ChamSys Reaches For New Worlds At PLASA Focus Leeds

LEEDS – The comfortable hall at 5 Armouries Drive is familiar to anyone who’s attended shows and conferences in this site off the River Aire. But visitors to PLASA Focus who stop by the ChamSys Stand (N-B23) will have the opportunity to see something that will take them to an entirely new place.

ChamSys is promoting the UK debut of its new MagicQ MQ500M+ Stadium Console at PLASA Focus with the slogan “Go Where No Other Console Has Gone Before." An idle claim? Hardly – the latest addition to the company’s MagicQ M series is capable of supporting 400 universes directly from the console without requiring external processing. 

Along with showcasing this powerful game-changing tool in the UK for the first time, ChamSys will also be opening new vistas to show-goers with a series of educational sessions, including a guest LD session by two-time TPI Lighting Designer of the Year Ed Warren, who has run shows by The Strokes, Interpool, Mumford & Sons and many other artists on ChamSys consoles. Joining Warren in these learning sessions will be James Harrison and Dan Combs of ChamSys. The sessions will take place throughout PLASA Focus at the Lancelot Room of the Holiday Inn, a short walk from the Royal Armouries show site. Register for learning sessions here.

On the show floor itself, visitors will have the opportunity to see firsthand the MagicQ MQ500M+ and learn how the unprecedented capacity of this console, which features a 15” multi-touch high-res display, opens new worlds for lighting programmers and designers by making it easier for them to run the most massive and complex shows from a single console. 

Navigating the MagicQ MQ500M+ also is extraordinarily easy, thanks to its two Display Port++ External Monitor ports, and inbuilt Wi-Fi (for connection of Remote Focus application), and an inbuilt 4-port Gigabit Network Switch. The console also features RGB-illuminated faders and encoder playbacks, with 15 fully-motorised fader playbacks, 15 encoder playbacks and 12 backlit multi-purpose Macro/Execute/Playbacks/Palette keys – for a total of 42 playbacks!

For preprogramming shows off-site, the MagicQ MQ500M+ Stadium has inbuilt MagicVis 3D Visualiser with high quality beam and gobo rendering. It also comes with four DMX ports, an intensity wheel, and 100mm split crossfaders for theatre control.

Joining this powerful tool in the ChamSys stand will be the new MagicQ Compact Connect, a  compact, lightweight USB control surface that connects to a PC or Mac,  to control lighting, media, and LEDs. This portable powerhouse  has two direct DMX512 outputs and sends up to 64 universes of ArtNet and sACN directly from its onboard network port without the need for additional licenses or dongles. The design of the Compact Connect provides illuminated access to fixture parameters via eight rotary encoders and live show control through 10 playback faders featuring Flash, Go and Select buttons as well as dedicated Grand Master and Crossfader for overall level control. 

Visitors interested in upping their data distribution capabilities will also want to check in on the complete range GeNetix nodes.  On the wall or in the rig, these products are at home in many different environments to provide effective solutions for remote data distribution.

Given the breadth of products and learning sessions, visitors who make their way to ChamSys at PLASA Focus Leeds from any distance will leave ready to take their career much farther. 

About ChamSys

Based in the UK, ChamSys Ltd. was founded in 2003 by a group of designers and product developers seeking to create a lighting console that offered greater flexibility.  The company’s MagicQ range has set an industry standard used in some of the most prominent concert, theatre, broadcast and club applications around the world.  ChamSys was acquired in 2017 by Chauvet & Sons LLC, a leading global provider of professional luminaires, trusses, controllers and related equipment headquartered in the USA. For more information, visit www.chamsysusa.com