UK – British metalcore band, Bring Me the Horizon, recently rocked their high-profile main stage slots at the iconic Reading and Leeds Festivals with a brand new lighting design by Ben Inskip - controlled by Jands’ flagship Vista L5 console.
Reading and Leeds are sister festivals taking place simultaneously over the August Bank Holiday weekend, sharing the same bill. Bring Me the Horizon performed at Reading on the Saturday evening, and Leeds on Sunday.
The band’s long-time lighting designer, Ben Inskip designed a brand new lighting concept for the festival shows, which served as a launch pad for the group’s new album, That’s the Spirit, and the accompanying upcoming world tour.
“The band were really keen to make a huge impact as they haven't performed since December,” says Ben. “We had the ‘sunset’ main support slot to Metallica, so I really wanted to impress and make the house rig and our floor package look like one design. Fixtures choice and some in-depth programming specific to this show was how I planned to achieve this.
“My choice to use the Vista L5 was instant. We didn’t get to see the house rig until quite late on in the rehearsal process, so I needed to pre-program and then adapt it only a day or two before the first show. Therefore, I needed a console that could handle large amounts of fixture exchanges without the need for any further time consuming alterations from myself.”
Vista utilises a generic fixture model throughout its software, which means it actually understands how each fixture works - enabling the intended programmed look to be automatically transferred if a fixture change occurs.
Providing quick, hassle-free and accurate fixture swapping proves a perfect solution when incorporating a house rig into an existing design, or when a tour picks up local production. In addition, the ability to work fast means that LDs can focus on creating a great looking show rather than on programming a console.
Ben built the new show on a Macbook and Jands Vista S1 control surface, which utilises the exact same software as found on the L5. During the festival performances the Macbook + S1 combination provided a full tracking backup solution.
Ben continues. “Networking the L5 and backup S1 into the festival system took all of about 30 seconds - all of my pre-programmed cues and effects instantly came to life, which made for a really stress-free weekend.”
In addition to having plenty of computing power to deal with the demands of today’s largest shows, the Vista L5's sleek design is dominated by a stunning 21 inch High Definition Wacom tablet that provides a crisp, detailed image of its graphical user interface.
“Having the bigger screen in the L5 meant I absolutely flew through getting the house system doing exactly what I had pre-programmed.
“I also really like the steady stream of updates Jands produce, which constantly improve Vista’s usability.” Ben explains. “Having so many quick tools to alter every attribute’s behaviour so speedily actually encourages me to experiment and programme in those finer details. Vista definitely makes my shows more complex without becoming confusing to navigate. In my opinion, this sets Vista apart from other consoles because you can visually see and tweak absolutely everything that is going on with complete creative freedom.”
Ben envisages taking the Vista L5 with the band for their autumn shows.
“The L5 is great to tour with. It feels really sturdy and responsive, and offers so much workspace to handle any size of lighting system.
“Moving forward to an imminent world tour, I can comfortably take this show anywhere and adapt to all sorts of situations really quickly,” Ben concludes.
“I’m adding timecode to the next tour, to allow me to create a really detailed and refined show. Altering timecode triggers is really intuitive within Vista and opens up a lot of opportunities to really push my programming ability and explore the Vista software even more, which I’m really looking forward to.”
Bring Me the Horizon’s world tour kicks off in Florida in October and continues across North America through the month. In November, it heads back to Europe and continues into December.
Equally at home on tour or as a venue's house console, Jands Vista is ideal for shows and special events, arena touring, lighting companies, AV companies, venues and rental, not to mention a fantastic investment for a designer.
Jands' award-winning Vista lighting & media control system has been embraced by leading designers, companies and venues all over the world on a wide range of shows. Covering entertainment, education & drama, installations, corporate, events and worship, there's a Vista system to suit all levels of user and almost any scale of show.
Recent shows featuring lighting or media control by Vista include international concert tours by Florence + The Machine, Kylie Minogue, Queen + Adam Lambert, Dierks Bentley, and Fall Out Boy.
For more information and a list of international Vista users, visit
www.jands.com/vista/users.
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