Independence Square, Kiev, Ukraine - the concert was televised live as part of the Euro 2012 Football Championships as well as streamed online.

Although Rob has been a keen Vista user for a number of years, this was his first experience using the new flagship L5 console. Choosing to do so on a show of such stature and visibility was a real testament to his confidence in the reliability and flexibility of the Vista family.

Rob's design concept began with the classic look of the massive Queen PAR can rigs of the 1970s and 80s. It was then evolved into a stunning contemporary version by taking advantage of the latest LED, automation and control technologies.

The touring rig featured over 200 moving lights arranged on six moving pods over the stage that were able to shift into different positions throughout the show.

Custom video - co-ordinated by Rob - was played back from a Catalyst media server that was also under control of the Vista L5.

Rob was extremely impressed with his experience, “The L5 has definitely been designed to make controlling even large and complex shows like this extremely easy” he comments. He found the console's 21 inch high-definition screen made it “very easy to find everything quickly.”

Rob took full advantage of Vista's “Matrix Effects” to quickly get some great looks out of the rig's 180 Mac 101s when they were configured as a big “par wall”. He concludes that Vista gives the tools to “Achieve straightforward tasks very easily, whilst retaining the ability to engage in complex programming. You don't have to do any maths to write a cue.”

Given the choice, Rob has specified Vista control extensively on his shows for the past few years. As well as Queen, these include Peter Gabriel, Adele, Pulp, Pet Shop Boys, Keane, and Will Young.