Shiny
happy show:
grandMA on tour with R.E.M.
Lighting
Product Stories Published: 10 january
2009
The grandMA is circling the globe with Lighting Designer/Director/Programmer
Susanne Sasic for R.E.M.’s world tour in support of the
Athens, Georgia-based alternative rock band’s latest album,
“Accelerate.” “We have carried a grandMA full-size
for lighting control on all of our shows this year; it is definitely
my console of choice,” says Sasic. “The entire summer
leg of this tour has been either European festivals or different
local productions of our own shows.” The grandMA controls
the entire rig of moving lights, fixtures and dimmers.
“One of the great advantages of the grandMA
is the easy cloning and copying of fixtures, as well as the
ability to pre-program on grandMA onPC,” says Sasic who’s
based in Hoboken, New Jersey. “Having A.C.T's new East
Coast warehouse 20 minutes from where I live made the start
of this tour very easy. I spent a few days there programming
my show with no pressure or time constraints; it was a great
resource for me.”
On tour Sasic runs the grandMA onPC in parallel
on her laptop so she is able to quickly patch and program different
fixtures and make changes to the show on a daily basis before
arriving onsite. “I enjoy the stability and reliability
of the grandMA’s operating system, the easy and dependable
file management, and the ability to carry around a year's worth
of shows on a pocket-sized USB drive,” she points out.
“The overall flexibility of the desk layout and the ability
to change the function of individual executor buttons and faders
is great and makes running shows a pleasure!”
“It’s great to work with such a wonderful
designer like Susanne. Projects like these reaffirm our decision
to open an East Coast office so that we may be close to our
customers in the area,” comments A.C.T Lighting’s
VP of Sales Brian Dowd. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor
of MA Lighting in North America.
The lighting equipment for the tour is delivered
by Upstaging in the US, Bandit Lites in the UK and Europe and
Nordic Rentals in Scandinavia.